VHS Massacre

I'm a movie geek, but not really an expert on b-movies. I grew up with VHS tho so I found this kind of interesting here and there. Overall I wouldn't say this is very good and that's mostly because it's not very focused. If the makers had ditched focus on their own productions and focused more on the physical media and VHS movies in general it might've been better. Troma etc are interesting, but the documentary feels very subjective with very preachy piracy part (fwiw, I'm against piracy). I wasn't fan of the actual VHS massacre either, imo the diabetes video wasn't a laughing matter. I've seen this kind of movie geeks at local arthouse movie theatre laughing at everything and basically ruining the show for everyone else. So yes, I found the VHS part interesting, cover art appreciation etc, but there was a lot of stuff I didn't find that fitting. The subject calls for a better documentary.

The only VHS this documentary explores are basically less than a dozen classics and most the filmmaker and associates' own post-2000 indie movies, including literal trailer and promos!

It's rather shameful and shameless, focusing on a very limited set of people complaining about politics - net neutrality (which in reality concerning prior recent law was a lose-lose scenario and not much to actually do with the topic). This political point was simply a perspective unrelated by any meaningful form or discussion to greater topic.

I felt like I was watching a promo for a handful of super-indie film makers from New York extolling their opinions on political issues (without an sufficient knowledge or discussion on what the net neutrality actually entails). There's even a literal end screen text - hammering a call-to-action to 'Write your congressman and ask them to support net neutrality.' In reality Net Neutrality was not a clearcut simple superficial proposal - at the time is had two serious downsides of the coin, each bad - bad proposal in general. But none of this, the: what, how, where, why of net neutrality (or how it even relates) were discussed, just repeated and focused on in agenda in 'documentary' that is only relevant to the actual filmmakers given air time in their own perspective sans rational discussion or data.

The rest was half-baked filler to seem credible, self-promotion of participants own films and 2 inserts of two celebrities.

Lloyd Kaufman, the most experienced super-producer of trash or lowbrow indies (many that I admittedly enjoy) actually counters much argument of others and provides very logical and rational perspective at a few points on meaningful distribution, file-sharing etc - from an older man, certainly shared wisdom and reality in context. But again, this hardly has much to do with the actually replacement or 'massacre' of VHS. The whole setup was a complaint against and prmo piece for the film's own makers and just another piece of 'net neutrality' promotion at the time. So does this documentary have any lasting, wider objective value - very very little. Very limited maybe 2 points of minor interest.

Does not have intent to seriously focus on topic, but instead spray their own self-promoting media interest. Bad form.

Speaking of the VHS films actually discussed here you basically get some gratuities of Troma (an inclusive attempt to instill credibility and payback Kaufman participation), some early mentions of early 2000s phenom like The Room (2003) and footage of Blockbuster and Hollywood video as a crux of end of videos, which is true. And some basic detail otherwise on a limited scope or genre of VHS.

Again, Joe Bob Briggs is another celebrity harnessed who at one point try to display 'intelligence' and expertise about film stating, to paraphrase, "What is film? What are we talking about here? It is films of the late 1800s? The ethic neighborhood films of the early 1910s(??) or the Lumiere films, or quote "the RIDICULOUS films of 1930-1935 before they had sex in film?"

This last portion of statement shows extreme ignorance (and exposure) of Briggs to the wider pantheon of film! But is also displays the range of this 'documentary,' which speaks of nothing but a very very extremely limited set of VHS media and film - zero international, classic Hollywood or other non-niche horror product, which represented collectively the bulk of movies actually rented or sold to the public. Emperor wears no clothes.

VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media (2015)

*** (out of 4)

This here is a good documentary that tries to do a bit too much but if you remember renting videos back in the 80's and 90's then you'll still want to check it out. The main goal of this documentary is to show what the lack of "mom and pop" video stores means for low- budget horror and cult movies.

If you grew up "back in the day" then you remember how great it was going into video stores where there were a great number of titles on the shelf and more arriving weekly. This documentary does a good job at looking back at this era and then talking about how Blockbuster eventually killed them off. Blockbuster would then be killed off by Netflix and streaming, which takes us to the final aspect of this documentary. With streaming killing off so many small companies, is there a way for low-budget films to survive?

At just 73-minutes there are a few too many topics that tried to be covered here but for the most part this is still an entertaining look at how the home video wars have changed over the decades. The impact on small movies like PSYCHOS IN LOVE is discussed as well as how illegal downloads are making it nearly impossible for filmmakers to make money anymore. Joe Bob Briggs, Lloyd Kaufman, Juliette Danielle, Deborah Reed, James Nguyen and Carmine Capobianco are just a few of the cult names that are interviewed.

I have only just watched this in 2023, and found it fascinating how much things have changed in the past 7 years. One of the participants comments, and I'm paraphrasing a little, "I can't see any profit in streaming or downloading movies." Now the market is dominated by Netflix, Amazon plus, Disney Plus, etc, etc etc.

Back then they were lamenting the disappearance of VHS, now it's hard to find DVDs. Most movies are available to buy on download, or on one of the afore mentioned streaming services. It is sad not being able to browse the shelves of hundreds of DVDs and sometimes finding a gem.

It is sad the effect major corporations such as Blockbuster, Walmart and later Netflix had on this market, and made it increasingly difficult for indie movies to be made at all.

This was a documentary that I threw on while I was at work, late in the day. I treat these like podcasts where I'll listen to them and if something is interesting, I'll look down. I just don't need to give it my full attention. I'll say here to start, I watched the sequel to this, VHS Massacre Too first. I didn't realize that it was the second part.

Now this doc has a tagline of Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media. This came out in 2016 so it is more about the state at that time. Things have changed a bit and the second part does explore more with streaming since that has become bigger. This is giving the history of VHS and its decline into DVD and then Blu-ray. What makes that interesting is hearing John Bloom aka Joe Bob Briggs who is a legend. His wealth of knowledge is great and I could listen to him talk all day. He's not the only one though. I did find it interesting to hear from Lloyd Kaufman and other indie filmmakers.

Something that worked for me here was seeing the team behind this go out and search places for VHS tapes. Now I'm a collector on a smaller scale, but I listen to podcasts when people used to do this. I did find that interesting. It was fun to see what they could find. There's almost a meta-aspect here since this culminates in them watching tapes they found and called that event VHS Massacre.

This isn't working with the biggest budget and isn't the most professional. I did like hearing from people who are similar to me, who grew up in the video store days. There is nostalgia from that and missing those days. It is interesting to watch this now though with streaming and being in an almost golden age of collecting as well. I did like this team editing footage from things they're talking about. That adds a good touch. I enjoyed my time here and didn't feel like a waste. Plus, I was entertained. If what they were doing here sounds interesting, I'd recommend giving this a watch for sure.

My Rating: 6.5 out of 10.