Much like vinyl of the 70s, VHS are becoming a nostalgic commodity within today's society - and none more so than for Dale Lloyd of Viva VHS. Luke Owen sits down to have a chat with him...
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I’m sure you get asked this all the time and I apologise for being so cliché, but how many VHSs do you currently own?
Dale Lloyd: At present I own just over 2,000 titles. It was over the 4,000 mark up until quite recently when I decided to trim my collection down to concentrate solely on ex-rental releases. I of course kept a few back that hadn't yet made the leap to DVD but there weren't many.
On average, how much does your collection grow by on a weekly basis?
DL: These days it's probably growing by 10 each week. I hate to buy online as the fun is in the hunt, but during the winter period when the leads dry up and the car boots aren't on, it's the only way.
What is your draw to the format?
DL: Where to start... The amazing artwork. The trailers before the feature that will occasionally lead to me making several new to-watch lists. The grainy pictures that make the cheaply made horror movies an even more terrifying experience. So many things.
When did you start your collection? When did you launch the website?
DL: I guess I started collecting properly when I was around the age of 13. I started buying movies that my Dad had recommended to me, or collecting movies that featured a certain actor that I liked. The more films I watched, the more obscure my taste got and that's when I started to pay big money for rarer titles.
The website was created as a blog, and still is, but I would also like to think of it as a sort of archive for anyone that remembers walking into their local video store. It's full of rental sleeves, old membership cards, closed stores and alike. I only bought the domain name a couple of years ago so it's still a baby really.
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What was your first VHS?
DL: The first VHS I ever had, or that I can remember having was Dungeons & Dragons on the Guild label. My Mom used to bring it back from work almost every weekend for me, eventually it was rented so many times that it was given to me as a gift. The first tape that I can remember having bought for me was Stay Tuned. Needless to say that it was played to death in my youth.
My earliest and favourite VHS memory was watching Ghostbusters – we had a double feature VHS with a Batman episode in the middle! – What is your favourite VHS memory?
DL: My Sister and I used to have a cool babysitter when we were very little. So cool was this sitter that she worked days at a video store, and would then bring titles back for us of the night. One movie that always stuck in my head was Babes in Toyland. The title only came to me a few years back during a conversation with my Sister. I just said "remember that movie that opened in that small town, and it was snowing. I think the camera drifted past some shops." - She stopped me dead and said Babes in Toyland. It stars Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves and it does not hold up on revisit at all. Still, the opening hits home for me.
I’ll never forget my local video rental shop – Plaza Video, just down the road from my front door – what was your video rental shop?
DL: My local store was called Video Vision. It is now an Indian restaurant, and not a great one at that either. I occasionally go there and demand to be seated where the horror section once stood.
My most vivid memory in there is the front cover of Bad Taste. I didn’t see the film until years later! What are your memories?
DL: A friend and I used to stroll into town every Sunday and browse the tapes on sale at the local market. I picked up a title called The Pit, it features a sinister looking boy on the cover holding a teddy bear and tossing Polaroid pictures into a pit, and a woman's arms can be seen reaching out. I remember we ran home to watch it and it blew us both away. It remains to this day one of my favourite movies of all time. The artwork is incredible and I plan to frame and hang my gigantic US one sheet of it some day.
With Blockbusters closing down, are you sad to see the loss of the video rental shop?
DL: Absolutely. The Blockbuster chain hurt a lot of independent stores across the world so in that respect I'm not sad that they are gone but rather more sad that the idea of a walk-in renal store has. Blockbuster refused to move with the times and it was always inevitable really. I have only ever been in there a handful of times and was always put off by the price. The idea of my daughter growing up in a world not knowing what it feels like to browse the walls of the local store and select your weekend movie based on the plot on the reverse makes me sad. People also appear to be losing a grip with physical media. I hope I'm wrong.
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I’ve always felt that VHSs have more interesting cover designs compared to DVD – what’s your favourite VHS cover?
DL: That's because it's a fact, though I'll admit that the covers I'm seeing for [Blu-Ray] lately are definitely going in the right direction. As I've already mentioned, The Pit is one of if not *the* greatest cover of all time but Raw Force is right up there too. I don't think it's possible to better that cover. It has everything you would ever want in a cover. Simply stunning. Film's not bad either.
Horror movie V/H/S was released earlier this year in cinemas. I wasn’t the biggest fan of it (I gave it a 1* review!) – what did you think of it?
