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VHS fan builds a functional video rental store in his basement: ‘It’s like the 80s threw up’
05.26.2017
09:43 am
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Though the advent of streaming video has made nearly any programming under the sun just a few quick clicks away, some of us still miss the ritual of going to a video store and spending quality time browsing the aisles searching for a particular title that struck our fancy.

There was something really special about investing such time planning for how you would further invest your time later in the evening with whatever stack you decided was worthy of a viewing. The video store experience allowed us the opportunity to peruse and investigate and make decisions based upon lurid box art or recommendations from geeky employees or the fact that the movie we really wanted to see was already checked out, but this other, more obscure film, in the same genre is available.The video store experience gave us the thrill of the hunt, and made the reward of that particular two-day-rental that much sweeter. Algorithms that tell us what we are likely to enjoy remove the sense of discovery that the video store provided.

One Houston, Texas-based VHS collector has taken his nostalgia for the video store experience to a level of awesome that most would never consider. He has recreated an ‘80s style video store in his basement.

Jason Champion’s Champion Video is a fully-functional video rental outlet that issues memberships and boasts over 4,500 titles. True to the era, memberships and rentals are tracked on an ancient Commodore 64 computer with a spreadsheet program.

In an interview for Lunchmeatvhs.com, Mr. Champion details the shop’s authenticity:

There is a display case with candy, trading cards, VCRs, blank tapes, tape rewinders, and popcorn for people to “buy.”  Also, I have a horror themed arcade set on free play, since a lot of old video stores used to have them. Oh man, there’s so much more stuff like video store promos, posters, horror and 80s collectibles all over the place, it’s like the 80s threw up everywhere.

Lots of people have basement “man-caves,” but it’s really something else to completely recreate a specific environment that harkens back to a simpler time. I’ve got to hand it to Mr. Champion, this is beyond cool.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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05.26.2017
09:43 am
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‘Disney presents Cannibal Holocaust on VHS’ and other killer fan-art mashups
07.13.2016
09:19 am
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Collecting horror and exploitation films on the VHS format has become a huge deal in the past five years with several Facebook collector groups popping up, newsworthy lists of tapes that fetch hundreds of dollars on the open-market, and the excellent documentary film Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story Of The VHS Collector covering the obsession.

Graphic artist and collector Bobais B Borris has been making waves in the VHS collector community recently with his fan-art mash-ups of classic classic VHS box art and reimaginings of modern film art, had they been released in the VHS era.
 

 
Borris has created a series of, in his words, “silly mockups” of the most notorious films in the world—had they been released in the VHS era by Disney. There’s just something hilariously unsettling about seeing the Disney logo above Cannibal Holocaust or Pink Flamingos.

Borris runs Afraid of the Basement, which is a fanzine, website, and video label. The fanzine covers “dark and freak culture,” highlighting subjects like goth and deathrock music, occultism, history, extreme film, and esoteric art.

Borris started AOTB Video about two years ago, beginning with making custom VHS covers for modern horror films like The Babadook, The Conjuring, Curse of Chucky, Noroi: The Curse, and other films that he wanted for his own VHS collection. He found a market in that and it began to take off. Borris started licensing actual films about a year ago, mostly concentrating on obscure live music and documentaries. As of this article he’s licensed about seventeen official releases, as well as over 100 custom fan art mock-ups including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Deadpool among various others. His most popular fan art releases, however, have been the series of faux Disney films that have found their way all across the Internet.

Borris’ art is available on his Instagram page, @afraidofthebasement, while his official licensed releases are available for purchase along with his custom poster designs on the website www.afraidofthebasement.com.
 

 

 
Plenty more after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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07.13.2016
09:19 am
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Eurotrash: Tasteless 80s VHS cover art from Germany
06.22.2016
10:39 am
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At its best the VHS cassette cover was a mini work of art telling you everything that’s good about the movie inside the box. At worst, well it’s just video clickbait offering up spurious imagery of sex and violence created by (it would seem) drug-addled monkeys left in a room way too long with typewriters and a whole set of day-glo paints to play with.

I could be wrong but it would seem that the VHS cover art genre has consistently offered up the very worst promotional art imaginable. I know there are plenty of self-published e-books out there with ghastly homemade photoshop covers that a five-year-old could do better with their eyes shut—but VHS tape covers were created by the paid talents of an artist—who painted the picture, a graphic designer—who produced the typographer and a sales guy—who obviously had no talent whatsoever, certainly no taste, but apparently the largest say on what went on the label. Rummage through any VHS bin in your local thrift store and you’ll find plenty of these crimes against culture

It should also be noted for the edification of future generations that these lurid retina-burning creations were not just the preserve of the USA—every country in the world had their own taste bypass when it came to the packaging for movies on VHS. This little gallery offers a stocktake of VHS covers from Germany during the 1980s.
 
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No, not a tale of dark and depraved demonic sex but ‘The Howling.’
 
More tasteless VHS covers, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.22.2016
10:39 am
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Latest in retro-tech chic: Custom-painted horror-themed VCRs


Texas Chainsaw Massacre” hand-painted VCR

Collecting horror films on the VHS format has become a huge deal in the past five years with several Facebook collector groups popping up, newsworthy lists of tapes that fetch hundreds of dollars on the open-market, and the excellent documentary film Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story Of The VHS Collector covering the obsession.

