Doctor Butcher M.D. (Zombie Holocaust) (1980) - 1986 Thriller Video Big Box

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My love for the "big box" (or porn box) is conflicted. On one hand, they're an important piece of horror history when the rental monopoly meant box art absolutely had to be as lurid and sometimes misleading as possible to be instantly eye-catching.

There was no Internet to spread the word on otherwise good flicks cursed with boring artwork. A perfect illustration of the extent distributors went is seen in the U.K.'s Video Nasty overreaction in the early '80s; when the media went to town pushing parliamentary prosecution over artist renderings on video boxes.

Yet big boxes are also a total pain-in-the-ass to find in good condition and not destroyed by time. That's part of the fun of collecting them, but a collector's normal instinct is a desire to find items in nearest to mint as possible. Clamshells have the advantage of being pretty hardy. It's not impossible locating clams in all sorts of fucked-up shape to only pull a perfect looking paper cover out from a plastic case that looked dumped in sewage. Still, beggars can't be choosers with this example, so I'll have to swallow my discontent over the creases, dents, and slices this big box has endure. It's all part of its character, being "mom and pop"-aged, with the damage complementing the wild art. The cassette is in excellent shape, Zombie Holocaust is like a greatest hits compilation of the prime Italian horror/exploitation era, and it was only fifty cents anyway...