Join Cavity Colors Monster Club as we head down to Elvira Home Video Horror, for the Mistress of the Dark’s killer recommendations! Don’t forget to pick up a t-shirt, a brand new Creepy Carver enamel pin, and patches of the scream queen herself, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
Broke Horror Fan and Witter Entertainment have teamed up to set modern monsters loose in a nostalgic format. Each release serves as both a limited edition collectible and a fully-functional VHS tape.
Shortly after Mad Max: Fury Road was released to theaters, an edited version of the original theatrical trailer was uploaded online, stylistically changing the tone of Fury Road to something one would expect to see at the grindhouse.
Since then The Playback Collective have created three more trailers in a similar vein; designed to take you back a few decades into the past.
Fright-Rags are tapping into that collective nostalgia with the first in a planned series of box sets paying homage to VHS; launching with one film that defined the home video era: Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Fright-Rags are also proud to present the Alfred Hitchcock collection of four new t-shirts.
The green horror sticker will bring on a wave of nostalgia to anyone who spent their formative years browsing the horror section at their local video store.
During the videotape format war of the late 1970s and early 1980s, JVC’s VHS would compete for market share against Sony’s Betamax. Betamax was, in theory, the superior recording format but VHS would ultimately emerge as the preeminent home video format in 1986. Consumers could not justify the extra cost of a Betamax VCR, which was often more expensive that the VHS equivalent due to the higher quality construction of Betamax recorders.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s I was not allowed to watch the many horror films that adorned the plastic shelving of my local video store. Some might say that is wise parenting, considering I was only 5 or 6 at the time. But strangely action films were deemed ok to view (such as substandard fare from Cannon Pictures and Guild Video).
In 1971 JVC put together a team to develop a consumer-based VTR, but by early 1972 the video recording industry in Japan began to struggle financially. JVC was forced to restructure their video division, effectively shelving the VCR project. However, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano continued to work on the project in secret. By 1973 the two engineers had produced a functional prototype.
