All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
"Take the stairs, take the stairs, for God's sake take the stairs!" So reads the breathless tagline for 1985's psychotic elevator thriller The Lift. It's one of nearly 200 cheesy movies whose over-the-top videotape box art is documented for the ages in Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box, Vol. 1.
Compiled by Portland, Oregon-based trash cinema expert Jacque Boyreau, Portable Grindhouse honors the pulp video era that inspired Quentin Tarantino. Before DVDs took over home entertainment, laughably cornball flicks like the science-fiction non-classic Slithis (pictured) tried to grab customers with lurid VHS graphics and titillating taglines.
"Video stores acted as sleazy libraries where judging a book by its cover was de rigueur," Boyreau writes in the $20 book, published Wednesday by Fantagraphics Books.
From the pages of* Grindhouse*, here's a checklist of VHS titles from the 1970s and '80s -- with their dorky slogans:
Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity: Sherlock Holmes never wore outfits like this (pictured above).
The Legend of the Wolf Woman: A true story so brutal it was kept from the public for over a century!
The Witching: Is she father ... mother ... friend ... warlock ... or insane?
The Bronx Warriors: The first to die were the lucky ones!
Alien Massacre: A band of bloodthirsty mutants attack a father-daughter scientific team and force them to flee into a twisted time warp tunnel.
The Toolbox Murders: Bit by bit ... by bit he carved a nightmare.
__Brain of Blood:__The politician's brain is implanted into the body of the deformed village idiot.
Eyeball: A tale of blinding horror.
Drive-In Massacre: A film you will love ... if it doesn't kill you!
Man From Deep River: Where adventure ends ... and Hell begins!
Mad Doctor of Blood Island: No waiting, no appointment ... no escape!
What's the dorkiest grindhouse flick you remember seeing? Name your favorite, in the comments below.
Follow us on Twitter: @hughhart and @theunderwire.
See Also:
