Virtual Fools

I’m not much for collecting video games, political memorabilia, rare fungi, or stamps. While I’d like to be one of those people with absolutely no impulse toward collecting, I’ve definitely got my soft-spots. One of my “Achilles heels” is the hoarding of DVDs. Though dismissed by many in this age of omnipotent streaming, upscale Blu-Ray, and mobile everything, there remains something comforting about having a physical library for reference. Since my work involves visiting and revisiting films, with sometimes alarming regularity, it really helps to have things on hand, either for considered scrutiny or, in the lighter moments, pure enjoyment. I don’t own inordinate amounts of clothes, a diverse selection of cookie jars (see 30 Rock) or an alphabetized spice rack. But I do have metric boatloads of Digital Versatile Discs (and books–but that is a different matter for a different post).

When you really get to know a field, author, filmmaker, artist, or subject, you begin to notice patterns, begin to piece together details that at first may not make sense. Ten years of buying (and frequently reselling, sometimes at a considerable profit) DVDs made me notice trends in who was publishing and distributing which films. Sure, there are well-known holdings–most frequent TCM viewers can probably rattle off all of the pre-1950 studios for which the network owns broadcasting rights–but other arrangements escape ready understanding. Several years ago, I noticed that the company once resolutely known as “Anchor Bay Entertainment,” who had started out in the VHS era but had attained critical mass in the middle of the past decade, was regularly publishing idiosyncratic films from a variety filmmakers who often made their work under independent circumstances. They have since been swallowed up by Starz and tend to release mediocre fare that seems direct-to-video or otherwise poorly received. Genre director William Lustig, who was behind many of their best releases, jumped ship for Blue Underground, a “boutique” label who now own many of the best properties once tended by Anchor Bay. In its heyday, filmmakers like George A. Romero, Alex Cox, and Michael Nesmith had licensed their work to ABE. Though ABE had licensed some titles in the early part of the decade from major studios (namely MGM), they also handled titles by “mini-majors” who had disappeared at some point in the 1980s or 1990s, such as Vestron Pictures and New World Pictures (one of Corman’s companies, before New Concorde). They had released many, many 1980s horror films, plenty of art pictures (most importantly, Werner Herzog’s celebrated films of the 1970s), and tons of (s)exploitation (anybody wondered who owned the DVD rights to H.O.T.S. [1979]?) In short, nearly everything that they’d released was at the very least interesting. Most of it had flown under the radar, and just about all of it appealed to my “obscure treasure-hunter” impulse. The chase was on.

Once DVD came to maturity as a format–without looking at any statistics, I’d guess that its ascendant years were 2004/2005, before the new formats had widely debuted and before the economy totally tanked–it became clear that publishers would have to find interesting ways to market, or just plain unload, their back catalogs. While the most common tactic today seems to be to dump product to wholesalers (for example, MGM has needed cash for years, and has been hemorrhaging DVDs to companies like Big Lots, who turn around and sell them for $3 a pop), some companies have done well with repackaging. To this end, I think that Anchor Bay Entertainment was really on to something with their “Fright Packs.”

In Fall 2005, they released “Fright Packs,” which their promotional materials describe as: “Unique, Eye-Catching 6-Pack Foil Packaging & Convenient Carry Case Makes Fright Packs a GREAT IMPULSE BUY!” I can vividly remember ordering the “Walking Dead” set (pictured above with City of the Living Dead [1983], Nightmare City [1983], and The House by the Cemetery [1981] facing out) at launch, intrigued by the value, strangeness of the films, and hilarious packaging. As someone who counts beer and horror films among their top passions, this was it–this was how it was supposed to be done. The discs themselves were individually sealed and had been originally minted a few years prior. It became clear to me that the company was trying to find something to do with what seemed to be a warehouse’s worth of obscure and semi-obscure horror films. I was happy to help them out.

Cut to a few weeks ago. With the end of school either in sight, I was taking a break from the writing of papers with a quick trip to a second-hand book/DVD store. Behind the check-out counter, next to some of their bigger-ticket items (oversize Taschen books which cost nearly $200, CD boxed-sets, etc.) was a strange little cooler with the Anchor Bay logo on top. I asked to look into it, and it turned out that it housed the only “Fright Pack” I didn’t previously own, “Campy Classics,” probably the least thematically specific of the sets and the only one that is still easy to find in-print. The set was nice to have, but what really blew my mind was the cooler. This, it turned out, was a promotional set given out to retailers with information about the product line.

The set itself was still sealed. Beneath it was a little packet of Beer Nuts (I’m sure they’ve putrefied, but I’ll leave them sealed) and a promotional flier discussing the products. It explains “pre-book” information and contains bar-codes. As a former video store employee, I can recall some “cool” promotional items (the video game industry always seemed to do it better), but this pretty much tops the charts for the DVD format.