Nostalgic fans are by-and-large now of an age where they have the disposable income to hunt down and pay a premium for the tapes they remember from the shelves of their local mom-and-pop video stores. Horror seems to be the genre of choice for high-rolling VHS collectors.

An artist and collector going by the name Sorce122 has been making waves in the VHS collector community recently by offering up custom-painted VCRs. What is particularly remarkable about his hand-painted VCRs, aside from the high level of craftsmanship, is the fact that he’s (up till now) only been charging $70 for these one-of-a-kinds—and that includes the VCR!

The VCR’s are also guaranteed to work, by the way.

From LunchMeatVHS.com:

Sorce122 is a self-taught artist, with a creative background that mainly consists of graffiti and pen and ink drawing. When asked about the inspiration behind creating the custom VCR casings, he stated, “My inspiration for the VCRs basically [comes from] my love of painted movie poster and video cover box art. Also, a hatred of boring ass silver and black electronics. VCRs are more than that now (and they always were)… they mean more to people than DVD or Blu-ray, IMO. They have, hold, and project character with every burp, glitch, and picture roll. To me, they scream freedom, and things that make us free shouldn’t be solid silver like some kind of 1984 totalitarian robot of death.  It should have character, just like the covers of the movies we love.  So, that’s what I’m doin’… I’m trying to create a 3-Dimensional movie poster that plays movies… The VCRs are 100% functional. I use pencil, spray paint, paint pens, sharpies, and clear coat. No paint gets inside the deck, and they’re fully tested before and after.”


A Nightmare on Elm Street” custom-painted VCR

More custom-painted VHS horror film VCRs after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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04.19.2016
08:47 am
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‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Walking Dead’ and more reimagined as old VHS covers
05.27.2015
11:41 am
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French artist Julien Knez has whipped up a handful of delightful VHS covers for popular post-DVD-era TV series and movies like The Walking Dead or The Wolf of Wall Street. Anyone who was around in the early 1980s, when VHS tapes were first widely introduced to the market and cable TV dramatically expanded its audience will remember cheesy-ass covers just like these.

On his Instagram feed Timeless VHS, Knez has uploaded several of the lovingly re-created what-if VHS covers. As evidenced by the bottom picture in this post, Knez actually made these in real life, rather than just as Photoshop mockups. Unfortunately, he’s only done nine of the gorgeous covers, and hasn’t uploaded any since early April. We’d love to see more! 

Knez has done a truly remarkable job recreating the “magic” of a bulky, plastic VHS cassette cover that spent most of its time on a shelf in a store with a name like “Super Video Palace.” VHS distribution was a pretty bottom-up business (Hollywood had initially regarded home video as a threat to its movie theater business, and only belatedly embraced VHS as a second, thriving channel of distribution), and the puzzling array of companies represented in these covers (“Regal Video, Inc.”) is a spot-on evocation of the wild and woolly world of home video during that era.

Wired points out that the Gravity cover was inspired by the original VHS cover for the 1979 James Bond movie Moonraker, just as Interstellar apes the cover for the sultry 1980 classic starring Vanity known as La Bete d’Amour, and Game of Thrones is a reworking of the cover of 1983’s Yor, the Hunter from the Future.
 

 

 
More VHS covers after the jump…...

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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05.27.2015
11:41 am
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Tape Decks: VHS-themed skate decks
08.27.2014
02:34 pm
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I’m digging on these skate decks paying homage to 80s and 90s VHS cassette packaging. NYC-based skate­board com­pany 5BORO is selling these puppies and you check out the whole collection here. They’re reasonably priced at $49.99.

 
via Nerdcore

Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.27.2014
02:34 pm
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Lost art of the lurid VHS cover
04.22.2014
10:52 am
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VHS Cover Junkie posts hi-res scans taken from his wide collection of gaudy, tacky, yet strangely alluring video covers. These are the kind of VHS tapes once found in the bargain bin of the local Blockbuster in the 1980s, where the lurid covers, slightly frayed or worn, and decorated with reduced-in-price tags, often had little to do with the films’ content.

In this small selection, you will find some curiosities like James Spader in the cheesy Tuff Turf—“where reputations are earned”; The Band’s Robbie Robertson alongside Jodie Foster and Gary Busey in Carny; Ethan Coen’s The Naked Man; Harry Dean Stanton and Sean Young in Young Doctors in Love, and Motel Hell where “it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.”

Immerse yourself in the gaudy world of VHS Cover Junkie.
 
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More trashy video covers, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.22.2014
10:52 am
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‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’: Early-90s VHS montage of films with guns
04.06.2011
12:57 pm
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In 1993, Edgar Wright made this video montage of guns in movies and used The Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun” as the soundtrack. He recently wrote on his website, “The following clip I edited together while at Bournemouth Art College. Way before I’d ever seen an Avid suite, this was done over some long weekends locked in a VHS tape to tape editing suite. Yes, VHS!”

(via HYST)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.06.2011
12:57 pm
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