A friend of mine is releasing a new VHS/DVD box set in a cool big box package! It’s for some brand new “retro” horror movies that look very sweet. Make sure all you VHShitheads go out and support this shit. It will be a very cool collector’s piece, with fun movies, and will help support very cool VHS releases in the future! Go pre-order it at http://www.turnpikekiller.com

- Dan Kinem


NEW YORK HORROR FILM PRODUCTIONS, a new motion picture production company, unleashes a bone-chilling collection of never-before-seen ’80s style horror/exploitation movies as its debut release!

The Turnpike Killer - the long awaited slasher/occult feature film by Evan Makrogiannis and Brian Weaver. Uncut on VHS!
The Turnpike Killer - limited edition DVD featuring uncensored cover art
and the following bonus movies:
-Donuts and a Double Homicide - The Making of a Micro-Budget Horror Movie in New York City – a full-length documentary about the making of The Turnpike Killer.
-Devil Moon – a throwback to classic werewolf movies and other cult 80s favorites, such as The Monster Squad and the original Fright Night.

All of this “old school” horror is packaged in a retro, VHS big box!

VHS box cover poster features a Frank Frazetta-inspired painting by distinguished NYPD homicide composite artist and 80s VHS graphic artist, Robert Philios. Special bonus in this cult collector’s VHS big box is a VHS poster autographed by horror icon Ruby Larocca!

About The Turnpike Killer:
In the city that never sleeps, a killer prowls the streets at night. Over a span of ten years the butchered remains of New York City women have been found dumped along the New Jersey Turnpike. The sadistic fiend behind these horrid murders has been coined, The Turnpike Killer. His search for the “chosen one” has left a seemingly endless trail of bloodshed and brutality. NYPD homicide detective, Lloyd, is on the job, but still, The Turnpike Killer evades capture. Keep off the streets at night, stay out of the tunnels and avoid the bridges. You cannot escape him when all roads lead to death.

Bill McLaughlin is terrifying as the brutal Jon Beest, the madman known as The Turnpike Killer. Joined by a stellar cast that includes Edgar Moye (The Super), as “Detective Lloyd, Demetri Kallas (The Super) as “Father,” Lyndsey Brown as “Jennifer,” and horror icons Ruby LaRocca (The Lost) and Manoush (Barricade). The Turnpike Killer is sure to appease the bloodlust of hardcore fans of 1980s horror/exploitation.

Includes footage shot on VHS! Directed By Evan Makrogiannis and Brian Weaver, edited by Stephen Kilcullen, and produced by Nik Taneris. 2012.

About Donuts and a Double Homicide: The Making of a Micro-Budget Horror Movie in New York City:
A behind-the-scenes look at micro-budget filmmaking that includes: VHS found footage, interviews with the cast, writers, crew, NYPD homicide squad sketch artist, Robert Philios, famed horror magazine editor Michael Gingold, and a rare interview with horror film historian, Tom Weaver. It also includes never-before-seen footage of poster artist Robert Philios with his friend and mentor, world-renowned artist Frank Frazetta—a must own for Frazetta collectors!

About Devil Moon:
A werewolf adventure movie written by 13-year-old Liam Makrogiannis (son of writer and director of The Turnpike Killer, Evan Makrogiannis).

Technical information The Turnpike Killer VHS/DVD combo collector’s edition:
· New, uncut VHS and DVD copy of The Turnpike Killer
· Donuts and a Double Homicide: The Making of a Micro-Budget Horror Movie in New York City
· Devil Moon
· Street Date: June 22, 2012
· Copyright: 2012 New York Horror Film Productions, all rights reserved
· Price: $29.99
· UPC: 091037202093
· Total Run Time Collection: 1 hour 28 minutes
· Format: VHS and Dual Layer DVD
· Aspect Ratio: 16x9
· Rating: Unrated
· English language, Stereo 2.0

To pre-order The Turnpike Killer for the slashed-down price of $24.99 (reduced from street price of $29.99), visit here:
http://www.turnpikekiller.com

By Dan Kinem



There’s some movies that are so bad you wish you were never born, and then there’s The Mummy’s Dungeon. This is a sleazy piece of shot-on-video fetish horror that is the movie equivalent to the shit that splashed up under the toilet bowl. It’s the type of movie that fails on every conceivable level so bad that it might legally be defined as a torture device.



The Mummy’s D. (as I like to call it) is more of a compilation than a film with a plot, but, I’ll try my best to describe what happens in this turd. There’s an old sleazeball photographer who is taking pictures of girls in his house for a living. He dabbles in Egyptian rituals in order to awaken a sleeping mummy that he, for some reason, has in his basement. An actual line of expository dialogue he delivers is, “I need virgin’s blood to revive the ancient warriors and put Egypt back on the map.” His obsession with Egypt is never explained, nor are there any “ancient warriors.” There’s one mummy (singular). Stop kidding yourself.



Over and over this photographer brings girls to his house, takes pictures of them, makes them change while he spies on them (don’t worry, the audience doesn’t get to see anything!), and then sends the mummy in to scare them and make them faint. Without fail, each time one of the girls sees the mummy, she screams and falls on the ground. Then they tie her up, drink her blood, and kill her. This happens thirty fucking times. It is the same shit, over and over again. We never get to see any nudity, and the gore that is shown would be weak even by daytime television standards.



