When Renting Isn't Enough! :Video Violence (1987)

Video Violence (1987)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Gary Schwartz, Chick Kaplan and Robin Leeds

Being raised in a Catholic country, I find it funny that I grew up a big horror fan despite my mother's overall concerns for little kid me. Still, it isn't without her trying as she did her best to limit my viewings, balancing the number of horror movies I watch with other forms of entertainment I occasionally call as palate cleansers. (Listening to music, drawing comics, reading comedian biographies, the usual) After all, you can't have too much of the good stuff, right? It ain't healthy.

Now, Gary P. Cohen, the man behind Video Violence (1987), got the idea for this underground cult fave while working as a video store clerk; he once saw a woman came to a video rental store with her toddler and asked if the film I Dismember Mama (1972) was rated R for nudity. He wasn't sure if the movie contained nudity, but he guessed it was probably rated R for graphic violence. The woman decided to rent the movie, saying that as long as there was no nudity it would be appropriate for her children to watch. Is this the kind of craziness I will be expecting from this film?

A married couple moves to a New York suburb to open a video rental store and notices that nearly all of the residents there are only interested on renting out slasher films and porn. After discovering that an unmarked returned tape have been swapped out with a homemade snuff film, our hubby and wife team desperately tries to crack the mystery of the tape when the cops failed to be any help.

Meanwhile, the townspeople, including anti-heroes Howard and Eli, continue their snuff hobbies as they pick off and mutilate lost travelers, recording it all for their viewing pleasure. When more tapes fall on the couple's interest, it's only a matter of time before their snooping would lead them to trouble.

On a technical aspect, Video Violence have everything one would expect from a shot-on-video title, but what it owes in surviving the video market is its unique plot: I'm quite impressed with the effort done by its producers as not only was this movie clearly made for fun, it also plays a satirical look at our need for, well, video violence. There's clearly a mean-spirited tone here but it's played with enough overacting and bizarre nature that it's humorous in the oddest sense. Heck, even the movie's theme is hilarious! (Why do I picture a basketball game in slow-mo every time I listen to it?)

While it does have shoddy effects and editing, the camera work and lighting are handled well enough to look even a bit professional, which is a good thing since the film's main highlight, the gore effects, were pretty sick for its time! Some gruesome highlights include pre-Hostel (2005) situations that have the two snuff masters torturing and dismembering their victims with nasty machete kills and ice pick stabbings. It's a lot of gnarly stuff, though the cheesiness does feel like a blessing-in-disguise as the silly nature does help Video Violence (1987) set itself apart from all the other mindless, overcooked piece of horror meat.

With the air of the 80s under its wing, Video Violence (1987) is an outstanding piece of cheapie that done right its worth. Bargain-counter at all cost, but a messy fun satire of our love for violence with enough nods and winks at us slasher fanatic. Horror nostalgia for the VHS rental era of the late 80s!

Bodycount:
1 female beaten to death with baseball bat
1 male had his head chopped with machete
1 body seen in plastic bag
1 female stabbed with ice pick
1 male strangled
1 female stabbed on the neck with knife
1 female poisoned, head chopped off with electric knife
1 male poisoned, mutilated with deli slicer
1 female seen with her leg being chopped with machete
1 female gutted with dagger
1 male seen with his face split open
1 female seen with stab wounds
Total: 12