What I'm Watching: Rewind This!

I'm avoiding watching my next big review movie, hiding from the snow, and there's nothing on the telly save for Olympics, so I thought I am long LONG overdue for a WIW!

I don't do a lot of documentaries in my life, choosing rather to read about events than watch people talk about them, so for me to pick one up and watch it, is saying something.  Mostly about me, but also about the subject matter.

And Rewind This! is pretty much perfect subject matter for me.  The documentary covers the advent of the videotape, the rise of videotape culture, video stores, the direct to video market (And you BET Full Moon and Charles Band are in this!),  and how it all came crashing down.

This is one of my favourite documentaries I've ever seen.  All these fans, showing their love, the personal nostalgia, insights into the industry, and even a few disenting voices about how terrible video was, made this a REAL treat for me.

I don't really have a lot to say about the documentary itself, besides that it pretty much gave the perfect look at the whole boom of the VHS in the 80s, and how we've lost a little something since it went away.  Progress is progress, and necessary, but something got left behind when that particular avenue crumbled.

That was probably one of the best bits of the movie, the reasoning for how all this weird stuff came out in the 80s, as studios rushed to fill shelves from their catalog, grabbing any old thing that might make a few bucks, and less of that has come out on DVD as they go for the purely marketable stuff, and even LESS on Blu-Ray now, with the studios exerting more and more control on just what they'll 'allow' us to see, and that truly is a shame.

(And fortunately there's places like Scream! Factory sneaking out some of those lost gems every month!)

But yeah, this was an amazing documentary on an incredible period in home entertainment, one that is especially important to myself as I am sure you can tell.  I had so many fond memories of watching really terrible horror movies with bad tracking on overwatched tapes with my friends, welling up inside me while watching this.

If you have ANY nostalgia for the video tape, or the 80s, or Blockbuster, or anything on this site, you NEED to watch this documentary.  I cannot recommend it enough.  And the best part about the DVD, is just HOW much extra footage they packed into it.  SO much deleted from interviews, and bonus stuff, it's like another two hour long documentary ON TOP of the 90 minutes they already gave you!

Trisk is a love letter to trashy horror movies, and this documentary is even more so a love letter to the VHS and the 80s.

J