The Hills Have Eyes (1977) - 1986 Toshiba Japan Betamax Glassbox

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Here's a nifty little Beta glassbox of Wes Craven's seminal The Hills Have Eyes'77 that came in yesterday. One of the reasons I love Japanese tapes is the varied, subtle color and this cover certainly typifies that. Dreaded UV fading from many of these ex-rentals being sold in outdoor swap meets would destroy such a composition (this copy stills suffers a touch of that, here's an example of a much worse off copy).

"Glassbox" refers to the style of case being a thick clear plastic case that's slightly larger than the cassette. The paper cover basically lines the inside of the case with the Beta sandwiched in the middle with one side completely left open to easily slide the cassette out. As such, this one's a baby in size even compared to many other Beta case styles (kinda resembles an audio cassette on the shelf, only bigger). It's still amazing this ultimately failed format wasn't more widely accepted on this aspect alone. I don't have a functioning Betamax player that the moment, but I had to have this beaut!