VHS Massacre

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.

Tries to be personal, tries to be a summary of home media, doesn't really accomplish either. Don't really feel informed by the end of it, don't really get an emotional pay off. Spends a bit too much time focusing on the production of the documentary when there is no real story there.

Okay to watch but not likely to hold your interest for the full run time. Feels a bit too much like an overly long youtube documentary

This film plays like an Instagram story. There's no story arc, the exposition is all out of whack, they cover major plot lines by just throwing up titles, and so much of the movie is just dudes talking about how excited they are to interview some no name actor, pointing out all the vhs they buy from stores for cheap, and then filling it out by just getting their friends to talk about vhs. It's an absolute mess! It's also so narrow in scope. VHS culture needs to be explored and documented, but these filmmakers are not up to scratch.

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.

Highly insightful and nostalgic look at the VHS era in the 1980s and its eventual decline. Really well made and a must watch for movie fans.