Friday's Choice Cuts: VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media (2016) 1h 20m

I've made it no secret that I'm a fan of Troma Films.  So recently I was on their website looking through the sale items and I noticed this gem:  VHS Massacre: Cult films and the Decline of Physical Media.

I'm old enough to remember the mom and pop video store.  Originally our local pharmacy had a small video rental section.  After that we had a place called Video and Sound where you could rent Beta and VHS tapes.  It eventually evolved to VHS and game rentals.  Our local grocery store opened their Iggle Video which was a full sized video store in one corner.  I remember turning 18 and getting cards for both of these places as well as the Blockbuster which eventually came to our town.  As of now all these places are closed.

VHS Massacre examines how VHS rentals, and especially mom and pop stores, helped independent film companies during its boom.  I still remember seeing VHS sleeve art like House or Critters and being scared of it as a tiny child, but those stuck in my mind.  Having that availability and visual presence helped to culminate that era of cult film.

This documentary gives us a decent history lesson, bringing up studios, films, actors/actresses, and even personal memories which I had forgotten about.  It also goes into detail about how corporate structures made it hard then, and make it hard now, for the indie companies to get things out or even keep up.  At the same time they tackle how people view things like torrents, where some use the term "piracy" but, in the case of Lloyd Kaufman, he uses the term "file sharing" and claims it has been helpful for people to see the films they put out.

The climax of the film is the actual VHS Massacre which was a competition where the people involved had to find VHS tapes where they would watch any random five-minute section of it to find the worst one.  The winner is well deserved.

All in all, this is a definite watch for anyone that is a fan of cult film.  The people in this film are very passionate about how they fit into this world.  It presents a ton of info that I never even considered and gave me a bunch of directions to pursue to not only expand my knowledge but to find some great movies I would be missing out on otherwise.

"Never give up the fight for truly independent cinema!"

Day 10: The Nightmare (2015) 1h 31m

Full disclosure:  In the course of my adult life I have had three events of sleep paralysis.  All three happened while I lived in the same apartment in Pittsburgh, PA.  Aside from those three, I have never had any other cases of sleep paralysis that I can recall.  Why am I disclosing this?  Because while the title and this poster make you think that The Nightmare could be a horror film (and despite being in the "horror" listing), it's actually a documentary about sleep paralysis and other individuals that have had experiences with it.  The disclosure is so you know that when I comment, I'm not just offhandedly making a comment with no background in the subject matter.

So despite my initial disappointment with this not being a real horror film, The Nightmare let us hear stories from people all over the world in regards to their experiences with sleep paralysis and what they saw, heard, and felt, not only through their own words but also through decent dramatizations.  What was interesting here was that when we're being presented these stories each one seems to build off of the previous in some way.  The only exception to this being that guy that was getting tickled by aliens.  I don't know what the hell was going on with that one.

Looking at this analytically, the commonalities between these create the question: why do these similar scenarios exist?  To talk about my own experience, only once did I ever feel a physical presence.  The other two times where one that I knew something was either there or around but I couldn't feel it, and the second was more along the lines of the symptoms of the "old hag" you read about in association with cases of sleep paralysis.  In this film there's the talk of shadow men, one of which may be wearing a hat, one that might have been an incubus, and the dumb tickle aliens.  Seriously, fuck the tickle alien thing.  Although he did make an awesome Halloween mask based on them.

I can't really give this a review as it's not a horror movie really.  Sure, things that happen in real life that can't be explained easily are scary as hell.  Some people view these experiences as an attempt at demonic possession, or UFO encounters, or just a state of sleep in which you feel you're awake but aren't and thus can't control your body despite your consciousness telling you that you should be able to.  I know this goes in the opposite direction of the rest of this blog, and fucking runs that way, but I'm going to attempt to wrap this up.

Since I'm not rating this film I will say to watch it if you have an interest in the experience of sleep paralysis.  While you do so, take it with a grain of salt.

Fuckin' tickle aliens, man...