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.