The Hunt: Day 10

No particularly notable tape stops today. But VHS Collecting Legend, Dan Kinem and I decided to stop and hang out in a cave for a bit.

After experiencing what life is like a mile beneath the earths surface, we proceeded to the first hip hop show I've ever attended. Kevin Gates.

And B.O.B

Not a fan of either artist but hip hop shows appear to be every bit as fun as I thought they'd be. I would love to go see a rapper I actually like in the near future.

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 9

We've been working our way up to a particular store for this entire trip thus far. A store with a supposed 50,000 tapes. The anticipation has been killing me. What hidden treasures could possibly be hidden with a store with such a massive selection?

I walk into the store to find tapes everywhere. Good tapes. Rare tapes. There was only one issue. THEY WERE ALL CUT!! Let's take a moment to talk about the evil that is the VHS cut box. Why do these exist? Who ever thought it was a great idea to invest into these tapes and completely ruin some of these beautiful covers? I've seen so many stores keep boxes in tact that it makes no logical sense to me that some stores saw it necessary to mutilate these cases. The worst is cut Big Boxes. Holy fucking Christ! It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about cut big boxes!

Some of the tapes at this particular store were originally big clam shell releases that for WHATEVER reason were cut down to size....AND THEN PUT INTO A BIG CLAM AGAIN!!! Explain that to me. I dare anyone to find the logic in that. I've seen some stupid things done to tapes but this has to be the peak.

Anyway, we were able to find several slipcase titles at the store that weren't cut and a couple of uncut clams. Among these was one of my wants, The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Another notable pickup being Death Spa (of course it was cut, but I still had to get it.) There were several tapes I could have picked up, but at $5 a piece I had to stop myself at 14.

The hunt is almost over. This was to be our biggest stop and I have mixed feelings about it. Regardless, good tapes and based on titles alone it was an incredible library. 

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 8

Another day that wasn't very good for tapes. But there are a couple of stops that were worth noting. The first being Dirty Dave's Flea Market. An absolute shithole of a flea market in the middle of nowhere. I found a moldy copy of Rad inside, which is a decently rare tape. I can clean the mold off at home. That wasn't what I'll remember about good ol' Dirty Dave's though. This market was filled with a ton of custom merchandise! Dirty Dave's tee shirts (For only $3 a piece), condoms, gauges, lighters, and who knows what the fuck else! 

Nearing the checkout counter at DD's, you'll come across a casket decorated with a machete! The casket reads "shoplifters end up here!" The machete read "This is for shoplifters" or something to that effect. Incredible level of redneckiness in full effect!

The next stop was a random ice cream, restaurant, cider store, wax museum place in none other than Chattahoochee National Forest. Great ice cream, great cider, weird wax figures everywhere. Nice!

Did I forget to mention this guy outside? 

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 7

Great day of hunting today! We started the day off by hitting an awesome video store in the middle of nowhere. Part discount grocery store, we found some cool titles and some big boxes!

This was supposed to be a picture of the shelves. I didn't even realize that it looks like it was taken by a chimpanzee with Tourette's syndrome. None of that matters though. THE QUEST IS COMPLETE!! This is the store where I finally found the elusive (but extremely common) treasure, House Party!!!! AFTER YEARS OF BLOOD, SWEAT, TEARS, AND DIGGING I'VE FINALLY  COMPLETED MY HOUSE PARTY SERIES!!

We made a few other stops and got a tape here and there before finally driving an hour and a half out of the way to get here. 

Some great stuff here as well. I came across a copy of the kinda rare Truth or Dare. I also completed my Deathstalker series as well. Nice stop, but at $2.50 a tape, money adds up quickly and I had to tap out at 14 tapes. 

Finished the day off by eating at a delicious pizza/Italian restaurant and then trashing out hotel room. 

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 6

Nothing happened.

The Hunt: Day 5

Started the day off with a bang! We hit up a dirty ass video store with thousands of tapes all over the place. I picked up 40 some tapes that I'm pretty stoked about at least than 50 cents a piece. 

I didn't find anything on my wishlist, but still a lot of awesome titles.

The rest of the day was a bust for tapes. We did, however succeed  as far as food is concerned. My first experience at Sonny's BBQ was flawless. And who coul forget Hip Hop Chicken?

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

House Party

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 4

Another day, more dissapointing stops. There really isn't much to talk about from a tape perspective for day 4. I picked up a few tapes from a closing Video Warehouse. Nothing to write home about.

The biggest highlight was probably stopping at Stinson's "World Famous" Bar-B-Que.

Ever heard of it? Yeah, it's not really world famous. Above average Bar-b-que, I'm sure I'll eat better on this hunt.

Checked into a hotel room that claimed to have wifi on the phone. We arrive to learn that not only is there no wifi, but we had just payed for one of the nastiest, cockroach infested rooms we had ever been in. I got a refund and we moved on to the Super 8, which for $10 more, was easily the best room of the trip thus far. We even got free breakfast. Solid deal. Finished the night up right by watching the James Cameron/Schwarzenegger classic, "True Lies". Life is good.

