August 2016 spelled the end of the VHS era when Funai Electric, the last big investor in the now defunct technology, ceased production on the Video Cassette Recorder. This was sad for many reasons, and not only because the stash of porn you’d recorded over the years would now be obsolete. Nope, perhaps even sadder than that is the fact that the horror genre peaked during the VHS years, and although the death of the VHS does not mean the death of horror, it does bring to mind just how much the genre once flourished as king of the video stores.
Like many others, I replaced my VHS collection with the much flashier DVD. If only I had known that half the titles I once proudly displayed on my book cases as a teenager would never make it onto this new format, and thus would be erased from history forever. Oh, how I wept.
Well weep no more chums! Here’s the first in a series of lists remembering a few of those forgotten titles, and though some may have made the leap from VHS to DVD (or even Blu Ray), many more of them have fallen by the way side in our frivolous little minds.
PSYCHO COP (Wallace Potts, 1989)
We all remember Maniac Cop, the William Lustig horror about a back from the dead cop who starts offing innocents in New York, but how many of us remember the similar themed Psycho Cop?
Unlike Maniac Cop’s Matt Cordell (played by the mega chinned Robert Z’Dar), Officer Joe Vickers is not a walking corpse. He’s just your regular, run-of-the-mill Satanist, who uses his position of power to kill the shit out of the general public. Sadly, the Psycho Cop franchise only ran to 2 films, and was met with much apathy thanks in part to the much more successful aforementioned Maniac Cop. A clunky script and some horrible one liners probably did little to help its cause either.
DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (George Barry, 1977)
No clever word-play here. This is literally a film about a bed that eats people. It also pops pepto-bismol when it gets tummy ache after a big meal.
Hollywood is missing a trick by not remaking this.
CHOPPER CHICKS IN ZOMBIE TOWN (Dan Hoskins, 1989)
When a school bus filled with blind children is set upon by a horde of brain eating zombies, it’s up to Billy Bob Thornton and an all-girl biker gang called the “Cycle Sluts” to save the day.
HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (John McNaughton, 1986)
Years before he hammed it up as Merle in The Walking Dead and Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy, Michael Rooker played one of America’s most notorious serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas and he was terrifying.
There’s very few nice things you can say about this film. It is dark and disturbing in tone and outright brutal in its depiction of violence. The director’s decision to shoot the whole film in 16mm just made the whole viewing experience feel even more seedy and sordid, and it was eventually slapped with an X rating. A far tamer sequel followed years later.
THE KILLER NUN (Giulio Berruti, 1979)
Two words: Nun porn.
C.H.U.D. (Douglas Cheek, 1984)
If cinema has taught me anything, it’s that the sewers of New York City are a breeding ground for crazy shit – Alligators, Fluke Monsters, bright pink mood slime, Ninja Turtles and C.H.U.D’s.
Released in 1984, C.H.U.D. stars the terrible dad from Home Alone and Daniel Stern (also from Home Alone) as a photographer and a bum duo who join forces to battle a horde of hideous monsters – known as Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers – who are feeding on the flesh of the homeless in New York’s underground.
The film only grossed $4.65 million, which is tiny by today’s standards, however compared to the $1.5 million budget it was deemed a success and a sequel followed. We’ll have more on that later.
THE FEAR (Vincent Robert, 1995)
We all know that when you have a crippling fear of something then the best option is to take yourself away to a remote cabin in the woods and confess your deepest phobias to a possessed dummy who then comes to life and uses your fears against you.
In truth though I’ve already given The Fear way much more credit than it deserves. Morty, the fear eating dummy, is used sparingly throughout which was a big reason the series fell flat. He’s the villain of the piece but he’s more of a background character, an ever present menace that sits on his arse doing nothing. As far as horror icons go Morty is nothing short of a plank. Man, I should get paid for writing these incredible puns.
CREEPOZOIDS (David DeCoteau, 1987)
Shot in only 12 days for less than $75,000, Creepozoids was the contender to the Alien franchise that never had a chance. Set during the aftermath of World War 3, a group of survivors seek shelter in an abandoned warehouse but are picked off one by one by the titular monsters.
Sadly Creepozoids was one of those far too common 80’s films that had VHS cover art that was way better than the film itself. In fact, Linnea Quigley provides the movies only real highlight in a shower sequence that left audiences needing a cold shower of their own.
THE STEPFATHER (Joseph Ruben, 1987)
Years before he found himself stranded on a desert island in Lost, Terry O’Quinn was the stepfather from Hell in Joseph Ruben’s aptly named The Stepfather.
Kids the world over screamed “You’re not even my real dad” as he systematically wormed his way into their homes and began to destroy their lives by putting parental lock on the naughty channels, and enforced an 8pm curfew. He tried to kill them occasionally as well.
What a dick head.
SLUGS (Juan Piquer Simón, 1988)
One time I was digging in my garden and I found a slug that was as big as my fist. I shit you not. Horrified by this, I scooped it onto a spade and deposited it in the garden of the neighboring nursing home. No way was I being slowly eaten alive by that sucker! Those old people on the other hand, well they’ve lived their lives.
I probably wouldn’t have been half as scared of this monstrous creature had I not watched Juan Piquer Simón’s Slugs as a child. Be sure to stock up on salt if you watch this one!
