Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story of the VHS Collector

 

It wasn't too long ago for myself that I was deep into collecting horror films and I had movies on almost every format-DVD, Blu-Ray, Digital and the particular chunks featured in this documentary... VHS tapes. Anyone who grew up in the time frame that I did has to have some kind of fond memories or nostalgia for these slabs of magnetic magic, and yeah-there really is a special kind of fuzzy feeling that you can garner from holding a piece of moving art in your hand that is stored and printed onto this specific cut of plastic. DVD's and Blu-Ray's may have cleaned everything up visual quality-wise to much because then you can see all the film grain and make-up mistakes and everything else that that low-res aesthetic covers up and puts you into a haze to suspend your disbelief with whatever it is that you're watching. And that's honestly part of the fun. Was I ever a hardcore tape collector? No. I never wanted to be. When I was still in the game, I want to say about 80% of my collection was actually DVD because they took up less space, they felt like the main menus had more punch and creativity to them while their loop was playing before you started the film and they almost always felt like they had more special features and behind the scenes materials to go through once the film was done. Also, DVD as a format also had a slump for a long while where it just didn't seem like anyone wanted them or gave a shit about them anymore, so they became very inexpensive to obtain. So honestly if I started collecting again and wanted to go back to an older format that's still relatively cheap, I myself would go to DVD. But that's me personally. Collecting movies in general is an insanely addicting hobby and it doesn't even have to be horror movies-just movies in general can give you that rush and that urge where you just have to find something or you just have to add something new to the collection because you just need more and more of it and "here's a title in this genre I don't have" or "this flick has this person in it-I've never seen it before" and you just put your foot in your mouth and buy it. The foam seething from behind your teeth comes to the forefront and you just eat that shit up. We all become rabid dogs over something, and that something for some of us just happens to either be horror movies or just movies in general. It's no different than video games or books or literally anything. People collect anything. People collect rocks. I've seen videos about people who collect and sample different mustards and ketchups, people collect toys, people collect boxes of cereal from the 70's and 80's that have never been opened. Again, if there's an interest and a market, people will undoubtedly fucking collecting anything. Adjust Your Tracking is a documentary about people who inhabit the VHS collecting world and there are some stars here-my boy Gary P. Cohen that directed both of the Video Violence movies is here, Zack Carlson from "Destroy All Movies!" is here, Paul Zamarelli of VHSCollector.com is here, Mike Raso who is the owner of my favorite horror movie label of all time Camp Motion Pictures is here... there are a plethora of known people here if you've been anywhere near the cult film or horror film space for the better part of twenty or so years now, and that just elevates this documentary even higher than it would have been if it was just a piece focusing on the people in the community and that's it. If you're at all interested in VHS tapes or film preservation, this is a doc for you. If you have fond memories of consuming weird and bizarre content on VHS back in the 80's and 90's, this doc is for you. If you love the smell of body odor, piss, poop and heated up plastic from tapes being watched and rewound over and over again as you stumble into a mom & pop video rental shop-this is a documentary for you. I personally loved it because it's another alt-culture sliver that most people never think about or get involved in because it's "weird" or "not normal" or an outsider's game-and yeah, it is. Being a horror and cult film aficionado is completely for the misfit that doesn't shower, go to parties or cleans their assholes (even though I do that and do in fact take showers every single day) and just revels in their brevity because they actually found some kind of space with a piece of mind where they actually belong. Kudos to the kids that buy up all of these tapes because now you're in this for life. There's one main tidbit here that I wanted to touch on with Adjust Your Tracking and that's where everyone talks about the copy of Tales From The Quadead Zone being sold on Ebay. That shit was bought by someone in the community for two dollars, and it is indeed a rare tape. There were barely any copies of it that were produced when that film was released and everyone wants a copy. It sold on Ebay for $660. $660 for a VHS tape. That's pure insanity. But if people are that hungry for it, they will clamor and wait and sell a kidney while they're at it to make sure they have it. Whether it's a conversation piece, prestige or bragging rights, it has to be on their shelf. I had the dual DVD pack from Massacre Video that had Tales From The Quadead Zone and Black Devil Doll From Hell on it and let me tell you something-I wish that Chester Novell Turner had made more movies. That guy made two of the fucking weirdest, overly mystifying, painful to watch films that I think I had copies of when I still had my collection and more people need to see them. Is it worth $660? Not even close. That may have even been his budget to make both of those films, let alone just one of them. But to a diehard VHS collector, it's the tape. The crown jewel. The holy grail. The gem encrusted golden goblet to which you sip the finest of wines. But to me, it's a piece of weirdo cult film history that needs to be preserved because someone took a part of their life to create something for other people to enjoy. And I think that's where my pipeline here lies. This documentary shines a light on something that makes these particular people happy, and that's all that really matters, right? We need more positivity in this world (especially right now) and if you're at all that slightest bit piqued by this little slice of film collecting or what have you, go on Tubi right now and watch Adjust Your Tracking. I think you'll love it.