There was clearly never any script, either, because the entire film’s dialogue consists of model directions, like, “Turn at the hip.” and “Look this way.” And somehow, even though it’s improvised, the actors manage to flub nearly every line. I kept rubbing my eyes the entire time to make sure I was awake and this wasn’t some sick roofie-induced nightmarish trick Tim was trying to play on me. How could this movie be aimed at people looking to be turned on? The women are sickening, the pace is excruciatingly slow, and there’s no nudity.

The whole reason the guy gets caught and this movie actually ends is, get this, one of the girls he killed had a twin sister who could sense that she was killed. SHE COULD SENSE IT. She goes undercover and right before she gets killed herself, some fat cop comes and shoots the photographer and dumps a special juice on the mummy that kills him. Credits.



The tape was released by I.D.S. Productions/WAVE Productions (yes, the infamous company who produces nothing but shitty fetish horror). This VHS release is extremely rare and as you can tell by the cover, it looks like it was done by hand and colored with marker. On the tape itself, written in black sharpie, it says “10/96,” which hopefully means that only 96 of these abominations were released. The marketing used to advertise this movie is so bizarre, too. On the back it says it features “topless nudity” and “bondage.” I can’t imagine the reactions of the horny people watching it when all they got was one flash of a fat girl’s areola and some girls being handcuffed in order to be killed. That is hardly bondage and there’s not enough nudity to even mention. Insanely enough, WAVE offers you the awesome chance to own this masterpiece on DVD-R for a measly $25 plus shipping. How could you turn that offer down?

To call this a movie is a stretch, to call this porn is a stretch, to even call this a piece of entertainment is a stretch. This thing is so rare and so obscure that finding a copy is harder than finding an actual mummy, and that’s a good thing. I thank the Egyptian gods every day that all other copies of this movie must have been buried in a sarcophagus deep within a tomb in Egypt. I wouldn’t wish this upon even my worst enemies and those who dare to try and watch even a minute of The Mummy’s Dungeon should be put on suicide watch or checked into the nearest mental institution.

Here it is! The teaser trailer for our VHS documentary, Adjust Your Tracking! The film is going to focus on the current collecting culture and show why VHS is loved by so many different people even though many try to call it a dead format. We have already put long hours into making this and collected over 30 hours worth of footage, but we are nowhere near done. We need your help. We started a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the rest of the film. Please click the link below to help us out, we will forever love you and shower you with gifts. Pass this to everyone you know. The movie will happen whether we get the money or not, but this money will help make this the absolute best possible documentary it can be. Made by the fans, for the fans.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1860100961/adjust-your-tracking-the-untold-story-of-the-vhs-c

You want to get even more involved? We are looking for permission to use any film clips you own, we also need collection footage, video store footage, original music, artwork (poster/shirt designs), and anyone who wants to be interviewed! Just message us and we can get something set up!

Leave us feedback and be honest. What do you like? What do you hate? What do we need to make sure we do before the film is finished? Etc.

by Tim May

This is how you do a sex comedy/slasher! Nearly every woman in Rif Coogan’s The Invisible Maniac is naked at some point. The (admittedly dubious) anticipation which goes along with each reveal lends some fun to what could have been a relatively run-of-the-mill experience.

In a surprisingly effective opening credit sequence, a little dork named Kevin Dornwinkle is using his trusty telescope not to gaze at the boundless wonders of the universe, but rather those of the girl next door’s bosom. The scene is shot through the lens of the telescope, with the girl revealing more and more to li’l Kev during each interval between credits. When Kevin’s mother discovers her deviant of a son perving out with his 12^th birthday present, she forbids him from even thinking about girls. He’ll never become a scientist that way.

Twenty years later, and Kevin is indeed a professional scientist and is giving presentation at a conference about “molecular re-organization,” or invisibility. When he makes a failed attempt to use his invisibility serum on himself in front of the whole conference, he is laughed at and mocked by all of his colleagues (“I came all the way from Belgium for this?!” one of them offers in an American accent). This sets Kevin on a rampage. He kills four of his science friends and is sent to a prison for the criminally insane, which he quite easily breaks out of six months later.

Within a couple of weeks, Kevin secures a job at a high school teaching physics for summer school students under the alias “Dr. Kevin Smith.” After his first class, Kevin heads over to the gym to peep on the cheerleaders’ practice. Hmmm…

There’s your typical cast of high school dipshits—you’ve got dominant male monkey motherfuckers Chet and Gordon and their stupid girlfriends Bunny and Vicky, cheerleader April, uninteresting lackeys Bubba and Betty, and Miss Cello, the horny principal.

While he’s instilling young minds with the tenants of physics, Kevin is still moonlighting as a guy who creates invisibility serums. When he finally perfects the serum, the first thing he does is sneak into April’s bedroom to undress her while she’s asleep and kiss (that’s all it sounded like, anyway) her naked body. April’s a heavy sleeper, I guess.

