Video Violence

One of the 30 movies i saw that are a truly horror mastepiece. this movie -at least- in Argentina is very difficult to see or rent. It was film in video and i think when the whole "video" mania was just starting. This is an excellent example of making a great film with very little money. I think it is an example for every filmaker.

Steve and Rachel move from New York to a small town.Steve runs a movie rental store and noticed the people in the town are obsessed with violent slasher flicks.One day someone accidentally returns a video of a real life murder.Can it be real or is someone just playing a joke on the towns new residents.They will soon find out and the blood will be shed.It seems that the entire town is involved with psychotic serial killers Howard and Eli in a craven conspiracy to create and distribute their own snuff films.When I was a kid I loved renting tons of gory horror from various rental palaces.Horror is still my life and I'm damn proud of it."Video Violence" is loaded with cheesy gore,crappy acting and nudity.It brings sweet memories of my gore-soaked childhood.6 out of 10.

Alright, I hafta give it to you folks straight. This movie is no good. Just plain rotten. Even by my standards, and I've endured 100's of hours of crap films at least. Here goes:

shot on camcorder? check actors recruited from local laundromat? check ketchup gore and mannequin appendages? check. unbearably long? check. takes itself very seriously? check. bad time guaranteed? oh check.

Forget Ed Wood, H.G. Lewis, Joel Reed, all them guys.. Gary Cohen puts em all to shame with this garbage. I can recommend it only for the true cinema masochist. Alternates to watching this film:

give yourslf a thousand paper cuts. on your tongue. and then wash it all down with tobasco.

treat yourself to a corn syrup enema.

shoot yourself in the face.

Any one of these activities is preferable to enduring this wretched, bloated corpse of a video for a second time. The first time was bad enough..

Go rent it.

Alright....so the story was kind of goofy.....so the movie was filmed with a home video camera....so the actors were wooden...WHO CARES??? Did you not see the video box?? I didn't expect much when I rented this...and that is what i got. If you have 90 minutes to spare, than rent this piece of crap. It's really kind of funny. The '80's styles are funny enough...but what really got me was the fact that the main characters were SHOCKED that everyone in town actually OWNED a VCR! The times they are a'changing....

Video Violence (1987)

** (out of 4)

Shot on video film has a couple from NYC arriving in a small town where they open a video store. They are shocked to see that everyone is renting horror movies but one day a returned video turns out not to be theirs. They decide to take a look at the returned video and it appears to be a snuff film. The local police don't seem to interesting as more and more people go missing and turning up on these videos. I must say that I was floored at how good this film was. No, it's not an Oscar-worthy film but for its low budget it's still mighty impressive. I've seen countless shot on video or direct to video movies and most of them just try to cash in on the genre by offering up some nudity and gore. We get that here but we also get a very interesting story that makes for a rather entertaining film. The biggest flaws are the rather slow pacing and the 97-minute running time but for the most part I was entertained. What also helps this film is a nostalgia thing because we get to revisit those Mom and Pop stores where all sorts of horror films, like this one, would turn up week after week. Many of these haven't made it to DVD and probably never will but they will always have a place in the hearts of those who rented such movies back then. It's nice seeing all the old horror posters on the wall as well as seeing the actual video cases to several films including a nice joke about the "chainsaw movie" Pieces. The film is very smart at who is going to be watching a movie like this and even makes a few jabs at itself about the low budget and being shot on video. The whole idea of a town loving horror films and deciding to make their own is a great idea and I'm really shocked no one has tried remaking this. The film really does have the feeling of a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie and that's a good thing as long as you know what to expect.