Grim Reaper 3

 

Look at this cover art and tell me that you'd want to sit through Grim Reaper 3. No one, and I mean NO ONE is going to champion this film individually let alone on the merits and confines of the trilogy itself. I really had hope for what I wrote about in my previous review for Grim Reaper 2 that this next piece would pull a Scarecrow and bring this thing back from the brink in the third and final entry, and it did not. It somehow was worse, slower and even more plodding than the first two and I didn't even think that was possible. This hilariously terrible photo for the poster art tells you everything you need to know from how the mask for the reaper himself became shittier and cheaper than the second film, the same boring chick that plays Bethany is back from the second film and the sludgy, sluggish, slothy means of presentation is also back from the second movie, except it somehow was multiplied beyond what I was expecting. Even officer Wilkins from the second film is back again and he plays sort of like a rent-a-cop version of Dr. Loomis from the Halloween franchise and has some very similar dialogue and beats as he did trying to track down and analyze Michael Meyers in the fictional town of Haddonfield, IL. But that didn't help either. Nothing here propped up this final bit in any shape or form. Look, we know as horror fans that films like this are made because some people just want to do it to say that they worked on projects like this because they're passionate and they want to have fun. I get that aspect of it. But there has to be a level of actual entertainment there and if it isn't there, the whole thing falls apart and you end up having a droll mess that no one wants to clean up or admit to the fact that they were ever involved with it in the first place. Here's the skeleton-so Bethany is looking for some kind of job at an art museum type place, she gets the interview with the weird lady that runs it, she gets the job and then she ends up living there in the upper part of the building as part of the package of working there. Cool. A little tidbit that was also cool for me as a photography nerd is that she went to art school for photography and there's a scene where you see her taking shots with an awesome old school film Canon camera that has the "SLR" letters plastered on the front of it. I dug that for about thirty seconds. But outside of what's going on with her living in this art museum and dating this guy named Dylan, it's all just extraneous wet drippings sliding off of the face of the villain Clayface from the Batman franchise. A few people get killed by the reaper because they're in his way, Wilkins is trying to track him down, Bethany is living her life, and then at some point we get to where Wilkins and Bethany meet each other because Wilkins finds the reaper around where Bethany is-he shoots her and then Bethany beheads the reaper. That's it. No grandiosity, no build-up, no real climax. Just a subtle bubble up of steam that feels hot enough to cook something, but it never does. And that's all I have. This trilogy fucking sucks. I actually don't know which one of these is going on my worst of the year list, but I'm pretty sure that Grim Reaper 3 is replacing part 2. It has to. See you again soon.

 

Grim Reaper 2

 

Last week I wrote a review about the original Grim Reaper flick that was released in 2021, and this the second entry was put out just a year later in 2022. Man, look-I'm all for a shitty low budgeted shoestring production sometimes if the mood strikes, but holy hell is Grim Reaper 2 just more bleeeccchhh. I stated that in my review of the first one that it was just fucking boring upon boring and not a whole lot happens besides the semi-decent kills and gore effects, but the backstory and exposition is so weak that it's like shaking a two liter until all the carbonation is gone and you're left with a flat bottle of flavored water. This sequel is even worse and even slower than the first one-I'd say this time around it's like getting a bottle of that Mio stuff to add some flavor to a water bottle and then when the time comes to add said flavoring, you barely, barely squeeze a drop into it to change the formula. The solution you've just attempted to create is pretty much the same except it's even lamer than what you did previously and there's nothing left but a hefty weight of disappointment, regret and wasted time. Sure, Grim Reaper 2 is only about fifty five minutes, but that's fifty five minutes that I could have done better with like reading whatever book I'm into at the moment or looking for a better job or looking at a new house that my family could move into because we've been wanting to move for a long while now-but no. I had to continue on with this Grim Reaper trilogy to see how awful it was going to get. I'm actually not really going to write to much more here about this film because there really isn't much to expand upon besides that it's pretty much more of the same in comparison to the original. Hell, there's a few scenes here where the Reaper himself is literally sitting in a folding chair just drifting off into space mentally while daydreaming and reminiscing about the kills that he committed in the first entry before he goes and just stalks around the swamp and some abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere Indiana where this is supposed to take place. I just-there's nothing really positive to say here. All I'm going to leave you with here zits and zombies is that I truly hope that this trilogy pulls a Scarecrow and brings it all back with the third movie because in that trilogy the first one is great (and it has Tiffany Shepis in it) the second one stars "The Candyman" Tony Todd and was an absolute wrecking ball of pure cinematic shit, and the third one titled Scarecrow Gone Wild ended up being probably even better than the first one now that I think about it because it had a tone of comedy, horror and fun to it that the first two did not. So, out of sheer curiosity I would only recommend this Grim Reaper 2 to see how terrible this trilogy gets, but I'm warning you-it's fifty five minutes you could spend better somewhere else. Also, it's getting thrown on my worst of the year list as a place holder for the last spot that I have open unless I somehow watch something worse than this which is highly possible-anything can happen when you're into the horror film review game. Anything can happen. Until the third.

