“Megaforce” 80’s film magic

“Megaforce” released in 1982, directed by Hal Needham , starring Barry Bostwick is an absolute winner. I really like Hal Needham’s work with Burt Reynolds, directing his best film “Hooper” but I had never heard of “Megaforce” until I stumbled across an article about Hal Needham. I watched the VHS version of course and it holds up really well despite the slightly crappy 4:3 format. It was a failure it its day at the box office and scored 3 Razzies along the way including Worst Picture and Worst Director- I’m sure Hal would have been proud.

Barry Bostwick was really funny in “Spin City” and is hilarious in this- looking like a cross between Barry Gibb and Olivia Newton John (Grease) he really works the latex body suit and  blue bandana. Its almost too silly for words but somehow it works and is a good example of 80’s film-making – if they made it today I guess Ben Stiller would be the Commander and if they left the tone the same would be pretty good in it.

The special effects are very rudimentary- the flying sequences that were shot as a stunt are really beautiful unfortunately the studio comps are not good ( no wind it seems in the studio) but in those days it would have been an optical effect but it works as does the flying motorcycle sequence. These days they would have spent millions on those sequences and they would look fantastic but he would give a shit – which is the problem with all these tentpoles CG films- who cares about  the great effects when no one making the film cares about the story. I think Hal Needham gave it his best shot for sure.

Great title sequence too- very simple but looks cool and the score is so fantastic- really sets the tone for the movie.

“Killer Klowns From Outer Space” …Big Top…Big Shoes…Big Teeth.

I watched this on VHS (rented from Dr What) and I was completely shocked at how great this film is. The picture quality given the tape was 25 years old was still pretty good. I have just pre-ordered the blu-ray version to see it in its full glory.

The premise is completely original and crazy, the story refreshingly free from back story. The klowns have come from somewhere, flying through space in a big top tent and once landed they are pretty keen on eating earthlings. The humans spend the whole film trying to stay alive- no character arcs to speak off just those that get deaded (or more correctly cocooned in fairly floss – a bit like Alien but more PG)  and those that don’t. And luckily no one learns anything about themselves or makes themselves a better person during the course of the movie. And no movie stars- its budget as reported by IMDB was 2M which was a substantial budget for essentially a straight to video movie back in the day- today to finance a 2M movie you would need 2 or 3 “names” to get the deal done. Indie film making aint what is used to be!

I am surprised the Chiodo brothers didn’t follow this very accomplished first film with another film but they seem to have focused on their animation- puppetry- special effects business until recently- a sequel is due in 2013 – in 3D no less. From VHS to 3D in 25 years- not bad. If they had no artistic integrity they would have cranked out a dozen sequels – I’m glad they didn’t but they would probably be a lot richer.

Bring on “The Return Of The Killer Klowns From Outer Space in 3D”

Will VHS go the way of Nitrate film?

DR What is a “video store” located in Bondi Junction- Sydney- Australia. It has been renting videos since August 1981 and still open for business today. Neal Crisford, the current owner,  joined the business in February 1983 and oversaw the growth of his business from 2000 video titles to 40,000 videos. Neal estimates that he has rented over 2 million titles in the past 31 years.As DVDs came in he sold off the equivalent title on VHS to make room in the shop which at the height of the VHS era was literally busting at the seams.  Today the VHS collection still numbers close to 20,000 but doesn’t see many visitors these days only the occasional collector or enthusiast.  What is to become of this amazing collection in the future is unknown hopefully someone will buy the collection intact and preserve it but more likely it will be sold off in pieces and be gone for good.

Its a shame that VHS has been disregarded in the modern era in much the same way as nitrate films from the silent era were junked and lost forever. By 1949,  22,000 films had been made over half are lost never to be seen again. Neal tells me he had VHS films on the shelf that don’t even exist on IMBD and many VHS titles has never been released on DVD so they may never be seen again once these last VHS copies are destroyed or put in a warehouse somewhere to slowly rot away.

Time marches on I guess but Neal and I have decided to make a documentary about the VHS era starting with him and DR What but we will talk to other video store owners, collectors and most importantly film makers from the era who went “straight to video” and ask them what VHS meant to them and their careers.

Watch this space!

Dr What!