All this time, Chet and his posse have been tormenting “Dr. Smith” by dropping their books all at once or trying to seduce him. Once a bucket of water is poured on his head, Kevin has had enough! So, he injects himself with a shitload of his serum and starts to pick off the students one by one (or two by two, as may be the case).

There are a lot of surprisingly good kills here—Bubba being force-fed a sandwich, Betty getting choked by a fire hose, Vicky’s electrocution by way of radio and shower. Kevin even pulls off a couple of decent Freddy-type lines, which could probably have slipped into a second draft of The Dream Child (my favorite: when he throws Gordon from the roof, Kevin quips, “Basic law of physics: What goes up, must come down!”).

It all comes down to Chet and Bunny. When Kevin runs out of serum and reappears to them, he cribs from everyone’s favorite wallcrawler and introduces himself saying, “’Tis I, your friendly neighborhood INVISIBLE MANIAC!” I love when the title of a movie is used contextually within the movie, especially if it’s that awesome.

The film was directed by “Rif Coogan,” or, more properly, Adam Rifkin, the director of Detroit Rock City and The Dark Backward. Rifkin has a gift for making propulsive, studio-style comedies with just enough personality to distinguish themselves. The movie features the porn star Savannah and the “scream queen” Melissa Moore, both of whom also starred in Sorority House Massacre II the same year (Moore also appears in the 1992 documentary Invasion of the Scream Queens).

The Invisible Maniac actually has a pretty great twist which I’m not gonna give away. Everyone reading this should seek this movie out. It’s a goofy, nudity-filled romp which kept me guessing until the very last shot.

The VHS was released in a slipcase by Republic Pictures Home Video, which mostly distributed library titles from the ‘30s/’40s/’50s independent film production company of the same name. It has yet to be released on DVD.

A friend of mine has just officially released one of the most infamously terrible movies of all-time on DVD. Any fan of VHS or cult cinema has heard this movie’s name tossed around in conversations about the most gloriously bad films ever made. Now is your chance to own it. It has tons of special features, too, including interviews and commentary with the infamous Nick Millard (Criminally Insane). Do yourself the favor and pick this one up. I think I even got a special thanks on this one, which is reason enough alone to pick it up!

This is a movie that is damn near impossible to find on VHS and thankfully someone had the intuition to track down the rights and give this a special edition release!

For details on how to order yourself a copy visit http://facebook.com/slashervideo

Make sure to check out this interview! It covers the upcoming documentary and collecting in general.

By Dan Kinem



The second I pulled this VHS out of the box and saw the misprinted tape label that read “Foxing Boxing,” I knew this was going to be as cheesy, fun, and sleazy as humanly possible. And it did not disappoint. The whole idea of foxy boxing is genius: take two girls who are as pissed as possible and throw them in a ring with hardly any clothes on. Not only were all the contestants on Foxy Boxing ferocious fighters, but none of them would give up. While their moves of slapping and hair pulling might only do minimal damage compared to professional boxing blows, these women still go through way more than I could ever handle. There’s bloodshed, biting, and boobs a plenty.



What pushes this particular female boxing video above all the rest is the fact the “biggest porn star in the world,” Traci Lords, is the round girl! This was shot before she was found out to be underage and released after she was arrested. Traci looks wonderful and even gets into the action at one point. For those that don’t know, Traci Lords is one of my favorite actresses of all-time, so just the fact she was on this tape made me do everything in my power to get it and watch it.



There are four glorious matches: The luscious Jasmine taking on the delicious Ice Cream Girl; The New Wave Knockout challenging Marilyn, the blonde bombshell; The Fighting Feline taking on the world champion Sugar Ray Renee; and the outrageous Kona the Barbarian letting loose on the Boxing Babe. They pretend to have rules, but the very second the fighting starts not only do their head gear and gloves fly off, they start pulling each others’ hair and body slamming one another. All of their bikini bottoms are tight and their shirts are see-through/non-existent, just the way I like them. And for once, most of the girls are actually attractive.

All of the fights are entertaining, but they go by pretty quickly. The majority of the video is taken up with the girls’ entrances. They come dressed in different outfits, tease the pathetic guys in the audience who actually think the girls care about them, and then strip down to almost nothing to fight. The second and last match are the highlights. The second match, between the New Wave Knockout and Marilyn, is absolutely insane. New Wave Knockout does not know how to fight at all! All she does is flail her arms like a freak and hope to hit something…but she plays dirty. She bites Marilyn’s ass at one point and even gives her a painful-looking wedgie that would paralyze even the strongest of men.



I don’t want to undersell the last match, but it’s one of the best of all-fucking-time. The girls are out for blood and within seconds are topless — boobs bouncing. It gets so intense that Kona grabs Traci Lords, rips her shirt off, and gets her involved with the fight! I don’t know whether or not it was originally intended to show Traci’s boobs, but of course after the scandal they had to cut away from them. Still, Traci and the cleverly-titled, Boxing Babe, are a team you don’t want to step to. They’re the Suge Knight and Tupac of foxy boxing. It’s violent, intense, and rivals any other wrestling match I’ve ever seen. And tell me, where else do you get to see two sweaty, topless fighters wailing on one another for 10 minutes straight?