Grim Reaper

 

On the outset when I first ran across the Grim Reaper trilogy on Tubi, I became excited because of the cover art for the original picture. It's in your face about what it's potentially ripping off or what it was inspired by, and of course it's the original Friday The 13th flick. If you've been steeped in this sort of thing for multiple decades now, you already know what the poster art for that film looks like, and I'm sure you would be intrigued to give this initial foray a shot like I did because of it. Let me tell you something-as a huge fan of the Jason films, the original Grim Reaper just fell flat. It literally made me think of what I used to do when I was younger with various kinds of pop where everyone else wanted to drink it normally with the carbonation still in it (which, I mean what's the point of it being soda with out it) where as I would be a jackass and figure out ways to flatten it because I didn't want the little fizzy bubbles in there, so I would set them free by shaking the shit out of whatever two liter happened to be at someone's house, and then proceeding to open it continuously until all of what was left was basically just flavored water. Man did I piss off a lot of people by doing that. Grim Reaper however didn't really piss me off while flattening itself out by taking all the fun and fizz out of it's own possible slasher grandeur, it was delivered that way and I was sorely disappointed by it. I was really in my way of wanting this to be a highly enjoyable Jason Voorhees styled romp with hot girls, nudity, stupid teens getting annihilated by said abomination, and some sicko stalking everyone in a skull mask with a hand scythe. But that's not really what happens here. Before I get to that, what I really was hoping this was going to be was another lame, low budgeted slasher in the vein of the Bloody Murder films. That's what I was hoping this was going to be like. And it never even reached that echelon. The two Bloody Murder flicks are fun as hell and Tiffany Shepis even gets naked in one of them so there's a pull right there for die-hards that know their shit when it comes to digging in the dirt for their entertainment. Here though in the original Grim Reaper-there is none of that. There's no great or funny music, there's no great or funny characters, there's almost no energy to even bounce off of when you're trying to get into it-it's all just blah. Blahhhhhhh, blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I didn't hate Grim Reaper. Not in the slightest. I just didn't really enjoy it all that much because it drags it's own feet slowly, sluggishly and very hard. There are some cool kills here and there is some inherent intensity when Victor Cunningham is going around slicing up randoms because he was released from a mental hospital that was shut down for various reasons. He becomes the grim reaper very quickly by killing a fat farmer dude that claims that it would have been better to marry his sister than whoever he ended up with (we don't get to see this guy's wife) and he goes in his shed and takes the little hand scythe and the black hoodie he has hanging on the wall. After that, he kind of just goes around killing people because of his rage that he has built up from finding his wife cheating on him which is how he ended up in the mental facility in the first place. That's really it. I unfortunately don't have much more to say about the original Grim Reaper besides the fact that it just felt like it was trying way to hard to be serious and atmospheric which led it to really just what I stated earlier-a flat two liter of soda with all the fun and fizz taken out of if. Except I didn't do it this time. The crew involved with making this film did. And I just hope and pray that the sequels have more life and spunk in them than this first one did. 

