Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1987) - 2013 Sub Rosa Studios Productions VHS (#33/100)

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Finally picked up this recent limited edition VHS of Fred Olen Ray's Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1987) from Sub Rosa secondhand after it quickly sold out a few months ago from their website. Originally my plan was to avoid this release all together but the right opportunity arose to grab it for no more than their initial asking price. If you follow BoGD and the recent VHS revival then you probably sense I'm not much for this new release boom. In this case, my love of Michelle Bauer's bodacious assets compelled me (Sorry Linnea, hope the pic makes up for it)...

Starting with MPI Video resurrecting their Gorgon Video label for a VHS release of Ti West's House of the Devil (2009) and then exploding overnight with the near-immediate sellout of Mondo Video's limited VHS of David Prior's Sledgehammer(1983), homebrew distribution upstarts have seen the benefits of releasing obscure cult product onto tape...sorta. Despite brisk selling, a given producer is lucky to just break even on their investment into the creation and replication of the their VHS releases.

The real money is in the collector's market, where many of these titles pull surprising auction action. So much so it's not common to see decades old rarities sell for substantially less than say, a "limited" tape just released last year. That's one of the big reasons I'm not keen on these, to re-use a previous term, hipster mantle pieces. It's become more a dick measuring contest than something fun. That and the whole ongoing Wizard Video saga that's blatantly designed to exploit the moneymaking factor, truth and honesty be damned...

Though this release is pretty cool and seems to have Ray's approval. This copy belongs to the first run, denoted by the red cassette and autograph, while the second run also of fifty featured a standard black tape. Aside from those two differences both runs feature a fold-out poster, a tiny B/W repro postcard of the lobby card set (useless), and a DVD-R of the twenty-four minute making-of and trailer seen on Retromedia's DVD releases. If I had a nitpick, it's the VHS/DVD combo case that reeks of being designed for instructional programs in the education or medical fields. It's also wider and squatter than any vintage VHS box design, so it's a bit strange looking on the shelf. Definitely a nice release, buuuutttt I'm still not itching to collect the others...