Be Kind, Rewind

Have you ever seen a drawing that, once you laid eyes upon it, you were certain it would kill you? That's how I feel about this fucking bear. In fact, this entire tape looks like some sort of warped cursed item from the shop in Needful Things, to be quite honest with you. This thing isn't appropriate for kids, this thing is barely appropriate for unborn fetuses. And they have the audacity, the sheer gall, to state you have a lifetime guarantee with this tape and their other products in the same line? This thing will kill you, that doesn't sound like a lifetime guarantee to me! For the record, I have nothing against educational tapes. Being a kid of the 90s, these sorts of things were a big deal, and hell, I watched a ton of PBS because it was educational and entertaining. But judging from the cover of this tape, and the covers of the (presumably) other tapes available on the back...this doesn't look educational or entertaining. It looks confusing and traumatizing if an...

It's not often something like "Night of the Strangler" would be the kindest title given to a film, but here we are. I'm not even kidding, you guys. You wanna know what some of the other titles for this film were? The Ace of Spaces, which sounds like a scifi movie, Dirty Dan or Dirty Dan's Woman, which sounds like a Western about a lone gunman hunting down a woman who did him wrong for revenge, Vengeance is Mine which is...just...so very vague and, quite possibly the worst of them all has to be Is The Father Black Enough? Because wow, that's just...that's a hell of a title. Even better than the title, however, is the tagline for it, which read thusly, "A racist wind blows the dust from a Black man's grave to choke the honkies to death!" Absolutely magnificent, honestly. The film is fairly poorly produced it seems, with boom mics being notably visible in multiple shots, and, even weirder, despite both a lyricist and vocalist being credited, abs...

For the holiday season, I bring you a gift. The #1 worst cover we've ever featured on the blog thusfar. This thing is a goddamned work of art, if I must say so myself. Back in freshman year of high school, which would've been 2005, I was able to pick an elective class, and the class I chose was computer based, wherein we would learn basic photoshop skills and such. This thing absolutely looks like the jumbled messes I would messily make and try to pass off as "actual covers" to the "actual books" I was "actually writing" at the time. I could give you an example if I really wanted to dig through my physical archives, scan and upload something, but alas, I still feel great shame, so I won't go to that much effort. You'll just have to take me at my word. This is a nightmare and a half though, and even I - budding young author and media creator I was - knew better than to ever name anything "the great shipwreck pandemonium" or some va...

Before Nazis became a regular fixture in our day to day lives again, we used to love using them as cinema fodder. Sadly, now looking back on our staples of bad b movies often makes us cringe because they're no longer funny mockeries of villains and instead actual people once again hurting everyone in the current day and age. That's really what's hurt the most from this influx of modern day Nazism, is that they're ruined Hitler as a comedy icon for the rest of time. Anyway, this time, we're looking back at yet another awful b horror movie, S.S. Experiment, or, as it's titled otherwise, "S.S. Experiment Love Camp" which might be the funniest fucking movie title I've ever heard bar none. I have to admit, the Jewish part of me is appalled at this artwork, but the lesbian part of me is in love with it. That's a pretty hot visual, not gonna lie, even if it is somewhat male gazey. I think, though, what bothers me the most about this artwork is how it...

In what looks like a scene of a creature from the depths of the ocean trying to seduce a woman, we have the cover for Island Claws, another VHS classic steeped in genetic experiments gone awry leading to the growth of what the back blurb only describes as "a man eating creature, beyond all parameters of science and evolution". But, like, it's a crab. Like look at the front cover artwork. That's a crab, my dude. I don't usually just jump right in like this, but I'm sorry, I will not let a movie try and purposefully mislead me into thinking there's something grotesque and monstrous in it, when even the movie itself shows me on the front cover what its creature actually is. It's a giant fucking crab. This is a truly basic cover design, so basic even that I'm not sure it warrants a discussion. There's not much of note outside of the fairly well done pencil sketching on the front. The single non contextual screenshot we're given on the back is n...

I'm gonna level with you guys right out the gate...this is the funniest fucking cover I've ever seen. That bear doesn't look frightening or intimidating in the slightest, if anything, he looks like he's happy go lucky and waving to goodbye to his new human friends with a big ol' grin on his face as he heads home for the night after their long day of human/bear woodland adventures together. This bear, this fucking bear? Downright ADORABLE, son. So Willard here - that's his name now, we're calling him Willard - is the star of a movie trying to capitalize off the success of Jaws. That would be evident even without the obvious rhyming name and the flat out admittance on the back blurb. And even if Willard was remotely frightening, which he so obviously isn't, is isn't like the guys on the back cover look very scared themselves. They look more mildly upset that they have to wait for this helicopter to land or they aren't getting better reception on th...

This is a hard one to be mad about, because, if we're being totally honest...I genuinely kinda love this. It's one of those "so ridiculous it's great" examples, because there's not really anything super outstanding or downright original about it, design wise, but it's also so out there that I can't help but appreciate it on multiple levels that even I, quite frankly, don't fully understand. The cover is what it is, an attractive young woman covered in blood - a visual that a demented horror loving lesbian like myself can't help but adore - and the back has her in short shorts and a hawaiin-esque shirt while brandishing a pistol, ready to smoke anyone who comes near her. Clearly, a woman after my own heart. She might eat that heart, but hey, that's the price you pay for love I guess. Then we've got the screenshots which, aside from the first and third, are pretty spectacular in and of themselves because for once, even outside of context ...