Rewind This!

REWIND THIS! takes us on a journey back to those days of yesteryear, when the video cassette was king. We join the experts as they relive the 1980's video rental craze. Interviews with luminaries like grindhouse Director Frank Henenlotter are intercut with VHS mega-collectors and their vast video tape and memorabilia collections.

The evolution of the video phenomenon is tracked from its humble origins to the first piano-sized VCRs, and "mom and pop" video rental stores.

This documentary also covers video trading, and the huge impact of the internet on physical video media. Thrill to interviews with Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson, Lloyd "Mr. Troma" Kaufman, Charles "Full Moon" Band, and others! Everything is chronicled, from horror to adult films, and beyond. Informative, nostalgic, and very entertaining...

A documentary about VHS tapes is a must. Our generation lived that moment, and we know what we are talking about. My dad had a two piece set VCR, and a fantastic remote controller...with a cable!! I still remember the tracking system and some other features from those happy days. It is a bad, fragile format but it had something, and in a way we miss it somehow. Relive the moment and learn a couple of things about the good old format we grew up with.

The testimony of some distributors, filmmakers and VHS freaks will bring us back to that universe, the format that ruled the last stage of 20th century. We will find out why VHS was the victor in that format battle against BETAMAX, what it meant to some filmmakers and much more.

I confess I expected a nostalgic journey alongside some VHS geeks, but it turned out to be more than that. VHS, just like vinyl in civilized countries (Spain not one of them) is still alive and kicking, and in these days of fleeting formats, is nice to remember how a format popped up, established itself in the market and became the standard for so long. So buckle up, enjoy the ride and recall those days of white noise, crappy image and b-movies. Call it nostalgia, vintage or whatever, but remember to be kind and rewind!

'Rewind This!' is not just a bunch of 30-40 something white males waxing nostalgic--though there's certainly some of that--it's a surprisingly thoughtful and enlightening look at the history of the format, its many quirks and the people who are caretakers of a very unglamorous bit of cultural preservation.

Even if you've never owned a VCR or watched a movie on video tape I believe that you'll find some genuine value in this bit of pop cultural archeology.

Oh, and I fully understand the irony of the fact that I watched this on DVD.

Rewind This was well-received in its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. The film was particularly welcomed, because the filmmakers and many of the interviewees and video stores were local products. It is an extremely entertaining film that takes the audience through the history of how the VHS tape really transformed society. The clips of old VHS films are incredibly entertaining. There are many funny observations and stories about this world that seems to be fast disappearing. Thematically, the film shows us how the ability to watch movies on our own schedules in our own homes transformed the relationship of individuals to the entertainment world. For the first time, anyone could watch almost any movie in the comfort of their own home. We forget the social implications today of bringing movies (and, yes, porn) from the theater into the home. The film also explores the world of the nostalgic collectors who maintain large collections of VHS films that haven't been re-released on DVD and blu-ray. (They seem particularly obsessed with low grade horror movies.) There is a heavy element of nostalgia as they defend their beloved medium and its virtues. The film might seem strange to the younger generation, but it brings back a lot of memories for those of us who grew up during the VHS revolution.

"Rewind This!" is a documentary about VCRs, VHS tapes and the people who collect them. The story begins with the war between the Betamax and VCR formats, which of course the latter won despite the fact that Betamax was a far superior technology – but it could only play tapes of an hour or less, so any movie would need to be on more than one tape, a design flaw that killed it fairly quickly. Once VCR had won, people started discovering the joys of being able to watch movies at home, at the time of one's choosing – or at least they did once the price of the machine and the tapes (originally priced at $99!) came down. The film interviews a plethora of modern-day fans of the format (my personal favourite was a woman who organizes her tapes by the dominant colour of the box) as they describe falling in love with video, making home movies themselves and searching for old tapes at flea markets and the like – some collectors have over 100,000 of the clunky boxes! And, of course, the film includes a variety of scenes from videotapes, especially that genre of straight-to-video creations, which are a hoot to see. Definitely made me want to hunt up our old VHS tapes that are slowly rotting somewhere in the basement!