The sleazy announcer who narrates all the fights is hilarious, too. He makes fun of the referee and the audience nearly the entire time that he isn’t drooling over Traci Lords. “This guy loves Traci, he’s probably seen all her movies and will go home tonight and think about her while he’s laying alone in his wet bed.” He’s the most condescending and snarky bastard, but I love it. One of the girls even tries to attack him at one point and he runs away like a little bitch while still taunting her! It’s priceless.



As advertised, there’s an entire original soundtrack including the classic song, “Foxy Boxing,” which just repeats those words over and over again. The majority of the music sounds like slight variations to the theme song for GUTS. The front of the box says War has a song on the soundtrack, but either they forgot to include it or I was too distracted by the females to hear it. I would have shit if they had played “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” during a match.

This VHS was released in a big box by the super rare company, Premiere Entertainment Group, Inc. (Monster, Chooper, Revenge of the Zombie, Devil’s Nightmare). They formed this sub-label, Main Event Video, for what I’d assume is the sole release under that name. If you’re into girls beating each others’ asses and tearing each others’ clothes off, then this VHS is for you (so it’s for everybody is basically what I’m saying). The fact something like this would never get a DVD release is yet another reason why VHS is the best.

We are making a feature-length VHS documentary called Adjust Your Tracking! The film is going to focus on the current collecting culture and show why VHS is loved and collected by so many different people. We have already put long hours into making this and collected over 30 hours worth of footage, but we are nowhere near done. We need your help. We started a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the rest of the film. Please click the link below to help us out, we will forever love you and shower you with gifts. Pass this to everyone you know. This is made by the fans for the fans. Any donation will help! No money will be charged to you until the deadline is over, so even if you don’t have any money you can still donate. We have to reach this goal or we get nothing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1860100961/adjust-your-tracking-the-untold-story-of-the-vhs-c

You want to get even more involved? We are looking for permission to use any film clips you own, we also need collection footage, video store footage, original music, artwork (poster/shirt designs), and anyone who wants to be interviewed! Just message us and we can get something set up!

Also, you can like the page on Facebook for updates!

We made a promotional flier for mine and Dabeedo’s feature-length documentary, Adjust Your Tracking! Be sure to reblog this, tell your friends, print it out and hang it up! As always, be sure to donate to our Kickstarter! We need to reach our goal!

- Dan

by Tim May

There were sing-a-long tapes for almost everything in the early ’90s. I’m sure you all remember those hideous troll dolls (they still ironically litter most twentysomething ex-sorority beer sluts’ desks in offices across America), and at some point, one of the many companies who produced those dolls decided it was time to make them into puppets and do a sing-a-long tape.

Trollies Radio Show Sing-a-long takes on the format of a radio program on the cleverly named station WTROLL. The show’s DJ is literally named Rock ‘n’ Troll. He’s a doofus with the dumbest sunglasses ever who cracks lots of “jokes” or at least sentences with the cadence of jokes.

There’s also Rock ‘n’ Troll’s oafish sidekick Olaf who looks suspiciously like famed fat film critic Harry Knowles!!!!!! (!)

Much like, say, Turtle Tunes, Trollies Radio Show is mostly a series of music videos. ’80s and ’90s chidren’s entertainment did more to ravage the memory of ’50s rock ‘n’ roll than any other amount of public domain overuse, and this tape adds horrible renditions of “Wooly Bully” and “Doo Wah Diddy” to that tradition. WTROLL’s worst musical crime, however, is their performance of The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.”

Two things piss me off about this: 1.) The Muppets already did about the best thing you could possibly do with “Kokomo” and 2.) “Kokomo” is a huge pile of shit.

Seriously, I have no idea how “Kokomo” became one of the Beach Boys’ (one of the greatest gifts to popular music) most iconic songs. Its simplistic, dopey melody and sacharrine, manufactured lyrics make me want to punch Mike Love in his smug face.

Look at him. Fuck that guy.

The tape almost commits a greater sin by making me sit through “Trollie” McFerin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” one of the few songs almost as insipid as “Kokomo.” This song grates the first time you hear it, but it reached a new level of scum when it was used as one of the songs that stupid singing trout novelty item sang. If you’re nostalgic for that piece of shit, kill yourself.

This program’s writers are happy to find as many ways to insert the word “troll” into everyday language, kind of like “smurf,” but without all the fun sexual tension between Smurfette and everyone else. One of the last songs performed on Rock ‘n’ Troll’s show is Troll Seeger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Troll,” one of the hosts “favorites,” because he’s a self-involved dick.

Trollies Radio Show Sing-a-long was released by Peter Pan Industries, who put out lots of dancing videos like Dance to Fitness and Livedancin’ USA, in addition to other Trollies tapes like Trollies Christmas Sing-a-long and Trollies All New Musical Adventure.

Sing-a-long tapes were always kind of lame, but they were especially lame when they had ugly puppets chirping bad covers of over-covered standards and tepid originals, all with the sole purpose of selling cheap toys out of the quarter machines in the K-Mart lobby.

The entire video is available on YouTube, starting above.

