Be Kind, Rewind

You know, you'd think after doing this blog as long as I have been that I'd have seen the bottom of the barrel, but every now and then something comes along that proves the barrel is even deeper than we originally thought, and this weeks movie, "Mindstalk", really hammers that point home, I think. "A nightmare come true" , buddy you couldn't be more right. That tagline sums up the feeling I get from laying eyes on this visual abortion as much as anything could. Released by Palace Explosive VHS, an apparently well known company that actually had a fairly unique and cohesive style of box art through their tenure, this thing is anything but unique or cohesive. In fact, this is a rather unique post because for perhaps the first time in the history of this blog, there aren't any variants that I could find. But perhaps that's because it goes by a completely different name altogether, "Murderous Intent". Released in 1985, the film is about ...

You know, any movie that just sticks a generic title on it - whether or not the movie is excellent or terrible - deserves to be mocked. You really couldn't come up with anything better than "The Great Alligator"? I know it's also titled just "Alligator", but that's even more boring. At least with the "great" in there you have the hope he might be an alligator who's also a magician or something. Just the singular addition of that word immediately opens up a whole world of possibilities! What a fantastic idea, actually, an alligator magician. Claims he can make you disappear and then fucking eats you. This is yet another Gorgon release, and I have to say, this is awful. Again, their logo is the best part. The font is so-so and could work in another piece, but here it just...it doesn't do anything for the box design. It doesn't subtract anything either, don't get me wrong. It's absolutely unintrusive, which sometimes can be a g...

Man, what is it with low budget flicks and chopping up then devouring women? I swear to god, how many times have we covered some variant of this concept on this blog thusfar? It's a genre unto itself, at this point, I reckon. Whether we're talking about The Mad Butcher or Crazy Fat Ethel 2 , it's pretty common for cannibalism and murder to go hand in hand in a sub genre all its own, but this is getting ridiculous. At least this time around it's more comedic than just comically bad, which I guess is a step up in the same way that getting punched in the dick is a step up from getting kicked in the dick. One hurts less than the other, I assume. Either way, we have some excellent cover work for a change, despite being tied to a movie called Microwave Massacre which sounds like something a group of college kids would come up with after their 4th joint on a Saturday night. And that isn't an insult, for the record, I think it's hilarious, and the art is tremendous. No...

Despite the master effects work by genius Tom Savini, this movie doesn't sound all that great, and the box art doesn't do much to lend it credibility either. Though, I think we can all easily agree the absolute best part of this box is the Gorgon Video logo. What an absolutely killer, kick-ass logo and company name, right? I sincerely hope they're still around in some capacity. One of the major problems with VHS dwindling into the night, and now DVD doing somewhat the same, and everything going digital, is we no longer have these bizarre mom and pop corporations with rad out of this world logos and names. I miss that. I miss the strangeness of it all. But hey, we're not here to discuss my growing resentment for a once beloved industry I've watched waste away into digital nothingness, we're here to discuss bad box art, and this one is pretty rough. Arguably at first glance it's clearly not that terrible, until you actually take a look at what the visuals are....