Editorials
Trapped on VHS: 10 Fun Horror Movies Only Available on Tape
There’s no denying that VHS is the inferior home video format these days. Once DVD, then Blu-ray, and now digital releases came along, videotapes were cast aside for good reason. But it’s hard to completely dismiss them; the quality might be a bummer by comparison, but there are so many films that are still stuck on VHS. Films that never even made it to DVD, well before the era of high-def.
Here are just 10 fun horror movies that are still to this day only available on VHS.
Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County
A year prior to the release of The Blair Witch Project, this made for TV movie left viewers in confusion and concern thanks to its pseudo-documentary style. As for plot, it begins with a normal Thanksgiving family gathering, complete with drinking and bickering. It’s all ordinary until aliens show up, and things get super creepy. Shot on videotape, the style and eeriness stirred up controversy post-airing; viewers weren’t sure if what they’d just watched was real footage or fiction. It’s a spooky alien abduction tale rendered even spookier with the lo-fi quality, but this rare Thanksgiving genre outing has been stuck on VHS since its arrival.
Blue Monkey
Despite the title, there are no actual blue monkeys in this movie. A man pricks his finger on an exotic plant, develops a serious infection and is transported to a hospital just in time for a larval parasite to spew forth from his mouth. The hospital is put under quarantine when the infection spreads, and meddling kids cause the parasite to grow into a giant insect creature that wreaks havoc. It’s every bit as over the top and ‘80s as it sounds, and it’s still waiting for an updated release.
The Kindred
In 2017, news broke that this long-delayed 1987 horror film would finally get a DVD and Blu-ray release through Synapse Films after over a decade of legal issues to sort through. That release was intended for last year, but alas, it’s looking like the legal issues have continued and delayed any actual release indefinitely. The creature feature stars David Allen Brooks as a man who discovers he has a baby brother; or rather, a monstrous infant experiment created by his late mother. This one is a gory, slimy creature feature that isn’t on the same level as say, Aliens or The Fly, but still a fun entry that will hopefully get that updated release someday.
Necronomicon: Book of the Dead
You can find bootleg DVDs or international imports of this fantastic horror anthology, but stateside it’s currently trapped on VHS and awaiting a proper upgrade. It’s a shame too, because between Jeffrey Combs as H.P. Lovecraft (more like if Lovecraft was Indiana Jones), and Brian Yuzna’s affinity for ooey gooey, bloody special makeup effects, this anthology deserves a much bigger following than it has.
Spookies
On paper, the plot seems simple; a sorcerer attempts to sacrifice a group of trespassers so he can give their vitality to his dying wife. Yet what actually transpires is a lot more confusing and convoluted than that in this wacky, anything goes creature feature; nearly all of which has to do with the behind the scenes drama, which saw legal and creative issues causing all sorts of chaos and catastrophic fall out. Eventually, a new director was brought on to shoot additional scenes and piece together a movie from the already shot footage, resulting in a disjointed creature feature that’s never made it to DVD or Blu-ray. And may never.
Grim Prairie Tales
A horror western anthology featuring Brad Dourif and James Earl Jones in the wraparound segment? Yes, please. This 1990 release slipped onto home video with little to no fanfare and has remained in obscurity since. Like all anthologies, not every segment works. But it’s a fun, western kind of twist to something more in the vein of the Twilight Zone.
Dream Demon
Diana is on the cusp of getting married. Instead of traditional cold feet, she’s having terrifying nightmares of demons. But when she wakes, she’s discovering the demons might be escaping into her waking world. A surreal horror film in the same vein as Paperhouse, with a little Hellraiser and Inception thrown in for good measure, this obscure British horror film slipped through the cracks thanks to the bankruptcy of its distributor. A distributor that happened to be co-producer along with three other production companies, making for a super confusing rights ownership dilemma. So, this interesting entry in horror is likely to remain obscure.
Mister Frost
If you’re a regular reader, this entry shouldn’t surprise you. The 1990 supernatural thriller gives a devilish twist to the serial killer film. Jeff Goldblum delivers a chilling performance as Mr. Frost, the serial killer who turns himself in and causes trouble for the psychiatrist out to discover his true identity. Despite positive critical buzz, it didn’t make an impact at all at the box office and fell into anonymity. Mister Frost did receive a now out of print DVD release overseas, but stateside? It’s still as elusive as Mr. Frost himself.
Night Life
Scott Grimes is best recognized in the horror community for his role as plucky hero Brad in the first two Critters films, but he also battled the undead once in this underseen late ‘80s film. Here he plays Archie, a bullied high school nerd who works part-time at his uncle’s mortuary. When his bullies are killed in a car accident, they’re brought to his job, where a freak lightning storm resurrects them. They resume harassing poor Archie in this zombie-lite horror comedy. Night Life (aka Grave Misdemeanors, 1989) sticks to traditional tropes of its subgenre, but adds a fun ‘80s high school twist. It has also never gotten a proper release beyond VHS; save for some unofficial overseas DVDs you can find online.
The Keep
The good news is that this early ‘80s horror movie is easy enough to watch via digital rental. The bad news is that thanks to rights issues with Tangerine Dream’s score and writer/director Michael Mann’s disownment of the movie, it’s not going to be transferred to DVD or Blu-ray anytime soon. Boasting an all-star cast, The Keep sees Nazis taking refuge in an ancient keep, where they inadvertently free an old evil. Only a Jewish historian, his daughter, and an otherworldly stranger can help.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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