By Dan Kinem



So many things should have scared me away from this one. Not only is Rock N Roll Mobster Girls a nearly two-hour-long shot-on-video comedy, it also features the delusional marketing scheme making itself out to be Spinal Tap 2. I ignored these facts and took it like a man. I didn’t run away when I saw “110 minutes,” rather, I popped this into the player and never looked back. I was determined to conquer this beast, more out of a self-test of endurance rather than for entertainment (similar to that one time I stomached all the Hellraiser films). As the end credits finally rolled I prayed for God to take my life, but looking back now I realize Mobster Girls is proof there is no God. My only purpose in life now is to steer you unsuspecting fools away from this painful, post-Chinese buffet diarrhea shitfest.


(Crisp and clear print)

The movie attempts to be Spinal Tap but with chicks and punk music, except the only problem is they forgot to include the humor that made that original film so great. “Are you ready to be Spinal Zapped?!” Please. Who the fuck are you kidding?

RNRMG takes place in Seattle in the late 80s just before Nirvana took over the scene. The band the movie focuses on is Doll Squad, who was actually a semi-popular band in the 80s (mostly because they played with Nirvana once) and recently reformed in 2008. You can tell the band is having fun making the movie but they aren’t taking it seriously. None of the actors were. I cannot stand when movies are trying to force corny, shit-eating-grin delivered jokes down my throat (see clip below). I feel like I’m watching outtakes from a high school short film rather than watching an actual movie.



It’s a shot-on-video m[r]ockumentary that features interviews with local people around the scene at the time. They are attempting to get to the bottom of what happened to the Doll Squad and where they are currently. According to the film, their manager, Bruno Moltrock (great name), was an insane killer and the band disappeared. Doll Squad are painted to be a notorious and vital band in the scene that rose from eating out of dumpsters to having a song on the radio. Moltrock stops at nothing to make these girls popular and to control them… he even kills everyone who gets in his way. He goes on a slashing spree stabbing different people and eating their guts. Yes, they try to mix cannibalism into this movie for no reason.



Moltrock brainwashes the girls and changes their sound in order to gain popularity. People begin to notice things aren’t right — that the girls aren’t like they used to be — and a couple friends of the band come to the rescue just seconds before Moltrock tries to kill and torture the band members for his own sadistic pleasures. One of the girls in the band is finally able to get revenge on the manager by taking a corkscrew and screwing his head off of his neck. The movie crosses over into poor man’s Troma-terrority when Moltrock still has the ability to talk and his body is still moving around. Moltrock’s body continued to roam around the city and attend shows, annoying all in attendance.



There’s a subplot that tries to be the main supplier of humor where the girls owe money to their crazy landlords, The Count and Countess. The Count’s face is “mutilated” with cotton balls and Band-Aids for some reason. He also chooses to use a fake Arnold accent the entire movie as if he wasn’t annoying enough. No point to this “plot” at all.



This was one of the worst movies I ever sat through. It managed to do every single thing wrong — from the overly long running time, to the flubbing of every single line that is delivered. It runs 110 minutes and features about 40 minutes that don’t even matter. There’s a scene with the one band member’s father where he talks about a lump on his arm for 10 minutes and there’s even a 15 minute scene where a car won’t start. The actors are continually seen laughing during their scenes and oftentimes it will cut an entire poorly delivered chunk of dialogue out so you have no idea what is going on. The humor crosses from not being funny into being painful to listen to. The movie also looks like complete shit. It reminded me of an unintentional “So What’cha Want” video homage.



This VHS is incredibly rare. It was released by Donna Michelle Productions (Cannibal Campout, Attack of the Killer Refrigerator, The Abomination, Woodchipper Massacre, Splatter Farm, and Monsters and Maniacs) and is probably the second rarest release put out by them (the rarest being Monsters and Maniacs, which I need, so help me out if you have that or Splatter Farm). It’s no surprise this is hard to find since I assume anyone who rented it destroyed it immediately. There’s also such a small demand for a comedy on an all-horror label that very few were probably printed. It sucks I had to drop a decent amount of money in order to get this one. Not that I’m not happy I own this, but I think most people who want this honestly don’t know how terrible it is or else they wouldn’t be after it. The cover is fun and it definitely is a cool piece of history, especially for fans of punk and Seattle locals, but it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever watched. Stay far away from this one unless I hate you, which, in that case, hunt this bad boy down!

Rick Werner Fahr also made one other movie with Doll Squad after this called Attack of the Hideopoid. I’m dying to watch that one (haha) so hook me up if you have a copy. Don’t even know who released it.

The producer of Adjust Your Tracking, Matt Desiderio, has just released his first limited edition VHS for Mold! This is a new, ridiculous and gory throwback to the sci-fi/horror films of the 80s. You do not want to miss out on this amazing package that not only comes with a VHS of the film in a large clamshell, but also comes with a 7” vinyl of the Mold! theme song and an anti-mold mask! It’s a fantastic VHS package that any horror fan should have in their collections. Support independent horror and a friend of ours. VHShitfest endorsed!

Get your copy at the Forbidden Planet website!