DL: I really liked it. The only segment I had a problem with was Glenn McQuaid's. It just felt out of place and didn't really work at all. Other than that I found it quite terrifying in places. Joe Swanberg and Adam Wingard hit it out of the park with their efforts, it has to be said. I'm also hearing great things about the sequel.
You talk about different labels in your blog – tell me more about those.
DL: I started off collecting movies for the content and then I started to notice that I was gathering a lot of certain labels. I began with labels like EMI (and later Thorn EMI), Embassy and VTC, then went from there really. My favourite label of all time is Medusa and I am currently in the middle of cataloguing all titles and also collecting them too. They have the best artwork and trailers. Of course it will always be about the movies themselves but I really do like collecting specific labels, like most collectors.
Out of every one you own – which is your favourite VHS?
DL: Again, I'll keep going on about The Pit because it genuinely is my most prized possession. You could probably pick one up for around the £20 mark but it just means so much to me. Aside from that, i'd say Superstition. My Dad recommended the film to me when I was quite young and it took an age to work out the title but even longer to track down a copy to watch. And a copy was just that, we found a guy in a trade mag that had it listed for £25 so we went halves and when it dropped in the post it was a blatant dupe. I didn't really care as it meant we could watch the content and I later found an original on a market a few months later anyway. There are a lot of tapes that mean a lot to me but those two for sure.
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Do you have any that are considered to be worth a lot of money? Any rare collectables?
DL: The so-called Video Nasties are generally what people start collecting until they hit a brick wall in terms of prices. I have quite a few of them but nowhere near a full set. I found a rare tape a few years back called Gallery of Horror on the Trytel label. I had no idea of its worth until I posted a picture of it on a collectors forum. Apparently it was completely undiscovered and because it didn't really fit into my collection, I sold it for just under £600. I paid £10 for it. You don't come across many tapes like that and I certainly don't own anything as rare as it appears to be a one-off. Well, no other copies have surfaced.
And finally, do you have any requests from our readers for VHSs?
DL: If you could help me find titles on the Medusa label that would be great. I have a full list of wants up on the site, it certainly never hurts to have extra eyes on the road.
You can visit Dale's website VivaVHS here and follow him on Twitter @VivaVHS
Luke Owen is one of the co-editors of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @CGLuke_o.
I’m sure you get asked this all the time and I apologise for being so cliché, but how many VHSs do you currently own?
Dale Lloyd: At present I own just over 2,000 titles. It was over the 4,000 mark up until quite recently when I decided to trim my collection down to concentrate solely on ex-rental releases. I of course kept a few back that hadn't yet made the leap to DVD but there weren't many.
On average, how much does your collection grow by on a weekly basis?
DL: These days it's probably growing by 10 each week. I hate to buy online as the fun is in the hunt, but during the winter period when the leads dry up and the car boots aren't on, it's the only way.
What is your draw to the format?
DL: Where to start... The amazing artwork. The trailers before the feature that will occasionally lead to me making several new to-watch lists. The grainy pictures that make the cheaply made horror movies an even more terrifying experience. So many things.
When did you start your collection? When did you launch the website?
DL: I guess I started collecting properly when I was around the age of 13. I started buying movies that my Dad had recommended to me, or collecting movies that featured a certain actor that I liked. The more films I watched, the more obscure my taste got and that's when I started to pay big money for rarer titles.
The website was created as a blog, and still is, but I would also like to think of it as a sort of archive for anyone that remembers walking into their local video store. It's full of rental sleeves, old membership cards, closed stores and alike. I only bought the domain name a couple of years ago so it's still a baby really.
DL: The first VHS I ever had, or that I can remember having was Dungeons & Dragons on the Guild label. My Mom used to bring it back from work almost every weekend for me, eventually it was rented so many times that it was given to me as a gift. The first tape that I can remember having bought for me was Stay Tuned. Needless to say that it was played to death in my youth.
My earliest and favourite VHS memory was watching Ghostbusters – we had a double feature VHS with a Batman episode in the middle! – What is your favourite VHS memory?
DL: My Sister and I used to have a cool babysitter when we were very little. So cool was this sitter that she worked days at a video store, and would then bring titles back for us of the night. One movie that always stuck in my head was Babes in Toyland. The title only came to me a few years back during a conversation with my Sister. I just said "remember that movie that opened in that small town, and it was snowing. I think the camera drifted past some shops." - She stopped me dead and said Babes in Toyland. It stars Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves and it does not hold up on revisit at all. Still, the opening hits home for me.
