Retro Movement: Will Horror Films Bring the VCR Back from the Dead?

By Rob Scott
November 9, 2011

Horror fans are resurrecting the VHS format to enjoy films of the 1980s, “the kind in which brains were made of Jell-O and the cast was paid in wine coolers,” suggests The New York Times.
“It’s hard to get into the aesthetic of shakycam, pretty people, safe scares — like something jumping out at you — and the digital photography and CG blood,” says Evan Husney, director of Drafthouse Films.
These fans prefer dusting off their VCRs to viewing via tablets or DVD. As a result, several distributors are re-releasing select 80s titles on VHS.
“You just don’t get the same feeling in a pristine print of a DVD,” explains blogger Dan Kinem. “With VHS it’s like I’m experiencing an old grind-house movie theater. I would never watch them on a computer.”
Additionally, VHS nights are emerging at theaters such as Cinefamily in Los Angeles; the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas; and at the Spectacle Theater and Nighthawk Cinema in Brooklyn, New York.

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