- Dan

As you may or may not know, we are working on a documentary chronicling all aspects of the current VHS culture. We need to reach a certain amount of money to finish it and we are close, but not there yet. The support so far has been outstanding but we still have more to go before this movie is finished. To donate, please visit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1860100961/adjust-your-tracking-the-untold-story-of-the-vhs-c/

Also, keep track of what is going on with the documentary on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdjustYourTracking

Reblog, share, “like” on Facebook, etc. We need as much support as we can get and want to get everyone involved with this project!

by Tim May

At the beginning of Demon Wind, I figured I was in for a deadly combination: uninspired slasher mixed with a dreadfully boring Satanic cult movie. Thankfully, for the most part, I got a surprisingly engaging horror film which subtly subverted many of the clichés of both genres.

The film begins in 1931 with an old woman trying to defend her barn from something, presumably demons. She’s decked the place in Catholic imagery, plays a Protestant hymn, and throws down some Satanic floor decorations. The place is lined with crosses and pentagrams, but that can’t keep her husband, who seems to have turned into a demon, out of the barn. He foams from the mouth and grows fangs before killing the poor old woman. Somehow, this causes the barn to explode, and the central mystery of the film has been laid out.

We then cut of present day (1990), where a couple named Cory and Elaine are on their way to Cory’s grandparents’ barn (could it be? Obv) after the recent suicide of his father has left it in his possession. They get to a creepy gas station where a creepy old guy warns them not to go to the creepy barn. Then they meet up with a bunch of their friends in an adjacent restaurant (drink menu: beer, Coke, water, and goatsmilk). You’ve got jock douche Dell and his girlfriend Terri, dork Jack and his girlfriend Bonnie, and finally, my favorites, two goofball magicians named Stacy and Chuck (both guys, in case you were wondering) who make their grand entrance blasting “Ride of the Valkyries” and announcing their own arrival via loudspeaker. Dell is not a fan of these two. He even calls them “son of a bitchin’ idiots!” Then again, Chuck is Terri’s ex-boyfriend, so perhaps he has reason to hate.

Despite the creepy old guy’s warnings, the group heads for the barn. In a slight twist on convention, however, Cory and the gang are all well aware of and ready to face the horrors which lay in front of them. When they finally get there, all that’s left standing of the barn is the door, but stepping through the entrance still magically leads to an almost perfectly preserved interior. There’s even a fresh turkey waiting for them! When Elaine reads the Latin phrase (translating into “Now Satan Shall Walk”) scrawled across the wall, the barn begins to shake and knives begin to fly. The group runs screaming out of the house. Even though he saw it with his own eyes, Jack, of course, insists upon Scullying it up. Soon, a thick fog rolls in (could it be? A demon wind?!) and transports them into many different locations. They finally wind up at a graveyard, where three strange little girls appear out of nowhere. When Bonnie tries to find out if they’re okay, they turn her into a baby doll, then make her disappear. Her boyfriend, Jack, seems slightly irritated by this. In fact, no one seems too bothered by Bonnie’s possible passing. Chuck, in an act which illustrates a George Costanza level of self-involvement, immediately begins asking Terri if she’ll take him back, even if she’s with Dell now. Bad timing, sir.

They all decide to hide out in the barn, which has now apparently been deemed safe. The magic twins are on guard when they witness a topless woman outside attempting to lure them out. They aren’t fooled for a second by the demonic illusion, so Chuck and Stacy go outside and try to kick some demon ass. Sadly, both of them die, but not before a cool demon effect or two.

The group continues to get picked off until just Cory and Elaine are left. Just when all of the demons are ganging up on them, they get distracted by the words of Enders, a rogue preacher who devoted himself to Satan one hundred years ago. By sacrificing Bonnie’s soul, Enders opens the doors to hell and creates some sort of Mega Demon out of all of his smaller demon minions. Elaine reads some spell out of Cory’s grandmother’s diary, which somehow causes Cory to turn into one of the aliens from Alien Nation, surely the only way to defeat such an ancient evil.

The Mega Demon gives Cory a false vision which makes him believe the whole ordeal was a dream and that all of his friends are alive. When he realizes it’s bogus, Cory takes it to the next level and has Elaine read the final spell from the diary, which makes the Mega Demon burst into flame and spew animated orange splotches out of his torso.

That awesome ending is sadly amended with a nonsensical epilogue in which Cory and Elaine return to the gas station the old man was somehow revealed to be behind the whole thing. Still, Demon Wind is a fun movie with a solid cast, who engage in a surprising amount of quiet, character based scenes. The film’s primary flaw is actually its near-complete lack of sound effects. Doors are opened and guns are fired with nary a sound to be heard on the soundtrack. Its effects are particularly strong and tension is often built well. Demon Wind is a solid horror film, which, with a little tweaking, could probably have been a really good one.

The film was released in a slipcase by Prism, with an excellent cover and the only mildly clever, but still pretty funny tagline, “There’s something deadly in the air. It’ll blow you away.” It has yet to see a domestic DVD release, but it has been release, with a hideous cover, in the UK.

The whole film has been uploaded to YouTube.

vhshitfest:

Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on the flier for the first ever Horror VHS Collector’s Unite Convention! The event will be held on Saturday, May 19th, in Stroudsburg, PA. It will have people selling, trading, and talking VHS. There will even be a short film night which you can submit to via the website listed at the bottom.

