Videoshit

Press Play video. Formerly South Essex Video, but that was 10 years ago. The sign, scrawled on the outside, on curling neon card reads: ‘3 for 3: 3 videos 3 pounds for 3 nights, ask in store for details’ what more can possibly be explained? I look to see who’s on duty. Good, it’s Lee. He won’t hassle me about my fine. When I tell him my number, he’ll type it in and it’ll beep. I hate that fucking beep. The system turns the screw. Standing in line, they all know you owe money. It should be more discrete – a hand signal from Lee and an acknowledgement from me. Men of the world. I’m not paying tonight. There’s something between us, anyway. He’s been working there since I was 11, so he’s fucked in other ways. So what if I owe money? Lee is a lean motherfucker. Everything I know about him consists of ten years of overheard whispers. In my tiny world, Lee has too much space. I once heard him claim he had an Olympic cross country time. Finally, however, in the hierarchy of my imaginings, he bows down to Marc, the boss. Or so I thought. Marc is a shrewd Mauritius businessman. In many ways a great ambassador for the tiny Island of poker players. However, even Marc (who is fond of humiliating me about my lack of money, knowing I’ll always return with my tail between my legs, squeezing the box of Innerspace for moral support), yes even Marc bows to the big boss, his wife. One day, a cool breeze blew across the store as this Karen Brady-type sexless pioneer laid down the law to her quaking husband: ‘This is my shop and we’ll run it my way – DVD’s!’

Things have never been the same. Lesser employees have been Koski (on a sojourn from his destiny as the head of the family’s Kebab empire) and Sharon, whose R&B mix tapes of Jodeci and TLC are sorely missed. I think she had a Klingon boyfriend who abused her. And of course Emma, whom I was attracted to when I (and she) were young and innocent in the park. But she ages at twice my rate and has since turned to dust. Anyway, when it beeps, it’s actually not my number. I share it with a friend. I’ve been doing it for so long, they’re confused. Misdirection. They don’t understand our relationship. It is complex, admittedly. It’s not even my friend’s number. It’s his half sister’s from about 14 years ago. I once ran up a huge fine. It was 53 pounds on Fifa 95 and Best of the Best. Fifa had Peter Schmeichel on the cover. I was so lazy. Press Play is about 7 minutes walk from my house but I kept it for three months because after a week I was gripped with fear about returning it so late. Eventually they created a second account that I was to repay. But they’ve forgotten about that, too. Don’t they even care? Anyway, if they ever go after it, Alice During (now of Washington D.C) will get a nasty surprise.

Barely alive

I enter the building, take in the air and wander over to the new releases. I’ve already lost interest. There’s nothing out there for me now. I’m nothing. It’s me, not them. Other people are happy. I slowly take my inevitable, invisible route, on the blind side of the counter to the ever diminishing section of old and largely unrented selection of videos. So much has been lost but there is still so much to enjoy. The cover that first draws my eye, of course, is Hellraiser. My fear of the Chinese, rationalized. Pinhead is a great man. A man of ideas. The cover is faded, like Pinhead’s empire of pleasure and pain. It’s our loss. And Unkle Frank’s. Many other Hellraisers pop up but I won’t describe them. The other titles arranged nearby, an ancient display of some kind, are so distant that I fear either they or I are becoming less real. Candyman (Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman!) and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (fun while it lasted, huh?), the absence of Candyman 3 is suspicious though; Nightbreed (pah!); The cover of Demon 3 (I don’t think 1 & 2 were ever officially made, making it the first and last in the trilogy) proclaims that ‘Angela is up to her old tricks again’. I move on, with the eye-glide, unable to face up to my past. I look over to Lee and the tagline to Hellraiser rings ever truer: ‘To some he’s a demon, to others an angel’. Oh, Lee. The horror section holds some real beauties. The Child’s Play series in full force. Brad Dourif perfectly understanding the demands of the role: a prescient, eternal impishness that was effortlessly matched by groundbreaking puppetronics. The prominence of reds, blacks and lurid greens stir pornographic excitement before I even read the labels. What optical witchery is this? I already feel the mutilating desire that even now, as I’m holding back, seems the worst decision of my life. Leprechaun is a truly evil little piece of shit. The elegant tagline, ‘Your luck just run out’, may well refer to the act of renting the film. It is a really menacing creation. I wouldn’t recommend Leprechaun 2 (‘This time luck has nothing to do with it’) or number 3 (‘Welcome To Vegas... The Odds Are You Won't Leave Alive!’) but Leprechaun 4: In Space, is a natural arc for the series (‘One small step for man. One giant leap of Terror!’) all written and directed by Mark Jones and Brian Trenchard-Smith, a man obviously enchanted by the universal fear of the Irish. But Leprechaun 5: Back 2 tha Hood (‘Evil has a whole new rap!’) has everything (Racism and murder) Steven Ayromlooi (Return of the Sun devil) takes over the reigns of this tiny franchise with inestimable effect. The connectedness of life presses down on me as I spy Mark Jones’ Rumplestiltskin, practically the same as the Leprechaun character but somehow a bit nastier. I hate midgets. I feel sick as I fondle the case of Monkey Shines, that quadriplegic nightmare. Nightmare on Elm Street glistens like the light of life itself. All the sequels are present except the all too samey numbers 4 and 5 (The Dream Child and The Dream Master respectively) and Wes craven’s Final Nightmare. I cherish my strong relationship with the Freddy series. There have been moments of deeper affection that I can’t explain. I think we envy each other. Tucked in behind these worriers is Wishmaster, The Mangler and Night Terrors, making this a Robert Englund section. I honestly don’t believe this is the design of man, an arrangement made by some anybody. Certainly not Lee or Koski. Perhaps something else. The emergence of intelligence within the video cases. Some form trying to communicate – what is it saying? How do I reply? I’ll let it incubate. There are more, nastier films that I can no longer get to, mentally. The Plague, man this film was so cheap that it couldn't even afford any special effects. It’s hard to explain but there’s nothing in it. Ed Hunt has made other detectable shit but none worse than his follow up to The Plague, impartially titled UFO’s are Real. This is actually a documentary. His last film (before he was assassinated by the Vatican) was The Brain, which is quite brilliant. A TV doctor and an alien brainwash America. It also has the best tagline of any film ever made: ‘The Pounding of the Afterbrain Signals Vengeance and Death!’ This film always reminds me of Class of 1999, released in 1990 and made the brave massive foolish assumption that in nine short years high schools would be policed by androids. Stacey Keach is in this film, a damn shame. But it is quite good and has moments that make you realise that Pam Grier would have been a great actress if she was born as someone else. I don’t see Blood Birthday, part of the ruthless VHS cull, no doubt, Ed Hunt’s best last chance.

