GEEK CHIC: THE PORTABLE GRINDHOUSE
- By Devin Faraci
- Published 12/3/2009
- News
I guess the word 'grindhouse' must move more books than movie tickets, since Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box, an awesome new book from Fantagraphics isn't really about grindhouse movies so much as it is about VHS covers. It even comes packaged in a VHS box!
A lot of old fogies (like me) will tell you that the VHS era was a golden time for awesome and weird movie art, especially for horror and exploitation films. I've seen so many terrible movies simply because their VHS box art beckoned to me from the shelves of the Video Van on Main Street in Kew Gardens, Queens. Portable Grindhouse includes over 100 boxes - front and back - including Penitentiary II, From Beyond, Stunt Rock, Cocaine Wars and more. I'm excited to get my hands on a copy of this book, which is available for pre-order from the Fantagraphics site. Check out the video tour of the book below.
Thanks to Shock Til You Drop for drawing my attention to this.
A lot of old fogies (like me) will tell you that the VHS era was a golden time for awesome and weird movie art, especially for horror and exploitation films. I've seen so many terrible movies simply because their VHS box art beckoned to me from the shelves of the Video Van on Main Street in Kew Gardens, Queens. Portable Grindhouse includes over 100 boxes - front and back - including Penitentiary II, From Beyond, Stunt Rock, Cocaine Wars and more. I'm excited to get my hands on a copy of this book, which is available for pre-order from the Fantagraphics site. Check out the video tour of the book below.
Thanks to Shock Til You Drop for drawing my attention to this.
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Comments
Comment #1 (Posted by RCA)
They definitely were good at selling you turds that were painted gold. Now the covers of shitty movies just look shitty. I think Jack Frost(not the Michael Keaton movie) is one of the last VHS/DVD movies I remember renting because of the cover art. It's only fitting that the movie is about a killer snowman... and there is absolutely no snow on the ground, at any point, during the movie. Plus, it looks like it was filmed in early September. Of course the sequel was naturally set in the Caribbean(seriously)?!?!?! It did feature Shannon Eliazbeth, pre-American Pie, getting raped with a carrot, so I feel I got my money's worth...
Comment #2 (Posted by Kaiju D'amato)
Man, I miss the days of the old oversized clamshells... Especially the ones with stickers claiming how the contents of the tape were "banned in 31 countries" and whatnot... Give me that exploitative advertising over the ubiquitous floating heads on the cover art any day... Titles just don't jump off the shelf and demand to be rented anymore....
Comment #3 (Posted by Crossfire)
Thank you for calling this to my attention. That is a must-have. I used to love hanging out with my Aunt when I was younger (she always let me rent the craziest shit ... usually based on the VHS cover.)
Comment #4 (Posted by Kaiju D'amato)
On second thought, the kind of book that would really deserve a title like this would revolve around all the indie releasers that made 42nd street a happening place to catch a flick - Aquarius Releasing, The Jerry Gross Organization, Troma, etc... This book looks great, though.
