‘VHS Forever’ and the Transformative Power of Tech and Entertainment

In March, the Criterion Channel, the premier streaming service for the best and most interesting movies, is offering “VHS Forever.” It features a series of films that celebrate the 1980s era of the videotape. “Fifty years ago,” the promotional copy reads,

the introduction of VHS to the consumer market revolutionized the way people watched movies, bringing classics, the latest hits, obscure cult favorites, underground bootlegs, and disreputable marginalia alike into their homes with hitherto unimaginable convenience.

Criterion is offering “a panoramic meta-history of the distinctively grainy, static-flecked medium that forever altered our relationship to the moving image.”

While featuring some great films—Videodrome (1983), Body Double (1984), 52 Pick-Up (1986), and more—Criterion has missed a great opportunity here. “VHS Forever” is the perfect forum to feature Chuck Norris vs Communism. This 2015 documentary explores how, during the last two decades of the Cold War, there was a black market for American films smuggled into the communist countries. These films were smuggled in on VHS format, which was compact and easy to hide.

The film, which boasts a perfect 100 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, might even inspire up-and-coming filmmakers to challenge left-wing systems in the West.