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

House Party

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 3

The Hotel we stayed at was conveniently minutes away from our next haul. An old man who had bought out a video store. Apparently he had over 5,000 tapes? He flip flopped several times on the phone before our meeting. At first, he had owned a store since 1979 and had yet to sell off any of his stock. By the time we had arrived, he he had bought out a store and had already sold 400 tapes to another collector. We suspect that we lost out on several rare titles because of this.

Nevertheless, I found several tapes that I wanted. The highlight being a copy of House Party 2! FINALLY! I GOT YOU! YOU ELUSIVE COMMON BASTARD!! I picked up around 30 tapes at around $2 a piece. I forgot to take pictures of my haul, but I remember completing my Critters series with 3 and 4, getting two more Jackie Chan big boxes, some horror titles I have never heard of (sick covers only), and a plethora of Ninja titles.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We stopped at an odd second hand junk store in the middle of nowhere. There were nothing but Christian tapes but look at this place! 

I have no idea what was really going on here, but it was pretty cool. I picked up a couple more ninja films at a video store/skate shop/thrift store just down the road. 

Besides those stops, the rest of the stores were either busts or closed. I had my first Hooters experience ever though. The waitresses didn't live up to the hype but I enjoyed my Buffalo chicken. Hooters should really step up their game on their hottest sauce. I got it on my sandwich and was relatively unphased. The hunt continues! I don't think anything major is going down tomorrow, but wish me luck. 

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

House Party

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Samurai Cop

Passed this in Myrtle Beach. How sick is that?

The Hunt: Day 2

Not too much to report for day 2. Most of the day was driving from destination to destination with no results at all. The lone stop that held any sort of promise was quickly dispelled by the owner of the store. 

After about a half day of driving we stopped at a Video Store that was going out of business. Unfortunately, most of their stock was brutally mutilated into cut boxes. There were still a few films I would have grabbed, but the owner was not willing to sell anything until Wednesday. When asked about pricing I heard "We're going to start them off at $15 a piece on Wednesday. I know we have some valuable tapes here." NOTHING worth that much was present and almost everything was cut!!!

The biggest heartbreak happened as we were about to leave. I spotted House Party 1 and 2. Neither were even cut! This may sound petty to most collectors since these tapes seem to be common to everyone else. These tapes seem to elude me no matter where I go! It was a bitter sweet moment to finally spot them in person yet not be able to purchase them. Good luck selling them for $15 lady. Ugh.

The rest of the day was closed down stores and empty porn shops. We power onward! 

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

House Party

House Party 2

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown 

Samurai Cop

The Hunt: Day 1

The hunt has begun! After a long overnight shift at work, I met up with my comrades and we hit the road immediately. Nothing really too exciting to report for day 1. We had a 9 hour drive to Oxford, North Carolina for a video store going out of business. 

This was my first time raiding a video store. There were some decent titles, but the owner wanted to charge a bit much for my liking. 

A couple of big boxes and some great looking Ninja titles are the highlight of this score. I was also stoked to find The Carpenter. I found a mold covered copy of it in an abandoned flea market and have been searching for a functional copy ever since. I also get to cross The Penitentiary off my goal list for this hunt. Not a terrible first experience raiding. I wish I could have bought more, but at the price I decided to save money for future stores.

Still Searching:

Deadly Prey

555

Woodchipper Massacre

House Party

House Party 2

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (Big Box)

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

The Town That Dreaded Sundown 

31 Days Of Horror Final Body Count

As many of the readers of this blog may have noticed, I have been keeping track of the amount of murder scenes in each film I watched this past month. I always do this each year and tally up the total body count at the end of the month. This year I set a goal of at least 200 deaths that I honestly didn't think I'd achieve. After watching multiple films with absolutely no murder scenes I still managed to barely squeek by and hit my goal. With a huge assist from Maniac Cop 2 I came to a final body count of 202!

One again I'd just like to thank the readers for giving this blog the time of day. I set another goal this year to get at least 400 pageviews by the end of the month. I honestly didn't think I'd make it but I actually exceeded it. 458 Pageviews in the month of October! Thank you so much. I'm going to continue to try and produce material for this blog and all the VHS collectors out there.

Next week I'm embarking on a week and a half long journey with a couple of VHS hunting comrades. We're going to be on the hunt for hidden treasures of the video world. I'm going to be keeping a journal on this blog of our adventures and our findings! Some of the posts may not have much to do with tapes and some will probably have everything to do with them. I'm going to chronicle the ups and downs of a VHS hunt. So I hope the readers will stay tuned for that. I'm looking forward to doing more written reviews in the future. I'll also be working diligently to start bringing you video reviews! Stay tuned.