The Best VHS Cover Artwork

[LordGraal]

now thats an 80s VHS cover!

It really is one of the best.  The sword and sorcery genre had some great ones.

[LordGraal]

IRON MASTER is probably the worst Umberto Lenzi film I've seen. he's made some stuff I love though, like...

Not heard of that one - nice cover though 

The mid-to-late 90s were a golden era for trashy movies on cheap VHS tapes. It was a buyers' market immediately before and then at the dawn of DVDs. Video tapes were still getting mass produced from all over the place but demand had dropped and you could get used and new tapes of wild, bizarre stuff for under $5 just about every damn place you walked into... gas stations... thrift stores... department stores... and if some place was going out of business, they'd practically give VHS tapes away... I bought lots of movies for $0.99 or less in that decade and the early 00s... sigh.......  Still have most of 'em in my attic, too.

It was similar in the UK.  I owned as many Italian sci-fi, fantasy, adventure and war rip-offs as possible on VHS via video stores or street markets.  Just having them displayed on a shelf was enough.

[zombie no.one]

Not heard of that one - nice cover though 

very cheesy slasher fun... one of the 5 movies Lenzi directed in 1989! - it has some scenes from the same random wet t-shirt competition we see in one of his other 89 films HITCHER IN THE DARK (although they're different scenes, not re-used footage.)

[LordGraal]

Codename Wildgeese.  What on Earth was Lewis Collins thinking?  Money, I guess.

Great cover though.

[M.10rda]

Codename Wildgeese.  What on Earth was Lewis Collins thinking?  Money, I guess.

Ouch! Touche... I don't have any grudge against Lewis Collins (I believe I've only seen him in one movie, and it wasn't CODENAME: WILDGEESE) but if someone asked me to headline a movie starring Ernest Borgnine, Klaus Kinski, and Lee Van Cleef, I know what I'd be thinking....... who do I sleep with to get that sweet gig?!?!?! 

[LordGraal]

Codename Wildgeese.  What on Earth was Lewis Collins thinking?  Money, I guess.

Ouch! Touche... I don't have any grudge against Lewis Collins (I believe I've only seen him in one movie, and it wasn't CODENAME: WILDGEESE) but if someone asked me to headline a movie starring Ernest Borgnine, Klaus Kinski, and Lee Van Cleef, I know what I'd be thinking....... who do I sleep with to get that sweet gig?!?!?! 

I'd sack my agent if I wanted a half decent acting career  .  It was a long way back after featuring in Italian or other Euro movies back then.

"I gotta do f*****g I-talian goddamn movies, that's the problem!"

[M.10rda]

Pure snobbery, I say! I mean, yeah, you're right, it wasn't as prestigious as some A-list Hollywood project. But so many cool native-English-speaking actors did it that it's not like Lewis was in a tiny shameful minority or something. And based on all the old Shock Cinema interviews I read in HS and college, it seems like most folks who took the Roma money ended up remembering their experiences fondly, as "nice vacations" etc....... even if the movies they worked on might not be among their best.

[LordGraal]

Pure snobbery, I say! I mean, yeah, you're right, it wasn't as prestigious as some A-list Hollywood project. But so many cool native-English-speaking actors did it that it's not like Lewis was in a tiny shameful minority or something. And based on all the old Shock Cinema interviews I read in HS and college, it seems like most folks who took the Roma money ended up remembering their experiences fondly, as "nice vacations" etc....... even if the movies they worked on might not be among their best.

I was very surprised that Collins made them.  I can't think of many British actors who went to Italy when they were rolling out the rip-offs.  Caroline Munro and Christopher Plummer did Starcrash.  Ian McCulloch made 3 films.  I can't think of others at the moment.

Anyway - Atlantis Interceptors!  A strange mix of styles in this film - Mad Max, Escape from New York, war films and sci-fi.

[M.10rda]

I realize it's a totally different topic and thread, but British actors in Italian schlock/rip-offs...
Richard Harris!
David Hemmings
David Warbeck just moved to Italy and stayed their happily for years...

[LordGraal]

The Sword of the Barbarians (1982)

Another heavy metal cover 

[LordGraal]

Terrible film but a great cover.

[Dr. Whom]

Terrible film but a great cover.

That cover oversells it enormously

[Trevor]

Terrible film but a great cover.

That cover oversells it enormously

😀😄

[Trevor]

The actual movie does not feature a human hand with a cat's head attached to it.  Shame, because I would totally watch a movie where the monster was a human hand with a cat's head attached to it that went around killing people.

South African connection in that movie 😊🇿🇦

[LordGraal]

The closest I could find to the UK VHS cover - I remember the case being fold out cardboard.  Actually watched it at the cinema and the projector broke down.  There are a few good effects shots but overall I apologise to my family for putting them through it.