Who doesn’t love a fun home video gimmick?

On the shelves of your local video shop, horror movies were competing with one another for your attention in a way that will likely never again be replicated. The goal of every tape was to be the one that you took home and spent the night with, and that’s why the art that adorned the boxes of those vintage horror movies was so goddamn eye-catching and, well, totally awesome.

It wasn’t even uncommon for the art to have little to do with the actual movie!

Some companies went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to making an impression on the video store shelf, adding bells and whistles to their VHS boxes that made them stand out more than even the coolest piece of art ever could. Those are the VHS boxes we’re here to talk about today. The ones that dared to be different. The ones that made their own rules.

Here are some of the most unique horror VHS boxes of them all.

I’ve always found it incredibly amusing that two movies with the title Jack Frost were released in the late ’90s, just one year apart: horror movie Jack Frost went direct-to-video in November 1997, while family movie Jack Frost (starring Michael Keaton) arrived in theaters December 1998. I was just 11-years-old when the Jack Frost about a mutant killer snowman arrived at my local Blockbuster, and you could often find me playing around with the film’s lenticular VHS box, which allowed you to turn a happy-looking snowman into a full-blown winter nightmare.

Uncle Sam, also released in 1997, was given a similar lenticular box by A-Pix Entertainment.

The Rutger Hauer-starring creature feature Bleeders was released in 1997, the same year that DVD discs and players arrived in North America. Naturally, this was right around the time that VHS and VCR sales began to decline, leading to the eventual end of the format altogether. And maybe that’s why A-Pix went so above and beyond when it came to the VHS release of Bleeders, which essentially made every other movie on the shelf seem like a waste of a rental. A special VHS box for the film had a blood bag affixed to the front; to my knowledge, it was the first of its kind.

Over the years, films like Ichi the Killer have stolen the blood bag gimmick for DVD.

Fourteen years after voicing the title character in the beloved Rankin/Bass animated special “Frosty the Snowman,” actor Jackie Vernon played quite a different role in the horror film Microwave Massacre. Vernon starred as a cannibal who cooked up women in his wife’s new microwave, and the VHS release from Rhino Home Video played up that aspect in clever fashion. When you pressed the “ON” button on the microwave on front, the box would light up and buzz.

Arrow Video recently released the film on Blu-ray, but I think I’ll stick with VHS on this one.

Another film that added a push-button to its VHS box was 1990 horror-comedy Frankenhooker, released by Shapiro-Glickenhaus Home Video. Rather than lighting up, the box actually spoke the most iconic line of dialogue from the film (which was also its tagline): “Wanna Date?”

A 60th anniversary King Kong VHS had a similar feature: pushing the button made Kong roar.

When Imperial Home Entertainment released 1990’s Metamorphosis on VHS, it was equipped with what they dubbed “3D-Electronic Video Packaging!“… a fancy way of saying that the box both lit up and made sounds, with the push of a button. As you can see in the above demonstration, pressing a button on front lit up the man’s eyes and also made the box emit a sound that can best be described as “cheap Halloween decoration.” I say that as a compliment.

The previous year, Imperial Home Entertainment gave Dead Pit a similar treatment: with the push of a button, the eyes of a zombie on the front cover lit up green.

Holograms were all the rage back in the ’80s and ’90s, and Academy Entertainment had a lot of fun with the gimmick when they released Mirror Mirror in 1991. The film, centered on an antique mirror possessed by a demonic force, naturally had a mirror on the front cover; when you moved it around in your hands, a demon would holographically lunge out of the mirror. Too cool.

The above demonstration vids all come courtesy of our pals over on Lunchmeat.

I’ve saved the best for last.

Oddly enough, the sequel Fright Night: Part 2 is still unavailable on DVD and/or Blu-ray here in the States (the DVD release has been out of print for many years now), but it’s an unusual VHS release of the film that I’ve been most eager to get my hands on over the years. Over in Australia, Fright Night Part 2 was released in a clamshell box shaped like a coffin back in the day, and if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t expect to ever actually own it. I’ve searched here and there over the years and have never once found this incredibly rare release for sale on eBay. Sigh.

The 1985 film House was also released in a specially designed box: it was shaped like, well, a house, and it even lit up. The promotional box was never released to the public, however.

You can check that one out below.

Box art scans come from VHS Mate, head over and check out the full collection!