Extreme music enjoys the company of bad cinema. If you find yourself with a bit of free time before your next can’t-miss show, head over to the festival movie theater, where the VHS Hell crew will be screening films that will change everything forever.
VHS Hell is a series of film events that showcase the low-budget and wonderfully awful genre films that once lined the bottom shelves of video rental stores: movies so bad they’re good. The special Mystic Festival 2022 edition of VHS Hell features the following lineup:
The Return of the Living Dead, directed by Dan O’Bannon, 1985, 91 min.
The movie that, in the 1980s, put the final nail in the coffin of the lurching zombie, stiffened by rigor mortis, was The Return of the Living Dead, directed by Dan O’Bannon, the legendary screenwriter behind Alien. Forget about the languid un-dead that can be dropped with a headshot: These zombies run and talk, aren’t afraid of decapitation, and will do everything to sink their teeth into your brain.
The Return of the Living Dead stars two warehouse employees who face off against crazed zombies which they accidentally reanimate when they release a toxic gas into a morgue, and also features a group of punks partying at the local graveyard. The end result is a horror flick that oozes with blood, gore, and humor, and bears the distinction of containing the only cemetery strip scene in the history of cinema.
Brain Damage, directed by Frank Henenlotter, 1988, 84 min.
Brian, a young man living in New York City, discovers a weird creature known as Aylmer living on his neck. The parasite can induce a euphoric state in its host by secreting a mysterious substance directly into his brain. However, this comes with certain unpleasant consequences. For one thing, Aylmer must devour the brains of random people, and he uses Brian to procure victims. The other problem? The parasite looks like a cross between a degenerate Muppet and a mutated penis.
Brain Damage was created by Frank Henenlotter, the filmmaker behind Basket Case and Frankenhooker, the unrivaled king of low-budget, tasteless cinema. The film was shot at the peak of Henenlotter’s career, so get ready for an unrivaled comedy-horror movie that looks kind of like the cursed bastard of David Cronenberg’s filmography.
Breeders, directed by Tim Kincaid, 1986, 77 min.
Tim Kincaid directed his science fiction movies during breaks between gay porn shoots. His movies, which include Mutant Hunt, Robot Holocaust, and Breeders, have won a cult following among fans of bad films.
Breeders is the story of five girls from Manhattan who are raped by a mysterious assailant. The police suspect the crime was committed by a serial rapist, but we soon learn the perpetrator is actually an alien from outer space. As you’ve probably figured out by now, this is one of the worst movies ever made. If the Lumière brothers could see what Kincaid did with their wonderful invention, they’d probably slit their wrists.
Black Roses, directed by John Fasano, 1988, 90 minutes (with live Polish voice-over)
Every once in a while, an image will go viral on the Internet depicting a flyer or poster that claims metal and rock’n’roll are the music of the devil and can lead to demonic possession. Well, we have some bad news: Black Roses reveals that the televangelists were right all along!
The titular Black Roses are band that pulls into a small American town to play a concert for a crowd of local high school students, amid protests from their parents and teachers. The encounter with the popular metal group turns the teenagers into servants of the devil, transforming the sleepy town in a battleground between parents and rubber monsters from hell.
