Five movies that are better to watch on VHS
As the yearning for analogue technology continues and people seek refuge from the onslaught of digital media and its endless choices, a handful of individuals are blowing the dust off the VHS tapes that have been stored in attics and basements ever since the dawn of the DVD arrived in the late 1990s.
Watching a film on VHS is a real throwback experience, one that’s ingrained so far back in our memories that it inevitably invokes a wave of nostalgia. Having to rewind the tape before watching it again might seem like an inconvenience by today’s standards, but at the time, it was part of the process of watching a film in the comfort of one’s home.
The thick boxes of the VHS, not to mention the tapes themselves, were found stacked up against one another in the bedrooms and living rooms of the world over, and the format had been the reigning player for several decades. There’s an old-school feel about VHS that serves as an attractive prospect to analogue heads and collectors looking for tangibility in a digital age.
We’ve compiled a list of movies we think are best to watch on VHS – but be warned, the films featured just so happen to be some of the scariest pieces of cinema ever conceived, some of which play into the VHS format itself. So open the case and blow away the dust; let’s get into it.
The best movies to watch on VHS:
The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999)
Any kind of “found footage” horror movie is perfect for watching on VHS because the old format really feels like you’re unlocking something that someone might have recorded in passing. As far as the genre goes, though, it’s hard to look beyond Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s wildly influential The Blair Witch Project.
The film tells of three student documentary filmmakers who head into the Maryland wilderness to make a movie about a local mythic witch. The trio go missing, and a year later, their equipment and footage are found; the film seen by the audience is that very footage. The grain of VHS when watching The Blair Witch Project makes it feel all too real and, therefore, terrifying.
Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998)
If Blair Witch was scary enough on VHS, then Hideo Nakata’s 1998 horror film Ring takes the absolute piss. After all, it’s a film about a videotape that places a curse on its viewers, causing them to die just seven days after watching and the race of a journalist to get to the bottom of its mystery.
Now, conceive of this already scary-as-shit movie and then throw in the added fear of watching on the very format it is about. No, thank you to most, or yes, please to the horrorphiles amongst us. The VHS copy actually had an easter egg before the previews that forced its watchers to look upon the cursed film.
Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
There’s a theme here, isn’t there? The truth is that the horror genre looks to be the most suitable for watching on VHS, perhaps because several of its films were released in that format. Several also explored the theme of home entertainment, including David Cronenberg’s legendary horror film Videodrome.
The 1983 body horror classic tells of Max Renn, a TV executive who comes across a strange signal of snuff films. As he investigates, he becomes wrapped up in mind control and a series of horrific hallucinations. One scene sees a tape gruesomely enter the body of Max, and we’d be damned pulling the VHS out of our machine once the film was over, just in case we, too, were hallucinating.
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Sticking with horror, then, VHS offers the film viewing experience that old-time grain that Blu-ray and 4K seem to negate, and many of the best works of yore, say William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, are perfect for the format. One of the most famous horrors of all time, the movie based on William Peter Blatty’s novel of the same name tells of the demonic possession of a young girl and the attempts of her mother and two Catholic priests to exorcise her.
There’s a deeper reason for this selection, though, and it’s a personal one. Around 12 years old, I braved The Exorcist on VHS and a square CRT television in my bedroom, got around halfway through, scared shitless, and said, “Fuck this”. I proceeded to hide the tape somewhere I thought I’d never find it again – and never did – so the experience must have been quite the ride. Just good luck finding the tape…
Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)
Now the fright-fest is over, let’s loosen up and put the demons to one side for a moment. VHS is incredibly reminiscent of the 1990s and the many excellent independent cinema features that were released that decade. Alongside Larry Clark’s 1995 coming-of-age drama Kids, Kevin Smith’s 1994 directorial debut Clerks stands as a perfect film for the home tape format.
The black-and-white comedy that introduced the world to Jay and Silent Bob for the first time already has that vintage feel, and its charming slacker humour, focusing on the day-to-day lives of a handful of store clerks and their dopey friends, just feels right on VHS. It also serves as a welcome refresher from the sheer terror that came before, according to this list.
