Video Nasty by Alpha Chrome Yayo
VHS has been a huge part of my life since I can remember.
My first memory is of watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure on video cassette, and it had a huge effect on me. As I grew up, the local video rental became my sanctuary. I would look forward to going all week, and with much cajoling my parents would bring me on a Friday and very patiently wait while I pored over the aisles of tapes. I can smell it now, even though the place closed down fifteen years ago.
Horror tapes became my true passion, the gorier the better. Lurid-looking imports from Italy and beyond, gruesome slashers from ‘80s Hollywood, all great. Fulci, Bava, Raimi, Ferrara, I loved ‘em all. I still do. The sound of these things too, like nothing I’d ever heard before. Squelching basses and shrieking synths, tailor-made to warp your mind.
And it’s not just the movies either, it’s video itself. Cassettes have a tangibility, a tactility that downloads and discs don’t. They have moving parts, they have mechanics - they have guts.
VIDEO NASTY is my ode to these tapes.
