Then I joined Columbia House and picked up some of their VHS "Collector's Editions" of stuff like The Twilight Zone, The Monkees, The World of Sid and Marty Krofft, and The Flintstones. Then movies like The Shining and Alien crept into my little collection. Until this time, I had only been recording and saving movies off TV, but at this point I felt like this was becoming a new past-time. Or obsession. But I didn't know that then.
Silent sci-fi classic Metropolis (1927) was among
my first purchases for my videotape collection
Just a couple of years later, I met a fellow movie fan, actually a huge horror movie fan, to be more precise. I had already built a modest set of films, largely populated by stuff from the sci-fi and horror genres. This guy directed me toward even more, and better, movies from the past. That was when I really got serious. This was the late 90's, when the internet was becoming a much more usable and valuable tool for shopping and research. So I started to dig back in time for films of both renown and obscurity. And that's where the fun really began. My buddy and I took turns hosting monthly horror movie nights, where we'd fire up the nachos and beer and stay up 'til all hours of the night watching fright flicks. Terrific fun!
As I slid into the 2000's, I saw that the clunky VHS medium was on its deathbed. I began buying DVDs of my favourite movies, gradually selling off my videotapes. But I still had a long way to go if I was to replace every tape - I owned several hundred by this time. I did my best, shopping around town and ordering off the internet. I even purchased hard-to-find DVDs from foreign countries, which required that I set myself up with a multi-region DVD player. No problem. I also invested in the Universal Monsters Legacy Collection, nice sets that covered all the main milestones, like the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Creature From the Black Lagoon series. This satisfied my love of the old horror classics.
Once bitten by the Hammer Films bug (or bat), I scoured
the planet for VHS horror treats like Kiss of the Vampire
Then a couple of years ago, I acquired a VHS-to-DVD recorder. That was handy for recording uncut movies off TV onto DVD, still a great source for some things that weren't even available for home video yet. I also got busy with the enormous task of transferring my tape collection to DVD. Sometimes I'd spend whole evenings, even whole weekends, on the conversion work. The process made me look long and hard at my collection; did I really want to keep all of those movies? Were they all worth the time and effort? The answer was: almost all, but not quite.
My now much larger DVD library was bursting at the seams. But I wasn't entirely happy with some of the transferred versions; they were only as good as the tape source, which was often un-remastered and un-restored... AKA grainy, dirty and noisy. Sometimes a new DVD edition, all slick and cleaned up in both the audio and video departments, came along. But...
I've yet to upgrade to Blu-ray on this title, but for now
this tape (and its VHS-to-DVD transfer) of the 1922
gem Nosferatu tape will have to do
Enter the Blu-ray. I held off on this format for a while, at least until prices became so low that there was no arguing the point. Even a player became an inexpensive addition to my system. Most of my first Blu-rays have been replacements for those spotty DVD transfers, but I've also aimed to pick up movies I've never owned before, both old and new releases.
I'm pleased with my little - but growing - Blu-ray collection, but I continue to trim the fat from my DVD library. Some of those dubbed DVDs just weren't cutting it on my new flatscreen TV so... out they went. I gave some away and tossed the rest. Not a difficult process.
But yesterday I took an even bigger step: I brutally tore through my old VHS tape collection and posted an ad to sell the bulk of the movies. I hung onto just a few, which actually command a pretty high price, even in used condition, on the market. If those "collectibles" ever sell, great, but if not, I'd like to keep those few around for my Time Capsule of old technology... along with a few vinyl records, 8-track tapes, and audio cassettes.
It's a good feeling to clear out "junk" that hogs space in my home, that I haven't touched in years. It's also a little sad parting with the things that were my first acquisitions as I built up a serious hobby. But hey, at least I've now got cleaner versions of those oldies on video disc. And I will hang onto the DVDs and Blu-rays for as long as possible, because once the future Skynet falls and the streaming and digital movies go kaput, I'll still have my physical copies with me in my little bunker (power generator included).
It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958) may not be
as famous as it 'ought to be, but it is actually extremely
similar to Alien, released a couple of decades later
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