I grew up in the Bronx where it
was almost impossible to walk down the street without
bumping in to a video store. There was one on every single
block. They were the Starbucks of the bygone age. And nine
times out of ten they were mom and pop stores. Low budget
places just looking for a quick buck to make off of the big
VHS craze of the eighties and nineties. This was before
Blockbuster and Hollywood video began taking over these
places and running them out of business. As a kid my parents
were always off attending to financial affairs and on many
occasions they'd leave me and my brother to spend the day
with my cousin at the local video store "JR Video" (No
relation). My aunt worked there for almost five years and
we'd spend the entire day there running around the big
store, watching low budget horror movies on the television
mounted on the ceiling and playing in the back closet where
they stored all of the VHS tapes and I could still remember
looking out the back door in the end of the closet and
seeing the poster for "Basket Case" glimmer in the sunlight.
This is the place where I was basically exposed to movies of
all kind.
Mostly though I was exposed to
an immense selection of cult and obscure horror films; which
isn't too surprising since they put the horror movies up
front for display to influence potential renters. Obviously
the horror movies had the most creative artwork on the VHS
boxes. Some of them were absolutely wacky and weird, while
others were just horrifying. The most interesting one was
always "Near Dark" and "Dawn of the Dead" because they
didn't give away too much of what was happening in the
films. For a little kid, these VHS covers just sparked my
imagination and I'd invent stories to go with these
pictures. Once the video stores disappeared, so did the
creativity and very few of the original artwork for these
VHS movies were actually kept for re-release on VHS and then
in DVD. Major studios lack the actual balls to provide
creative artwork for their releases of classic films and
often times they just alter stock pictures of the movie's
cast or just badly photoshop elements from the movie. Only
the indie distributors are willing to properly create some
dazzling artwork for their releases but often times those
movies are terrible. Looking at the recent lame posters for
the remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street" I found myself
reminiscing about the VHS covers that often sparked my
creativity and left me up at nights. These are only a few of
them. The few I could find, actually.
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Demons/Demoni
I used
to see this VHS cover all the time and it always managed
to draw my attention. I'd stand around looking at it for
a while and just figure out what this movie was actually
about. Seeing it years later, I think there are
basically two sides of this cover that are wrong and
right. The wrong aspect of this cover is that it does no
justice to the movie at all. The later releases adapted
the famous demons with glowing green eyes emerging from
the ramp draped in shadows sequence, while this
basically makes the movie look like a cheap monster
movie with some horned ghoul probably terrorizing a
group of people in the woods.
It
speaks nothing of the plot or the concept. However, on
the right side, it does reveal what the demons look like
without the form of a human being. The jagged teeth,
beady eyes, and horns all basically represent the gist
of what these monsters are all about, and it's a pretty
blunt image that tells you what you're getting if you
decide to buy or rent it. While I do commend it for
basically being an interesting if flawed image, it
doesn't exactly sell the actual film very well. In spite
of being a very fascinating image from my youth I prefer
the new image of the demons emerging from the blue hell
as we saw in the movie. That was a freaky scene, wasn't
it? |
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A
Nightmare on Elm Street
It's a real damn shame that later on when Wes
Craven's classic horror film was released on DVD,
that they basically took out the original art and
just replaced it with a picture of Freddy's body
standing in the shadows or among a background draped
in red. I don't see why the studios can't post the
original box art for the DVD's and Blu-Rays. Quite
obviously a stock picture, it really lacks the
absolutely haunting art that could be found on the
original VHS of the film. The original picture is
much more epic and representative of the constant
fuzzy line between fantasy and reality in the movie.
Sometimes reality feels indistinguishable, and it's
something Craven excelled at in the original, which
the art captures what with Nancy looking up on
horror in bed as Freddy Krueger's claws drip down
over her.
The
fantastic art mixed with the tagline "If Nancy
doesn't wake up screaming, she won't wake up at all"
just seals the deal completely for anyone looking to
rent this film. It's a damn shame the studios never
caught on to this and kept the art. And even if they
couldn't keep it due to copyright issues or
something, the least they could have done is make
new art or present a variation of it. But that's
asking for too much these days, it seems. |
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Chopping
Mall
This is a case where the cover for the movie is
actually better and creepier than the movie itself.
Based on the image alone I spent many years trying
to find this on television to no avail, and when I
finally was able to, I found that it was far from
anything the picture actually resembled. The hand
holding the bag looks human and seems to be wearing
a spiked gauntlet glove of some kind, and holding a
bag filled with human body parts. Little did anyone
know that the actual robotic menaces looked like
something out of a bad episode from "Battlestar
Galactica."
Later watching the movie it's tough to buy that the
robots in the movie are actually a serious threat,
but sure enough the movie insists on it. The cover
art was always a lot of fun to look at because it
pretty much sums up what the movie is about. A
killer robot on the loose in a mall mutilating
people. It also helps that the title is pretty damn
clever and rolls off the tongue. You also have to
love the tagline: "Where Shopping can cost you an
arm and a leg." While the reactions to the movie is
split considerably, the art is so well done and
interesting, even if it's a dated representation of
the eighties. I wonder if with the rise of online
shopping people would go to a remake of this. Hmmm. |
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Friday
the 13th
When I was a kid I tried to hand draw everything I
could get my hands on, and I always tried to copy
the picture presented on the VHS. My mom's copy was
a bit ratty at the time but nevertheless I continued
trying to copy it detail to detail. It's an
excellent interpretation of the concept of the
movie. A bunch of campers in the middle of an
abandoned summer camp and they're basically being
hunted by someone with a penchant for carrying
blades and handheld weapons. While the cover does
make it look a little like a typical slasher on
first glance I prefer to think of the film as a
whodunit with a surprise ending that's absurd but
still rather shocking.
The
future covers of the sequels copied the art with
different variations and alterations (particularly
Part two where Jason was introduced), but this art
is effective all on its own and remains one of a
kind and rather iconic. You have to appreciate how
they could have made this look like any slasher and
instead tried to push the angle that this was more
of a murder mystery than an actual typical slasher
flick. I'm not going to lie, it is basically a
rip-off of "Bay of Blood," but it's still one of my
favorites, and the VHS art is just immaculate. Later
it was replaced by an altered variation of the
picture that just doesn't quite work as well. |
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Night of
the Creeps
This is a case where Fred Dekker's film is given
some great treatment that his films actually
deserve. First there was the iconic "Monster Squad"
art and then "Night of the Creeps." There's
this poster which is just fantastic,
and another one which is just incredible.
The latest much requested DVD re-release does the
original concept simply no justice and just butchers
the original cover art barely acknowledging that
this is more of a zombie movie than anything. It's a
shame because fans were asking for the out of print
movie to be released for years with the original art
in tact and they just hand us horribly a
photoshopped picture instead of the original art.
As
a kid I remember looking at my mom's copy of "Night
of the Creeps" on VHS and marveling at it. It was
spooky as hell and resembled a cover to "Vault of
Horror." It was just such a perfect image
encapsulating the premise of the movie. A male
zombie covered in blood, dressed in a tuxedo and
holding flowers standing at the back door with a
shattered window pane. And to top it off, the cover
enlists a variation of the excellent one liner
delivered by Tom Atkins: "The Good News is your date
is here... the bad news is he's dead!" Good thing I
own the bootleg DVD with its original art. |
Go to Part Two of "The Ten Best VHS Covers of All Time" >>
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