Wednesday, May 11

Mondo Video (Isn't) Here! VHS Lives! (For Those Lucky Enough)

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Despite Mondo's proclamation that "Mondo Video Is Here! VHS Lives!" on their blog, it certainly doesn't feel that way in the wake of the lightening quick sell out of their inaugural VHS release of Ted Prior's SOV mammoth Sledgehammer earlier this morning. Despite staying up after midnight, then losing sleep, then checking every subsequent hour starting at 4 a.m. EST...the VHS had sold out by the time I spotted it (finally) for sale. It didn't help matters that the limited-to-one-hundred copies VHS was being sold last night at an Alamo Drafthouse screening with the remaining intended for online retail. Fair indeed.

Sour grapes much? Well, yes, it would have obviously been great to score a copy, but I'm upset for other dyed-in-the-wool video enthusiasts that now find themselves in the same boat. Many of us celebrated VHS when VHS wasn't cool. Toiling away the hours digging through mountains of dingy plastic and carefully measuring our online hunts like master chess players. We embrace the nostalgic reemergence of the format(s) as sought-after collector's items and I've yet to meet a fellow collector that wasn't willing to always lend helpful advice. This blog and others like it like hail dead technology most people balk at the very mention of. It would be nice to get thrown a bone every now-and-again for our shared efforts (thanks again to Dark Sky Films and MPI for unleashing House of the Devil on easily obtainable VHS).

And don't get me wrong, I'm not aiming my gripes at collectors that managed to beat the fray and purchase a copy from Mondo. That's great and I only wish I could join in on the excitement. The thing is you just know a portion were purchased as nothing more than eBay fodder given the rabid tape market. In fact, copies are already appearing on the auction giant. All I can say is that I hope you choke on that big fat celebratory steak from your winnings. May you never know the passion and award of analog.

At the end of the day, such is life and such is the nature of the beast concerning ultra-limited anything. I'll just kick back with my genuine World Video Pictures Betamax and approach future Mondo Video releases with vastly less anticipation and enthusiasm. I'm not wasting another day worrying about whenever Mondo gets around to putting another up for sale. After all, what's the fun in "artificial" video elusivity?
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10 comments:

Ryan Gelatin said...

I need to find this rabid tape market you speak of. My vhs auctions have been dismal, even the stuff that's actually sorta kinda rare.

DrunkethWizerd said...

Ryan, have you tried selling your old VHS as "Limited to ONLY 1 Piece!"? Might work.

Dan Kinem said...

^search rare vhs auctions on facebook and you'll see. or horror vhs collecting. you'll see tapes going for a lot of money.

anyways, you crushed them. yes, i'm bitter, as well, but even if i got a tape i'd still be complaining. this is annoying to the extreme and will make getting this movie harder, if anything. $70+ for an imitation? why not hold off until a regular one pops up or talk to a collector who might be willing to part with it? i never would have guessed that with all the annoying promotion this product got, that when i waited 12 hours to finally buy one there'd only be less than ten fucking copies. if more and more things like this start popping up this will be the death of collecting, not the rebirth. it will flood the market with imitations of rare tapes that are made purposefully to be rare themselves thus making the real ones go up in price even further. so stupid.

THE BLOOD SHED said...

I have to agree with you about your post. I was very excited about ordering a copy and when I woke up this morning-sold out. I'm hoping more will come from the positive sell out they had, but in the end these could end up banking
$$$ on ebay and thus I'll be searching for the original and this version.

Anonymous said...

I really don't understand Mondo. They do the same thing with their 'limited edition' posters. I'll get an email and invariably, when I click the link, its sold out. Hogwash!

Explosive Action said...

Well that's just shit. I didn't realise it was limited to 100 copies. I figured like House of the Devil it would be available for at least a FEW weeks.

I dropped them a 'please do another production run' email, with links to the $80+ auctions on eBay as proof that a couple more hundred would sell easily.

Maybe they will listen.

BertChavis said...

Mondo sucks and so do overpriced imitation VHS tapes. The House Of The Devil tape was a cool idea, but let's just leave it at that. I'll stick with my ORIGINAL Sledgehammer tape and that's about it.

Jayson Kennedy said...

Like I said on Mondo's Facebook page, "After all the hype, this whole thing just reminded me of how much of an accomplishment it is in finding original copy after years of dedication. Clicking your way to an imitation online isn't anything special."

Anonymous said...

You sound really bitter.

Jayson Kennedy said...

Not really, finding an original is an achievement, clicking your way to an imitation isn't anything special.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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