There is a part of me that wants to keep on living, the part of me that still believes in the perfect 3 for 3 combination.

Dad, i've got nothing left to prove

They have sold off Bats, starring Lou Diamond Philips as a prickly testicled sheriff dumbfounded by the attack of bats on his sleepy small town. I bought it. On the cover, the title is upside down – like when bats sleep! GEDDIT? I learned more about bats from that film than a life-time in education. It’s the worst thing there is. But I try to move on. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other to leave the horror section. But like thousands before me, the unemployed paedophile masses, I can’t. I look down at the carpet. Am I someone else? Is my face jelly? My jaws ache. On the lowest shelf something wonderful is happening. Piranha is existing there. A truly exciting piece of film with graphic sex and people who can’t stop being mauled by fish. And there’s Alligator (with the existentially satisfying strap-line of:’ Nobody knows it's down there except the people it eats.’), a deeply moving love story about a giant alligator living in the sewers and a cop with an endless supply of grenades. I’m okay, after all, I like being alive. Then I see Bloodsurf and Born in Hell 4 and I don’t know anymore. There are insects just under my skin. I’m still here, swaying. My trembling hand reaches over to touch the cover of Cirio H. Santiago’s Vampire Hookers (tagline: Warm Blood Isn't All They Suck!) but my hand passes right through it. The disco and bad jokes of Vampire Hookers washes over me like air from a tomb. I’m leaving. My two pounds are staying deeply pocketed. But between me and the door, they’ve constructed something special. Something arranged by the staff – the Van Damme section. I’m drawn here like a ghost. Kickboxer, Universal Soldier, Legionnaire, Bloodsport, Street fighter (‘M. Bison, you bastard’), The Quest (directorial debut, ‘ the degraded James Remar bellowing ‘New York Cit-ay’ for no apparent reason), Sudden Death (the hockey scenes are very realistic) Double Team and a very old, sun bleached, perhaps pre-human copy of that playground favorite Cyborg. No retreat, no Surrender? Don’t even think about it. He’s barely in it. And we’ve only just begun. Because to my itchy left, like a wooden mask haunting my shoulder: The Steven Seagal section, receding as they sell them off for 1.99. Under Siege is still going strong (‘this isn’t the work of a cook’ growls Tom Berenger, ‘I’m just a cook’ challenges Steven), and, wow, On Deadly Ground (directed by SS, some great lines, spiritual sequences and a 9 minute lecture on the abuse we are heaping on our ‘magical planet’. Great line: ‘I’d like to tell you about the damage your oil has caused millions of people….but you’re just a piece of shit fronting a dogshit empire’). The recent Fire Down Below is still in the top twenty UK video rentals according to the 1st on video magazine (formerly Screens). But Seagal really hits his stride after Under Siege 2 (super chef Casey Ryback is now on a train) with Half Past Dead, Ticker, The Glimmer Man, The Foreigner (he plays Jonathan Cold along side an actor named Harry von Gorkum), and the brilliant Out for a Kill where he plays Prof. Robert Burns (a name I feel they arrived at by chance), an unsuspecting university professor and unwitting accomplice in a foiled Chinese cocaine deal. Wrongly imprisoned, he escapes to take his revenge and prove his innocence. The action genre really tails off with the Lamberts and Lundgrens – Fortress 1 and 2 (‘A Prison of the Future. A High-Tech Hell. Built to Hold Anything... Except an Innocent Man’). Highlander (1, 2, 3 and Highlander Engame). A point to note is Lambert’s Scottish accent in Highlander – only slightly upstaged by his New York accent, ‘Aye, Blossom. Back when the glen was green’. Lambert’s