Today in my blog Every Damn DVD I did a write-up of the forgettable (but still fun) redneck slasher movie American Gothic. In my write-up I mention that the VHS cover was great but the DVD cover definitely lost something. I provided a shitty side-by-side comparison below for a better example:
As you can see, the original cover had small little details, and those details made the cover all the more terrifying. you throw in some blood, a knife, a different facial expressions and the screaming teens in the window and you’ve got a classic VHS cover.
This isn’t the first DVD that completely destroyed the magic of the original VHS cover. The VHS cover for Alligator used to stare at my from the Blockbuster shelf. I obsessed over it trying to build up the courage to rent it one day. If the VHS cover was the same as the DVD version, I’d have never had an interest in it.
The VHS shows us that frightening beast just staring right into you. It’s far more effective than this shitty cartoon of an Alligator tearing up the sewer. It just doesn’t have the same impact.
For well over a decade, VHS was king. There was something magical about going to the video store and looking at all those beautiful covers staring back at you. I was a member at so many video stores growing up. First there was Movie King (which didn’t last very long), followed by a Blockbuster, and beyond.
I was absolutely terrified of horror movies as a kid. I didn’t want anything to do with them; I refused to watch them as I knew they’d give me nightmares. Clearly this was bullshit though. My parents did a great job of instilling fear into me, but even as a kid I loved the morbid. My favorite movies were things like Beetlejuice, Monster Squad and Ghostbusters. My favorite cartoon was Toxic Crusaders. I loved monsters and mutants and ghosts and ghouls.
The horror fan that was inside of me was constantly trying to break free. This is probably the reason why every trip to Blockbuster included me roaming the horror section and just looking at VHS tapes. I’d obsessively tough boxes and stare at the covers. How can you just walk past this as a kid and not want to know more.
Then came West Coast Video. I don’t know why this video store randomly popped up in my town. They didn’t have a fighting chance against the Blockbuster (made evident by their life span of roughly a year, maybe two). But by the time West Coast Video appeared I had see Scream and accepted that I was a horror movie fan.
Last Year I decided to watch wrestling. I found that I really enjoyed it. A year later I have a subscription to the WWE Network, over 20 Wrestling DVDs, merch for my favorite wrestlers and an extensive knowledge of wrestling history so vast that a lot of people think I’ve been watching since I was a kid. I tell this story so that you understand something about me. When I find something I like, I dive in head first. Horror was no different.
I went to west coast video every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I would just work my way through the aisles and rent anything my heart desired. So many of those VHS tape covers are forever burnt into my retinas.
The thing about VHS covers is they were the biggest liars. The better the cover the more likely the film was garbage. That’s something anyone who was tricked by this…
or this…
could tell you.
These are bad movies, some would even call them terrible movies. But I would gladly hang posters of those covers on my wall. They’re works of art.
When DVD rolled around this art form died. Instead of a well planned photoshoot, or a beautiful artistic drawing we get photoshopped heads. So many photo-shopped heads. There’s a handful of companies like Arrow and Scream Factory that get it. They still appreciate the that these were a lost art, something from childhood we didn’t appreciate it until it was gone.
VHS TAPE COVERS! I SALUTE YOU!
Matt Kelly is the host of the Saint Mort Show Podcast and co-host of the Reddit Horror Club. He also runs the Every Damn DVD blog. Matt will be crying about the loss of his local video stores for years to come but something off his Amazon Wishlist will always cheer him up.