This lively documentary explores the rise and fall of physical media and its effect on Independent and cult films. Ranging from the origin of home movies through the video store era, it's sure to entertain. With icons like Joe Bob Briggs (MonsterVision), Lloyd Kaufman (Toxic Avenger), Greg Sestero (The Room), Debbie Rochon (Return to Nuke 'Em High), Deborah Reed (Troll 2), Mark Frazer (Samurai Cop), James Nguyen (Birdemic) and many others.

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Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY
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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.

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Leofwine_draca from United Kingdom
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VHS MASSACRE is a fun, appropriately low-fi documentary that explores the glory days of video collecting and renting in the 1980s and 1990s. It has a rather narrow remit, focusing on low budget horror and cult film production mainly during the 1990s and exclusively in America. While the documentary has virtually no material from back in the day, it does fill the running time with plenty of incident and discussion, including many interviews with leading figures in the field.

The main emphasis of this documentary is to be fun and it's certainly that. It's designed for like-minded people, not to convert the non-fans. The interview footage is very interesting and explores how the market has changed in the face of streaming movies and illegal downloading. Cult figures like Lloyd Kaufman, Debbie Rochon, and Joe Bob Briggs are all featured here and they all have plenty to say. There are few clips from a handful of films, but mainly this is about showing video box covers and the collecting culture. It's light, breezy, and amusing.

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