VHS is dead! 1976 -2005 – RIP

It is sad but true that the VHS era is over in the same way that the vinyl LP record era is over even though there are collectors and die hards who still buy and collect both, but by and large it’s over for both. When you watch a blue ray DVD on a 50 inch plasma TV with Dolby surround stereo blasting the doors off their hinges, it’s pure cinematic bliss – not as good as sitting in a theatre but pretty good all the same. Whereas back in the day when we were rushing off to the “video store ” on a rainy Sunday afternoon  to grab the latest new release  or some great movie we missed back when it had a theatrical release twenty years ago, it didn’t seem to matter that the picture was cropped to 4:3  format instead of full frame 16:9 or 2.35. Our 4:3  vhs movie was panned and scanned, very badly, and the picture quality  was, looking back from our blue ray era, pretty terrible. But we loved them  all the same, often renting 3 or 4 at a time to make a whole day of it.

But VHS was an undisputed cultural phenomenon that lasted from  September 9, 1976 when the first  Victor HR-3300 VHS machine was presented to the president of JVC until the DVD was introduced to the US market in March 1997. After the DVD era started it was a slow and inevitable  decline for VHS. According to the British Video Association ten million VHS Videos were sold in 2005 compared to two hundred and eleven million DVDs in the same year.

There still are filmmakers such as Harmony Korine using VHS,  her film “Trash Humpers” was shot and then released on VHS in 2009 but this is the exception rather than the rule .  The last film released by a studio on VHS was David Cronenberg’s ” A History Of Violence”. Since every other phase in the history of film was  driven and dominated by the studios – the silent era, the sound era, the technicolor- color era, the widescreen era and now the 3D era – it’s probably safe to say that the VHS era ended with that film. Nearly 30 years, not a bad effort considering  DVD is on its knees after only 15 years.

What made watching a VHS video at home so great? Probably the same reason that we loved listening to our Walkmans, the sound quality wasn’t  great , but that wasn’t the point  – it was a personal listening experience you could take  anywhere you wanted to go. With VHS you took home the movie of your choice and watched when and how you liked it. You could stop it and have something to eat or fast forward the boring bits or replay the awesome bits even if it didn’t look like it did at the cinema. In fact looking back its hard to believe we did put up with it, but we did and we loved it!

The VHS era changed the film business in lots of ways – some good , some bad. A lot of the early VHS movies in the “per-cert” era were the so called “video nasties” which were made by film makers excluded from the studio system, who otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to make their own films. In some ways it was the lunatics running the asylum-lots of money and out of control- and a lot of really bad films got made but so did a lot of great films such as the most famous film of the era “Evil Dead”. Where would Sam Rami be now without VHS?

With the advent of VHS, films lived on beyond their theatrical window,  forgotten classics and cult films could be seen by a new generation of film fans. As the business matured and turned into a river of cash the studios strangled the life out of it, making the VHS business more and more about star driven  films which became known as A titles , which for the most part they could control since they were the only ones that could afford to pay the stars 20 million a film. Everything else became known as  a B title ( often these were “Straight To Video” movies ) which became increasingly  hard to finance without a star attached. In the end, inevitably,  it was  back to business as usual for the studio distribution system and all the innovation that was there at the beginning of the VHS  era  fell away as the movie stars got greedy and rich and the movies got ordinary.

In those heady VHS days it was  very hard to make a movie- the equipment was expensive and clumsy to use, film stock was very expensive to buy and process and so on.  Every film was a huge investment of time and money and it was very risky. Even more extraordinary that these films got made. Now, in the digital era you can make a film for 10,000 dollars like Oren Peli did in 2007. “Paranormal Activity” was a massive hit but the lesson is that anyone can make a film with very little risk. If you think you have a decent story to tell on film you should have a go. You never know how great it might turn out, or it could go the other way which is ok because as William Goldman’s said  “Nobody knows anything”. Possibly the VHS era filmmakers spirit and  film legacy will inspire the digital generation of filmmakers  of today tell the stories they want to tell they way they want to tell them and make watching films exciting again like those Sunday afternoons watching our little VHS films. Let’s hope so.

More “Ghastly Fun ” VHS film reviews to come. Next up Sydney’s last video store Dr What?  A  store that still has over 20,000 VHS to rent.