There’s been a flood of articles about how Gen. Z (or whatever the latest Gen is) has embraced physical media in the age of streaming. While I enjoy it, hearing a kid brag how their collection is nearly 200 discs is so quaint. I only say that because I have the complete Gunsmoke and Bonanza boxsets which is 255 DVDs alone. I don’t even guess how many discs I’ve accumulated since I bought my first batch of DVDs (the original and improperly framed Stanley Kubrick boxset) arrived at my apartment from 800.com website (they threw in a bag of microwave popcorn in the box). The collection didn’t grow too fast since I still had to pay rent. Although during the early days of internet shopping, you could get amazing discounts (and no sales tax) so the mailman left boxes by my door often. Oddly enough, most of the companies I bought from went out of business when the .com bubble pop. The size of the collection grew faster when I got into reviewing DVDs for websites. I wasn’t paying cash when titles arrived at my door from UPS, FedEx and even DHL so excess was acceptable. You can see a majority of my work here. And for the most part, those reviewed discs are still in my collection (unless they were “borrowed”). VHS Resurrection – Tape Fiends Reborn is a double feature of documentaries by Tony Newton about people who fill walls with the movies they love.
Movie Hoarders: From VHS To DVD And Beyond (2021 – 130 minutes) isn’t about those people on Hoarders. Most of these folks have orderly collections on shelves and not dumped around the house. Chris Bergoch (who co-wrote The Florida Project with Sean Baker) talks about his frustration that there’s no DVD of his old show Warren The Ape. He like to put his projects on the shelf and you can’t do that with streaming. There is a discussion about minimalists who prefer the non-clutter of streaming versus home video collectors who might run out of space in their house. I admit this is my problem as my old bookshelves from the video section of Borders are not merely filled, but over stocked as I pile boxes on top of the rows. Luckily the Border shelves are made of a thick board and can handle it. I’ve destroyed 2 IKEA cabinets in the past. The streaming gets talked about in the sense of how it has changed over the decades from actual digital downloads to now access to the films. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman quickly recaps how streaming is controlled by major companies so your stuff can get blocked if it doesn’t fit their terms. Troma did much better on VHS and DVD in reaching an audience. Actor Josh Sussman gets into his VHS Disney collection which is cool since he ended up on The Wizards of Waverly Place on the Disney Channel. Most of the people are into horror.
The cool part of this documentary is quite a few people show off their favorite VHS, DVD and Blu-ray titles in their collection. There’s even a champion of laserdiscs. You will be staring at their shelves either saying, “I got that!” or “Where did they find it?” One person mentions how they keep a VHS tape sealed since that means the air from that era is trapped inside the cassette. There is discussion of how you should organize your physical media collection. Many split them up by genre or even distributor. Some insist on alphabetical. I have too many discs to even contemplate shifting things around to keep them alphabetical. As a collector, mine is done in an organizing system that is only known to my subconscious. This keeps people from quickly locating what they want and stealing them. They don’t outright steal them. They ask to borrow a title and forget to return them. Then they get into a nasty divorce and neither ex-partner swears they still have the disc.
VHS Love – Cult Cinema Obsession (2022 – 96 minutes) gets into people who can’t give up on the cassette format. The best is a guy who recreated VHS rental stores inside their house. He shows off two shelving units that came from his childhood rental store. In order to make them work in the space, he tore out a wall. That’s passion for a dream. The guy also has club cards with a free tape rental for frequent visitors. He wants to keep the videostore vibe alive. Most of the other collectors have large shelving units in their living rooms. Among the fanatics is Josh Schafer of Lunch Meat magazine. I met Josh when he was part of my nearby Alamo setting up the VHSfestival. I’m still renting discs from the VideoVortex Josh set up. A guy shares how as a kid, he feared he’d be killed in the horror section at Blockbuster video. That can happen.
If you approach Movie Hoarders: From VHS To DVD And Beyond and VHS Love – Cult Cinema Obsession as “documentaries,” you’ll probably complain about how people go on and on about their collections. But if you view the movies as a video podcast about people who enjoy collecting; it’s a fun viewing experience. You’ll want to share your own VHS memories. You might want to spiff up your shelving. If you are starting to collect, you’ll get an idea how to handle displaying and organizing your growing collection. Here’s a little pro tip to newbies: never loan out a tape or DVD or Blu-ray that you want to see back on the shelf. Tony Newton had brought together another deep dive into VHS (and home video) obsessives who won’t settle for streaming. This is a desirous follow up set to his VHS Maniacs – Volume 1.
The Video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. This was shot on video probably using different cameras so visual quality changes. The Audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. You’ll hear the screams on the horror video trailers. No Subtitles.
Trailers (6:21) has trailers for VHS Lives, VHS Lives 2, VHS Nasty, Direct To Video
VHS Hoarders (2022 – 158 minutes) is the longer cut of VHS Love – Cult Cinema Obsession.
Filmlandia presents VHS Resurrection: Tape Fiends Reborn. Directed by Tony Newton. Screenplay by Tony Newton. Featuring Lloyd Kaufman, Josh Schafer, Chris Bergoch and Josh Sussman. Boxset Contents: 2 movies on 2 DVDs. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: March 10, 2026.
