L.A. Horror fans are ringing in the Halloween season at Slashback Video, an art installation created by Blumhouse exec Ryan Turek and aimed at the VHS generation.  It’s a strange experience, wandering through this recreation of a mom-and-pop video store in 2017.  On one hand, it feels like going back in time, conjuring nostalgia aplenty.  On the other hand, it’s a little bit of sobering and frustrating experience, begging the question: Why is my childhood already on display in a museum? 

To be clear: I am not knocking Slashback Video.  I am grateful that it exists… I’m just sad that it exists only as a museum, like a beautiful ghost town preserved in a state of arrested decay.  Here’s the most frustrating part: At Slashback Video, you can look but you can’t touch.  If a tape looks interesting, you can’t pick it up, flip it over and read the sales pitch on the back—which means you’re only getting half of the experience of browsing in an actual video store.  I understand the practical considerations behind this “hands off” rule—the entire VHS collection at Slashback Video consists of tapes on loan from local horror fans, who don’t want their collector’s items damaged—but it’s still frustrating, because now I’m craving the full experience…. And I want younger horror fans, who didn’t grow up with video stores, to have the full experience.  (Sidenote: To appease geeks like me, there’s already been talk of a “flip side” day…. When the reverse sides only will be on display.)

I also have one other quibble (and then I’ll move on, I promise). The shelves at Slashback Video are organized according to tape-donor.  If you remember going to mom-and-pop video stores in the 1990s, think of it this way: The entire store is organized by “staff picks.”  Again, I understand the practical considerations… All I’m saying is that it makes me miss the real thing.  Also, I’m a little bit OCD—so I was dying to re-organize the tapes.  At the request of the tape donors, titles are arranged according by collector. 

Which brings us to the big question: Why have people saved these particular tapes in an age when most horror titles are available on DVD or Blu-Ray (or streaming)?  

Read between the shelves and you can find some answers.  #1. Because some titles are NOT available on DVD or Blu-Ray, or not available in the same version.  

#2. Because DVD / Blu-Ray editions of films often don’t retain the original artwork. 

#3. Because, well, we like to remember how we discovered our favorite films for the first time.  For those of us who grew up in video stores, there’s something powerfully evocative about re-discovering the images (and synopses) that first drew us to a particular film.  What we’re after, I think, is the excitement of the initial experience. 

In general, it’s probably fair to say that horror fandom starts early.  When I made my documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, filmmaker Joe Dante put it this way: As kids, we see something that thrills or terrifies us and then we spend our lives either running toward it or trying to avoid it.  A project like Slashback Video reminds us of the early part of the journey, and I’d bet that every person who has wandered into this mini-museum in Burbank has a unique story to tell—about a particular time, a particular place (a particular video store), and the VHS covers that helped turn them into horror fans.  Here’s my story….

My dad was always open to new technology.  When I was a kid, he routinely brought home new gadgets—a Radio Shack computer (TRS-80 II), an Atari 2600, an RCA SelectaVision Videodisc player (SJT-090), and eventually a VCR.  The SelectaVision player didn’t last long; there was a store that rented videodiscs for it, but the store was pretty far away from our house, so we were usually stuck with a limited number of films. 

Eventually, my dad realized that there was another video store—much closer to home—that specialized in VHS tapes.  Boy, did they.  As I remember it, the place was HUGE and stocked with more titles than my little brain could fathom.  My dad—God bless him—bought me copy of the first edition of Mick Martin & Marsha Porter’s Video Movie Guide to help me wrap my head around the wealth of available material.  Like the VMG authors, the video store owners organized their collection by genre (with the exception of a “new releases” section up front).  So while my little brother was in the Family Fare section, I hovered in the Comedy section…. because it was next to the Horror section. 

Oh, how those titillatingly-gruesome images tickled my virgin eyeballs.  These are memories worthy of a Jean Shepherd voiceover.   

A few years ago, I wrote an article about the top ten “mosthorrific” VHS covers I remember from that time.  It was easy to find images of original VHS cover art online… but not so easy to find images of the backs of the VHS boxes.  Today it’s a little easier, thanks to sites like VHS Collector, VHS Wasteland, and Retro-Daze.)  As an example, here’s the full box art for my #10: HOUSE (1986).  Great cover, but I think the real reason I wanted to see that movie as a kid was because of the image of the shriveled-up old lady on the back.