Hellmare

I had the chance this morning to watch Hellmare from RFN Pictures and what a damn treat this was-I've pinpointed this in my mind where this is a low budget horror flick that every horror fan needs to see regardless of what they're tastes are because this flick just outright rocks. It reeks of that heavy metal/punk rock "I don't give a fuck" attitude that movies in general need to get back to these days because everything mainstream now is so dull, stale, monotonous and just fucking boring. Film these days getting pumped out of literal satanic Hollywood is just absolute trash with no heart, no substance and no soul. Hellmare has heart, soul and charm for days and I really just couldn't get enough of the mutant horsehead guy aptly named 'Hellmare' because even though you really didn't get to see him that much throughout, his presence brought a smile to my face every single time. This flick was just a non-stop thrill ride that I didn't want to get off of, and when it finally did come to a close I just wanted to buy another ticket to get right back on. But even with me saying that praising it's energy and enveloping me in it's structure, I duly hope that there just isn't a sequel. Don't ruin it RFN-if you make a sequel, you'll never live up to what you did here with this one. You just won't. There are a few trailers here contained on the tape left behind by Philip's grandfather after he passed away (who his grandfather is played by the legendary Lloyd Kaufman) where he and his buddy Whitley work at a video rental store in the late 1990's ('97 to be exact) and he ends up getting a copy of an ultra-rare title named Hellmare. They've all heard of it and have read about it in obscure terror magazines, but none of them have ever seen it or have had the chance to. Until now. Philip also inherits his grandfathers house, which still has all of his creepy satanic witchcraft crap in the attic. And here's where we start with the trailers-the first one is about a cop that practices witchcraft and uses black magic to set people on fire, stab themselves with knives, read their minds and send their asses to jail-in hell. Of course, this one is called "Witchcraft Cop" and it's just great. Wish it was real. The second trailer is for a black and white vampire flick titled "The Vampire's Lament" where it's kind of just a run-of-the-mill vampiric proceeding where Dracula is chasing some girl around trying to seduce her to suck her blood and blah, blah, blah-you know all about that. Still looked fun though. Wish it was real. The third one is for a ridiculous Troma-esque type of offering where there's a government group named with the acronym D.E.A.T.H. which stands for The Department of Eradicating and Annihilating the Homeless which to be honest is a great name for a government group that I'm surprised doesn't actually exist in real life. Also, wish this flick was real. I wished that all three of these were real, and you know what-in the context and world of Hellmare, they do exist. They are real films and our group consisting of Avi, Stanton, Bell, Philip, Whitley, my girl Linda and Donny along with the unfortunate protagonists of said trailers have to endure these villains for real because when they all have a movie party at Philip's newly acquired pad from his grandfather passing away, they actually get sucked into the film right after it begins. I won't really go to deep into certain events that take place during the events of Hellmare after this happens, but I'm just going to say that the gore and special effects are fucking fantastic, the music and the score are fantastic and the cinematography and lighting along with specific color palettes are also just downright fantastic. Honestly, this piece is horror movie joy from beginning to end because RFN got everything right and there's no spots that slouch here. All of the acting was on point, all of the characters complimented each other perfectly and the villains worked together very well to bring this thing together to make it downright fun. I think that's my main take from watching Hellmare is that movies just need to be fun again. They need to make you laugh, they need to make you cry, the need to make to stick to a specific character that you're attracted to (again, my girl here was Linda) and they just need to suck you into what's happening so you can forget about everything else going on around you for 80-90 minutes of pure bliss. Hellmare is the shit and when it is in fact finally released, see this damn thing. Please. If you don't end up liking it, then I don't know what to tell you. Go watch The Notebook at that point. I can't be friends with you anymore.  

Justice (Predator Puncherz)

 

There is definitely a disease going around on this planet (not just here in this country of the US of A) and it's name is pedophilia. It seems every single day this infection gets worse and worse with no signs of a probable cure or stopping it entirely. Everyone that has a child that has become or will become a victim of this sickness will want some kind of vengeance or revenge, and that's where the boys of Predator Puncherz come in. They want justice, we want justice and the children and their families will have their servings of wrongs being righted-and it will be through the construct of this newly formed group that physically made me think they all looked like the members of Alice In Chains at their peak in the 90's and energy wise took me immediately to the realms of Chris Hansen when he was steeped in the bowels of hosting his own show doing this very thing titled To Catch A Predator. If you somehow have never seen that or sat through any episodes and want to check this thing out, I strongly suggest you do so before you watch Justice/Predator Puncherz. Clocking in at only thirteen minutes and forty six seconds, this piece directed by Bobby Nair really just gets to the point and has no fat to trim and no finicky tendons to cut through when trying to sell and tell it's story. Basically the Predator Puncherz (as I've already stated) is a modern younger group of guys that employ a female decoy (you need a female decoy to do this, right?) who they use to lure these filth bags with out in the open so they can what else-punch these predators in the fucking face. With justice, the law and outright just ruining their lives. I'll be honest, I wish this short was way longer than it actually is just so we could actually witness some predators getting punched in the face, but unfortunately we do not. However, arrests are made, social transactions are read out loud to embarrass the hell out of these fucking losers and to expose what vile things they say and think about getting with minors and they get booked the way they should be. Hard. The first guy in the forest with the Metallica hoodie-done. The second guy in the parking lot of a Waffle House-cooked. The third guy is a bit tricky-he was eating cold pizza at his place before he finally took it upon himself to meet up with this young girl that he had been talking to online for awhile, and he had something hiding under his clothing for "his own protection" that I'm not at any sort of liberty to expunge because if you do in fact watch Justice/Predator Puncherz after reading this review, it wouldn't be a surprise. It did actually take me by surprise because nothing like what happens here with this cold pizza eating, Edgar Allen Poe looking asshole has ever happened on a show like this before or since, and it's a crazy ending to a positive group that just wanted to help people and to hinder this ever growing virus known as "wanting to have sex with minors". Every time someone steps up to try and take the reigns on this malady to turn it around, something always happens that puts it right back where it was before. I wanted more preds to get punched. I wanted more of these slimebags to get served. There has to be more. There needs to be more. Also, I need to say that I really enjoyed the music for the score quite a bit and the cinematography was exactly where it should have been. It was spazzy, all over and conveyed the energy that it needed to and I enjoyed it a lot for serving up the in-your-face context that it needed to here. I dug this short immensely and if you have a chance to see Justice/Predator Puncherz sometime or somewhere while it's floating around in the film festival circuit, do yourself a favor and take the fourteen minutes out of your time to absorb this-I'm very certain you won't regret it. I didn't regret at all watching the screener of it. Just wish it was longer.   