If you care about the format at all, you will want to be at this. It’s going to be huge. We’d like to get over 200 people there at least, so make sure to reblog and tell your friends. VHShitfest is sponsoring and will be present with a table there hawking our merchandise. We will also be filming for our documentary, so if you want to be featured in our movie, you better make it out to this event. It only costs $7 to get in and $20 for a table. That’s an insanely low cost!

Mark your calenders! This will be amazing.

For more information visit ShermanTheater.com

Do not forget, this weekend is the VHS convention. Come join in all the VHS hijinks, trading, selling, etc. We are also showing a version of our Gore-Met Zombie Chef from Hell short film that no one has seen before. This should be the best day of everyone’s life, so if you miss out, I feel bad for you!

My 14-year-old friend (now 15) made a feature-length slasher film and it has just gotten an official release on both VHS and DVD! Pre-orders are up now (link at the bottom), so make sure you go get a copy. As you can tell from my quote at the bottom, I fucking loved this movie. It is the only truly great throwback horror film since House of the Devil and it feels more genuine than anything I’ve seen recently. He put all he had into this movie so please help him sell all of these out and support independent cinema and a young horror/VHS lover.

Me and Dabeedo moderated the hilarious commentary on the DVD and you get a bunch of extras. The VHS/DVD combo pack comes in a fucking book box (!) with a signed poster and tons of extras. This is a must own release! Also, look out for a review of this bad boy in the future! It’s so amazing, so hilarious, so many quotable lines, so much heart, gore, VHS, and swearing… and you all know you want to hear a 14-year-old say “fuck” about 500 times.

Please pre-order this over at: http://briarwood.storenvy.com/products/361325-slaughter-tales-book-box-combo-pack

Share this with your friends, please!

This past weekend was the First Ever Horror VHS Collectors Unite VHS Convention in Stroudsburg, PA and it was a fucking blast. Thanks to everyone who came and supported this great format and thanks to all the people who came up to say “hi” and tell me how much they like the site. It really means a lot. I got a ton of dope tapes and made some amazing trades (trust me, a very long overdue update video is coming soon). Our Gore-Met Zombie Chef from Hell short screened to a solid response and it took third place (we were cheated I tell you!). I cannot stress this enough, if there is another convention next year, you will want to come. It was amazing and truly a beautiful sight to see so many collectors and cool tapes all in the same place. We made sure to document the whole convention for our film Adjust Your Tracking and get some much needed interviews, which leads me to my next topic.

We just reached our goal on Kickstarter!!! Thanks so much to everyone who donated and to those of you who promoted the film. We now have the bare minimum we needed in order to collect the rest of the interviews we need to get over the summer for the documentary! Any money we get over our goal will go towards the post production on the film and the release, so please keep sharing the link and donating. It means so much. More details about our trip will be coming sometime next month so be on the lookout. We also have some new reviews, two new videos, a ‘zine I’ve been working on, a DVD release, and possibly a limited VHS release coming soon!





Also, I recently moved, which was the biggest bitch in the world. Imagine moving thousands of tapes, toys, posters, etc. It was terrible. But the new place is even better so I’ll be shooting a tour video in the upcoming weeks to show off all the work I did!

- Dan

by Tim May

Weapons of Death is a great example of how to make a really fun martial arts movie without the benefit of an overwhelming presence like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Though the cover purports Eric Lee to be the lead of the film, Weapons of Death is a true ensemble. Every character gets a moment to be the star.

A San Francisco mob boss named Fong has his eyes set on the richest family in Chinatown. They’ve always refused to pay him protection money, so he hires a ragtag group of mercenaries led by the mysterious Bishop to kidnap the family’s teenage daughter Angela. Bishop works primarily with his own group, including the mysterious Carter (who’s black—it’s important), but Fong insists on sending his own henchman Chong along to make sure the job goes smoothly. When Carter seems somewhat inebriated, racist dick Chong remarks, “I wish this was an all Chinese operation.”

Throughout the early part of the film, we are also introduced to the aforementioned rich family, whose fortune seems to have been amassed through a mildly successful dojo. There’s the seemingly unnamed matriarch, swordsman extrodinaire Eric, archer David, family friend/getaway driver Josh, soon-to-be-kidnapping-victim Angela, and Angela’s 48 year old boyfriend Paul (played by director Paul Kyriazi).

When they all fail to prevent Bishop and his goons from kidnapping Angela, her mother wants to be “just as ruthless” as their enemies are going to be, so she calls Curt, a poor man’s Elliot Gould who also happens to be Angela’s deadbeat dad and Eric and David’s former stepdad. Eric’s not too pleased about this, basically giving him the whole you’re-not-my-real-dad bitch and moaning session when he arrives.

Meanwhile, Bishop’s getaway van breaks down in the dessert and Angela escapes. Bishop’s boys spread out looking for her, and before long, Fong suspects trouble and sends out his own men to find out what’s going on. Angela runs into a surprisingly skeezy and rapey biker gang, who gang up on her, clearly with dubious intentions. Thankfully, before they can violate the poor girl, she finds a surprise guardian angel in Carter, who intervenes and lays waste to the entire gang in short order. Carter, being the noble motherfucker he apparently is, lets her go and returns to Bishop to rethink his life.

