Every month I write a Blu-ray column called The Shelf Space Awards, designed to save you room on your shelf by highlighting only the most worthy new editions of movies. I, however, have a nostalgic soft spot for the bulky oversized boxes old VHS tapes used to come in. This was before VHS tapes were even affordably priced to own. When video stores first opened, you’d find large, plush, plastic cases lining the shelves for rental. Disney kept up those “clamshell” boxes for their animated movies long after cardboard slips became the norm, and porno was always packaged in doubly oversized boxes, so anyone who saw you walking out of a rental joint with bulky boxes under your arm would know your shame.
Well, I’m about to make my Shelf Space job harder by referring you to something that will add unnecessary bulk to your shelves. Prolific video producer Charles Band has been cleaning out his warehouse and discovered a stock of his early ‘80s VHS boxes. Band started Wizard Video in 1980 and eventually founded Full Moon Productions, putting out the lucrative Puppet Master, Trancers, Dollman and Demonic Toys series, as well as memorable one offs like… crap, even Subspecies and Evil Bong had sequels!
So Wizard Video published 80 titles in the large box format. Band found 36 in mint condition with 200-400 copies of each title. Starting February 12, Band will put these on sale for $50 each. He will number and autograph the clamshell case and include a VHS dupe, in case you want to, you know, watch the movie too. Perhaps even more interesting to collectors will be Band’s discovery of Wizard Video Games’ boxes for the banned Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween Atari 2600 games! The press release did not indicate whether he had the games to go with the boxes.
Order these collectable VHSes from www.WizardVideoCollection.com. The titles to be available are:
FEBRUARY 12
RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES
TRAUMA
OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES
DEMONIAC
MARCH 12
A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD
FEAR
BREEDERS
HEADLESS EYES
APRIL
I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
BLOOD CASTLE
MANDINGA
TORMENTOR
MAY
ZOMBIE
MONSTER HUNTER
SPACE VAMPIRES
THE SCREAMING DEAD
JUNE
SS EXPERIMENT
DREAMANIAC
SAVAGE ISLAND
EROTIKILL
JULY
ZOMBIE LAKE
SPACE ZOMBIES
ZOMBIETHON
BEST OF SEX & VIOLENCE
AUGUST
FILMGORE
HELLTRAIN
POSSESSOR
FAMOUS T&A
SEPTEMBER
THE INVISIBLE DEAD
BEAST
THE MISS NUDE AMERICA CONTEST
FIEND
OCTOBER
FRAULEIN DEVIL
WHITE SLAVE
ESCAPE
PARASITE
I am hereby recommending you make room for oversized VHS tapes, to preserve our analog viewing history for the time when the robot holocaust attempts to eradicate any non-streaming content. I will work harder in The Shelf Space Awards to preserve your space, but I think these deserve their own shelf anyway.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
