What Movies Died with VHS?

"They’re just gone from the conversation and that’s unfortunate. The younger critics haven't seen this stuff, but how could they?"

That's a rather silly claim. If the films of these obscure American auteurs are not on DVD, what are the chances that the VHS copies of them will continue to be manufactured? And if they're not new, they're not going to be at Blockbuster, anyway. Thus the death of VHS in 2008 has nothing to do with at title last printed in 1994.

Even when they were new, VHS titles like this would only have been available at boutique rental stores, in limited quantities no less. I know that some are crumbling, I saw the death of a friend's store last year (and even that lasted as long as it did from the porn rentals), but the smart ones - the ones who would have these obscure titles in the first place - have adapted to include mixed media catalogs and have thus endured the death of VHS and the rise of long distance rental.

The "young critics" thing seems like an intentionally back handed comment to me. I'm not even a critic, just a youngster, but that kind of annoys me.

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I disagree with the first poster's comment. There really is some loss going on due to the switchover. I may go to Target to buy Iron Man but I also look online for hard to find titles and they aren't always there. For instance, I have a VHS copy of the classic horror film Island of Lost Souls. It isn't available on DVD.
Popular media's attention span has been getting shorter and shorter, and so has the attention span of the young people growing up under its influence. Given when we are young people we almost always scoff at the old and embrace the new, (even crap like the Transformers...had to work in my usual Transformers insult) but as we get older some of us take the opportunity to look back at what came before and find hidden treasures.

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This, I feel, is the work of libraries. I'm currently studying to be a librarian (an archivist no less) and libraries relish in having obscure titles by the thousands in their media collections. If you have a copy of a film that is obscure and you feel fairly valuable culturally or monetarily, maybe I would suggest donating it to a repository library like the one at the University of Utah (not affiliated, but used to be), where every care is taken to make sure that the item survives as long as possible.

They'll digitize, restore, and put the material on a streaming server whilst keeping the original in a climate controlled vault for safe keeping.

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"I may go to Target to buy Iron Man but I also look online for hard to find titles and they aren't always there."

Um, you aren't going to find "hard to find" titles at Target. That's why they are - ya know - *hard to find*.

Looks like a pretty lazy post to me. (1) lazy if you can't surf over to eBay, etc where you can find pretty much any movie ever made on VHS. Yes - they are still out there - if you and other "young critics" want to watch them - go buy a VCR (they are still sold) and find the copes of the movies somewhere. (2) more points off for general laziness by writing a post lamenting the 'loss' of movies to the VHS bin...without mentioning any actual movies that have been lost to said invisible archives. They may not have gotten collectors edition treatment, but personally i don't know of many films worth seeing (and then some) that haven't been released on DVD. They might be region 2 or 4 or force you to go looking somewhere other than Target, but most movies of note do exist on DVD. This post doesn't give me any reason to think otherwise.

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"They may not have gotten collectors edition treatment, but personally i don't know of many films worth seeing (and then some) that haven't been released on DVD."

That comment alone made me laugh almost to the point of tears. Are you implying that all the good movies are already on DVD and that if it's not on DVD it's not worth seeing? If so, you probably need to check out those lists posted above and get yourself a film education. There are hundreds of movies listed there that are absolutely amazing. Sure, they don't have a hip top 40 soundtrack, CG enhanced explosions, and a cast comprised of all under-20-somethings, but they are absolutely worth seeing.

Easiest example: THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Hands down one of the best movies ever made, in my opinion. It deserves a DVD release, presented in the proper format (I'm sorry, but full-frame VHS don't cut it), maybe even with some behind-the-scenes material. It's one of John Huston's finest movies, and has more heart in it that most of today's movies.

"...but most movies of note do exist on DVD."

I honestly cannot believe you actually wrote that. Just because it came out after 1970 doesn't make it "of note". All movies deserve a proper release, end of story.

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song of the south will never get a dvd release... i'm sure i saw it when i was a kid, so it must've been available on vhs. granted, i can't stand the way disney creates artificial demand for their titles by pulling them after a few months, then they can charge 30 dollars for a movie that should be selling for 20, but that's for another post.

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I think this is making a big deal out of nothing and it will mostly go away as streaming services become bigger (through netflix, itunes, or whatever). With streaming, you don't ever have to spend the cost to physically print and package the media, so there is literally 0 reason for even the most obscure of movies to not be available on demand. The hard drive space for a DVD quality movie at some massive storage facility costs next to nothing nowadays, so even if it was only ever watched by a few people it would likely pay off. I think it is just a matter of time for these services to grow a bit more and you will see this. I would imagine the only thing holding a service like netflix back from doing/offering more right now is licensing for these obscure pictures.

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You are right. I would imagine they could offer it right now over a streaming service (it's been digitized at some point for overseas laserdisks), but you could never get the rights to do so from Disney. In this case, it has less to do with VHS being dead and more to do with who controls the property.

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You've been able to buy "The African Queen" on DVD in Australia (and elsewhere) for years, so let's not pretend it's some hard-to-obtain title. Anyone who cares can get it.

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I think the point that Random was trying to make is that the one 'obscure' title you were able to conjure up is actually available on DVD. Your response was perfectly USA-centric, assuming that it only counts if it's released in America. Region-free DVD players are available all over the place - I've purchased a couple over the years without even realizing it until I opened the box. And importing it from Australia is probably pretty cheap and easy, too.

The fact of the matter is that most good movies are either on DVD, or are on their way to DVD. Considering that the industry was dominated by one format (VHS) to the point where damn near every home in the free world had a VCR, it's remarkable how quickly the market was able to adapt to an entirely new format. It doesn't just happen over night.

Besides, VHS tapes are incredibly easy to find on ebay and half.com, and they're cheap, too. Complaining just to complain is no fun, and will likely not make you the most popular person at the party.

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Many of the films listed as being only on VHS are, in fact, available on laserdisc. Obtaining these films, along with a laserdisc player, are not difficult or expensive endeavors. I am not advocating that people seek out a video transfer over a print, but the oversight of the laserdisc format seems glaring.

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This is exactly why I bought a vhs/dvd burner combo machine a few years back. I had vhs titles that I knew would probably not ever get put on dvd, and I decided to start burning my own collection of offbeat vhs myself.
Sure the picture quality is still vhs, but it's better than nothing.

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At Play in the Fields of the Lord is STILL not out on DVD, and it's a goddamn shame.

http://www.amazon.com/At-Play-Fields-Lord-2pc/dp/6302359848

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