Who among us doesn’t have nostalgia for the video store era? The video store provided many horror fans, myself included, with their first real introduction to all the wonderful and wacky delights just waiting to be discovered within the horror genre, and the upcoming book Stuck on VHS: A Visual History of Video Store Stickers is set to take us back to that golden age!
Announced via press release today, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is launching a publishing arm with the new book by video historian Josh Schafer. The book launches in conjunction with the Found Footage Festival’s VCR Party Tour, with the first stop in Austin, TX at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar on Wednesday, January 8, and continuing on to Downtown LA (February 10), Denver (February 22), Brooklyn (February 27), and San Francisco (April 8).
“90% of the movies from the silent era are gone forever,” says Tim League, Alamo Drafthouse founder and CEO. “Sadly, we are seeing that tale transpire again with VHS today. A huge wealth of amazingness is disintegrating before our eyes, and this time it isn’t art from 100 years ago, it is from the 1980s. Josh is Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s VHS Culture Captain, a role not often found in ours or any industry. I’m really proud of his book, a love letter to this fragile era in our recent history, and I’m equally proud of his work to spread the excitement and awesomeness of VHS treasures in general.”
Harnessing the robust rejuvenation of interest in the VHS era and aesthetic, Stuck On VHS samples the seemingly small, but inherently essential pieces of communication and retrospective aesthetic that populate former rental videocassettes.
The book contains essays by Lunchmeat VHS editor-in-chief and VHS Culture Captain Josh Schafer, photography and book design by Jacky Lawrence, and three peelable pages of rad VHS stickers.
“These stickers capture a time and place, not only as important design and communication specimens from a distinct era,” says Stuck on VHS author Josh Schafer. “But also, these pieces of video store ephemera help us more distinctly remember and understand the incredible and vibrant world of video rental stores.”
The book will be available at Alamo Drafthouse theaters and MondoTees.com on January 20.
