In the early 80s two movies were released that attempted to showcase and sort of dissect contemporary horror movies. Today this might seem strange to you kiddies, after all horror movies have been around since your parents were small children, telephones were still bolted to the walls of houses, cars were actually made out of metal, and the early 80s equivalent to email was a thing Hunter S. Thompson called a Mojo.
Yes the world is much different place now than it was, and movies, horror movies in-particular are no exception. So here are two horror movies that were quite entertaining in their own way, yet did almost nothing to create original content. They simply took excerpts from all the popular, and sometimes not so popular, films from previous years, threw in a connecting arc (one a move theater, the other a video store) and off they went.
Terror on Tape
Released in 1983 and classified as a documentary (that’s a stretch) the story, if memory serves, is about random people who go into a video store looking for a movie to rent and end up being exposed to various clips by the wacky and insane clerk.
Note for those born after 1990 – at one time people actually had to go into a store and browse through the selection when renting a movie. Don’t understand? It’s like Redbox only there isn’t a box, nothing is red, and there were no such thing a touch screens.
Anyway…check out the picture above for the list of movies included in the compilation, oh sorry I mean’t to say documentary.
- Suicide Cult
- Alien Prey
- Frozen Scream
- Nightmare
- Scalps
- The Slayer
- Eerie Midnight Horror Show
- Cathy’s Curse
- Return of the Aliens Deadly Spawn (Awesome film!)
- City of the Walking Dead
- Color Me Blood Read
- 2000 Maniacs
- Blood Feast
- Vampire Hookers
- Madhouse Mansion
- Bloodtide
- To the Devil, A Daughter
and many many more…
Terror in the Aisles
This movie was released in 1984 and it’s pretty clear the filmmakers saw Terror on Tape and realized they could make a much better film in the same style with almost no effort whatsoever.
The first thing they did was hire some actual talent in Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen. Not sure? Try Prince of Darkness, Halloween (the one Rob Zombie’s Halloween is based on) and Robocop. Oh and if you haven’t seen the shower scene in Dressed to Kill, you haven’t seen Nancy Allen.
The movies used to compile the clips on this one are much better films, more widely known, and the arc story actually tries to emulate a documentary style.
Movies included are:
- Halloween
- Cat People
- The Fog
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Night of the Living Dead
- Psycho
- Jaws
- Jaws II
- The Brood
- The Fury
- Christine
and a whole lot more.
It also has one of my favorite quotes of all time,
“Don’t drop the knife…asshole.” 
Hard to find both films. VHS copies still exist in some strange out of the way corner of the world, and Terror in the Aisles is available on DVD, though out of print. So good luck, but it’s worth seeing them if you get an opportunity.