While Carter is revealing himself to be a king, Angela’s family is still bickering back at the house, but at least they’re developing a good unlikely team dynamic. When they finally leave to look for Angela, Curt drops a fucking BOMB! He’s not Angela’s real father; Bishop is! Years earlier, Bishop had broken into their house and raped Angela’s mother. That fiend! With a newfound resolve, everyone marches into battle with Fong’s gang. There are so many great fight scenes throughout Weapons of Death’s climax your head will be knocked through the ceiling. Bishop VS. Carter! Eric VS. Chong! Curt VS. Fong! Everybody plays a part an get their own badass moment, even David the Archer and Josh the getaway driver, who basically steal Eric and Curt’s thunder at the end of the movie.

The VHS was released in a slipcase by Paragon Video Productions, though it was sadly missing their typical trailer reel (which generally featured Boarding House and The Witching, among others). The back cover engages in some light Brucesploitation with the tagline, “A New Decade… A New Legend” underneath a picture of a shirtless Eric, looking his most Bruce Lee-ish.

The movie was directed by Paul Kyriazi, who, aside from directing three other martial arts movies, is also known for writing a “motivational” seminar called How to Live the James Bond Lifestyle.

Weapons of Death is a wonderful martial arts movie with a simple, but effective story, some exciting twists and turns, and a cast that goes hard. This movie always surprises with its unpredictability and it surprised me by how much I enjoyed it.

By Dan Kinem



I’m going to transport you back to the glorious 1990s for a minute: You are sitting on your couch on Sunday — hand in a bag of Cheetos, sipping on a Yoo-hoo — with your eyes glued to the television set. It’s tuned to your favorite channel, Nickelodeon. You’ve been laughing and loving their programming all day long and with shows like Clarissa Explains It All, All That, and Ren & Stimpy, how could you not? It’s the perfect channel. Your whole day was planned around watching these shows from the second you got up, all the way until 9 p.m. when Nick at Nite would start, but wait, what’s this? It’s only 8:30 p.m., why is there some bald lady talking to kids from India?! Aargh!! It’s fucking Nick News again! This royally fucks your plan to shit and you are so desperate to watch anything other than this TV show version of a school assembly that you actually change the channel to Cartoon Network to watch one of the channel’s many terrible Ren & Stimpy clones. I honestly believe Linda Ellerbee and Nick Jr. are the sole reasons I ever watched Cartoon Network.

Fast forward two decades and I still have contempt for Nick News, but I look back on it somewhat more fondly now due to my undying Nickelodeon obsession. I’d like to call myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to Nickelodeon VHS and TV shows, yet, up until the other day I didn’t even know this tape existed. Imagine my surprise when I walked into my local Salvation Army and saw this on the shelf. I had never seen anyone mention this or even seen a picture. My heart raced as I snatched the tape up, juked in between all the white trash, ran up to the 90-year-old cashier to pay, got in my car and began fondling my find for a few minutes, then rushed home to watch one of my most hated childhood shows. Was this excitement all for not? Would my hatred still be burning or would I find a new nostalgic appreciation for this kids-focused-news-program?



Oh my God, nothing has changed. Only Nick News could make 2 p.m. feel like 5 a.m. I immediately began falling asleep. I even thought about turning it off it was so boring. This “special edition” episode is simple, it’s all about avoiding strangers. It’s the most stereotypical topic relating to youth in the 90s besides drugs, and likely a video that would be shown to kids in first grade. Boy did they make sure this was relatable to all kids, too. They got black kids, Mexican kids, white kids, a kid from India, etc. It’s too corny even for children. Satan herself, Linda Ellerbee (the host), talks down to these kids on the show, too. Her voice and demeanor changes when she is talking to them in that way that only adults can do. It became so painful to watch and her pixie haircut and lack of any ounce of emotion doesn’t help either.



The bulk of the video is made up of reenactments of dangerous situations involving strangers. Various actors pretending to be rapists come up to various kids and abduct them. Then, Linda asks the kids to say what should have been done differently and they show a new video on how to avoid being abducted. The only reenactment that was remotely interesting was one where a kid and the rapist bond over an arcade game. It made me wish people still went to arcades. They do bring one girl on the show who avoided being abducted because she lied and said she had asthma. They talk to her for a while but I was yawning too much to hear.



The VHS was released like most other Nickelodeon tapes, by Sony Wonder in 1994, though unlike their other releases, there are none of the fun previews beforehand. It was probably geared mostly towards schools buying them and as a result it is extremely rare. Like I said above, I had never even seen a picture of this before. I’ve never seen one pop up for auction on eBay and have never seen any on Amazon. According to Amazon there is at least one other Nick News tape, Homeless Kids in America. I do not recommend re-watching this show ever. Whatever your memories are leave them at that. This is less fun than picking 1,000 tacks out of a wall. I take shit after shit on this disgrace of a tape.

^Worst double feature ever?

Holy shit! You’ll never believe this, but there’s finally a new VHS update video. I bet you want to see what new VHS I’ve gotten over these past four months, don’t you? Go check this out and make sure to comment if you’ve seen any of these movies or want us to review any of this stuff or just comment for the hell of it!

- Dan