Rockula

 

Rockula is a silly very early 90's take on a vampire story where Ralph is down and out and always fighting with his inner dialogue through a mirror. Now that in and of itself breaks convention when it comes to vampire lore and what you're supposed to expect from this sort of thing because we all know that vampires can't see themselves in mirrors as well as anyone else. But Ralph going back and forth with himself about how he really feels against what is happening in the film really is funny and it's a different way for us to see into what's going on with the main character as apposed to the normal bindings that we would normally get. Rockula is sort of a vampiric/musical hybrid of a movie where there are songs that explain some of what's going on, but also it ties into the fact that Ralph needs to break this curse where every twenty two years he has to try and save his girl Mona who was killed some four hundred years ago by a pirate with a rhinestone peg-leg and a giant hambone. She was supposed to be his girl forever, but he couldn't save her, so now he's cursed to having her being killed and reborn every twenty two years until he finally builds up the courage to actually stop this menace of time and to keep her as his for the long haul. The time is finally right during the events of Rockula and we get all sorts of whacky people and characters employed here-we get to meet his mother, her boyfriend Boom Boom Williams (The Terror of Tennessee) Axman (played by Bo Diddley) Chuck The Bartender, and of course-his main guy, his main villain and the weirdo that's in Ralph's way-Stanley. This guys ends up becoming the pirate towards the third act via some advice from "his psychic" where she tells him to dress up pretty much exactly like that pirate that Stanley tried to extinguish some four hundred years ago when Mona was killed in the first place, and it makes him even more determined to break this cycle and to be bonded to his beautiful Mona. I don't blame him. Not being able to bang your girl for over four centuries would fucking suck. That's one thing I do have to mention about Rockula is that it's extremely light hearted in the fact that there is basically no cussing, no sex, no nudity, no real violence, gore-nothing extreme or dark in the way that would make this unwatchable to anyone. This is a flick that quite literally anyone could watch and have a good time with-unless you straight up just don't like 80's/very early 90's music, fashion, hairstyles and generally just like having a good time. That's the absolute best thing that I can sport on about Rockula is that even if you're not really into vampire flicks or musicals (which I'll be upfront here in saying that I really don't like musicals all that much) this piece will still suck you into what's going and you'll still have a fun time with it. Going back to what I said at the beginning with breaking conventions about what we all expect from something that has to do with vampires, there's a couple of scenes that made me laugh about just that very thing-the first one is where Ralph is contending with himself in the mirror in his bedroom about trying to go out to find Mona during the day in broad daylight, and his reflection doesn't want him to do it because of reasons we all know about-but he says "don't worry, I'm protected" and shows him a bottle of sunscreen. Good stuff. The other one is where Stanley is wearing this massive necklace made from these gigantic cloves of garlic and instead of Ralph being repulsed by it and leaving when he smells it, he says "smells good" and Stanley asks him "you know what this is right?" and Ralph replies "yeah-I cook with it all the time". This sort of energy and plane of comedy runs through the entire runtime and I really enjoyed it. If you're looking for something more on the lighter side right now instead of a lot of the more serious and darker toned films that have been coming out as of late, just sit your ass down and watch Rockula on Tubi. If you don't enjoy the music, the characters and the overall charm that this film has to offer, than you can kill my wife and I'll have to try save her every twenty two years after she is reborn. I don't want to have to do that and neither does Ralph. Also, that rosary looks like it's from the 18th century, not the 19th-but who's really keeping track.