I’ll never forget my local video rental shop – Plaza Video, just down the road from my front door – what was your video rental shop?
DL: My local store was called Video Vision. It is now an Indian restaurant, and not a great one at that either. I occasionally go there and demand to be seated where the horror section once stood.
My most vivid memory in there is the front cover of Bad Taste. I didn’t see the film until years later! What are your memories?
DL: A friend and I used to stroll into town every Sunday and browse the tapes on sale at the local market. I picked up a title called The Pit, it features a sinister looking boy on the cover holding a teddy bear and tossing Polaroid pictures into a pit, and a woman's arms can be seen reaching out. I remember we ran home to watch it and it blew us both away. It remains to this day one of my favourite movies of all time. The artwork is incredible and I plan to frame and hang my gigantic US one sheet of it some day.
With Blockbusters closing down, are you sad to see the loss of the video rental shop?
DL: Absolutely. The Blockbuster chain hurt a lot of independent stores across the world so in that respect I'm not sad that they are gone but rather more sad that the idea of a walk-in renal store has. Blockbuster refused to move with the times and it was always inevitable really. I have only ever been in there a handful of times and was always put off by the price. The idea of my daughter growing up in a world not knowing what it feels like to browse the walls of the local store and select your weekend movie based on the plot on the reverse makes me sad. People also appear to be losing a grip with physical media. I hope I'm wrong.
DL: That's because it's a fact, though I'll admit that the covers I'm seeing for [Blu-Ray] lately are definitely going in the right direction. As I've already mentioned, The Pit is one of if not *the* greatest cover of all time but Raw Force is right up there too. I don't think it's possible to better that cover. It has everything you would ever want in a cover. Simply stunning. Film's not bad either.
Horror movie V/H/S was released earlier this year in cinemas. I wasn’t the biggest fan of it (I gave it a 1* review!) – what did you think of it?
DL: I really liked it. The only segment I had a problem with was Glenn McQuaid's. It just felt out of place and didn't really work at all. Other than that I found it quite terrifying in places. Joe Swanberg and Adam Wingard hit it out of the park with their efforts, it has to be said. I'm also hearing great things about the sequel.
You talk about different labels in your blog – tell me more about those.
DL: I started off collecting movies for the content and then I started to notice that I was gathering a lot of certain labels. I began with labels like EMI (and later Thorn EMI), Embassy and VTC, then went from there really. My favourite label of all time is Medusa and I am currently in the middle of cataloguing all titles and also collecting them too. They have the best artwork and trailers. Of course it will always be about the movies themselves but I really do like collecting specific labels, like most collectors.
Out of every one you own – which is your favourite VHS?
DL: Again, I'll keep going on about The Pit because it genuinely is my most prized possession. You could probably pick one up for around the £20 mark but it just means so much to me. Aside from that, i'd say Superstition. My Dad recommended the film to me when I was quite young and it took an age to work out the title but even longer to track down a copy to watch. And a copy was just that, we found a guy in a trade mag that had it listed for £25 so we went halves and when it dropped in the post it was a blatant dupe. I didn't really care as it meant we could watch the content and I later found an original on a market a few months later anyway. There are a lot of tapes that mean a lot to me but those two for sure.
Do you have any that are considered to be worth a lot of money? Any rare collectables?DL: The so-called Video Nasties are generally what people start collecting until they hit a brick wall in terms of prices. I have quite a few of them but nowhere near a full set. I found a rare tape a few years back called Gallery of Horror on the Trytel label. I had no idea of its worth until I posted a picture of it on a collectors forum. Apparently it was completely undiscovered and because it didn't really fit into my collection, I sold it for just under £600. I paid £10 for it. You don't come across many tapes like that and I certainly don't own anything as rare as it appears to be a one-off. Well, no other copies have surfaced.
And finally, do you have any requests from our readers for VHSs?
DL: If you could help me find titles on the Medusa label that would be great. I have a full list of wants up on the site, it certainly never hurts to have extra eyes on the road.
You can visit Dale's website VivaVHS here and follow him on Twitter @VivaVHS
Luke Owen is one of the co-editors of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @CGLuke_o.