techno adaptation of Beowulf stands out like girl Nazis at a pillow party. Lundgren’s offerings have little appeal now I’m through with his take on the termite art form of screenbody movement. Universal Soldier (‘I’m all ears’) - who made the decision to let him have it in his section? Surely, as victor in the film, Luc Devereaux (van Damme) deserves it in his section. I know that Lundgren needs all the help he can get but how does that make me feel? And why were a Frenchman and a Swede even in Vietnam? Silent Trigger, Lundgren plays a character named Waxman in this exclusive art house action picture. Directed by the weird Russel Mulcatty (of Highlander fame), it hits all the existential notes in the wrong order, composing ugly, aborted metaphysical music. In Pentathalon, as Eric Brogar, Lundgren basically runs around, allowing circa Rocky IV sweat drip from him. Is it the same sweat? You are left guessing. I sneak a look at Fat tits and Gangbang Girls 3 on the top shelf. What is it about those Gangbang Girls? Will I ever be old enough before I’m too old? There are a few sports collections: Own Goals, Raging Beasts of the Ring (Roberto Duran is on the cover punching a woman), Cage Fighter 1-4, Ultimate Fighting. Violence is good. These move on to the Kung-Fu films like Kung-Fu King, Pillars of Death, The Shao Lin Men, Disco Kung-Fu, American Ninja with the irrepressible Michael Dudikoff of Bounty Hunters fame (he played the impossibly named Jersey Bellini) which was ‘directed’ by George Erschbamer of Snakeeater 1-3 renown. Snakeeater is a special trilogy starring Lorenzo Lamas, who himself has formed a reptilian triptych with The Viper and Latin Dragon – he is a man of charm, beauty and sexy aggression. We are now seamlessly into a lower brand of action film that spreads for what feels like miles, decades. Vibrations starring Christina Applegate pleads for my attention (‘A futuristic subculture erupts from the electronic underground’) against China O’Brien. I used to think Cynthia Rothrock was attractive, now I know she is just another one of them. I let my hands move independently, sliding over the cover of The Board, on the back cover is Burt Reynolds pointing a gun at a stripper who is pole dancing on a giant neon chessboard (Tagline: ‘Make your move’). Go, hands, go. What are these fleshy weasels searching for? I look at them. One holds Innerspace and the other Uncle Buck and I realize they have dragged me to the comedy section, like disobedient children. My nails are broken and bleeding. Bad hands. Bad little monsters.

Martin Short: fuck him

It’s a whole new world. Moving and See no Evil, Hear no Evil kind of rise in front of me like vampire gods. Richard Pryor in pre MS late period spasm. Eddie Murphy’s Raw makes me instantly accept that whites are bad. Then I hit what the gold diggin’ 49’ers used to call a ‘fat vein’: like a clamp on my brain, Captain Ron, [IN] Police Academy,[EVERY] Mr. Nanny, [DESPERATE] SkiSchool , [ACTION] ViceVersa, [THE] Only the Lonely,[DIVINE] Cool Runnings,[PRESENCE] Mannequin 2: Mannequin on the Move, [OF] Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, [GOD]. Stay Tuned [BABY]. What has compelled me so? The atrocity exhibition before me is like some future library of nostalgic filth. I can already see generations of cowboys to come (it is only a few years from now that the violent cowboy renaissance takes place) drinking lemonade on porches across the blood thirsty Welsh border towns, looking out on the nuclear prairie with a TV blasting out the infectious death rattles of Martin Short (who just can’t believe that Dennis Quaid is inside him). That’s the thing about Martin Short, isn’t it? Lee is looking at me. Don’t look at me, Lee. When you look at me, I look at me. I know I’m still here. I haven’t made a choice. I know that. I know that I’m still here. What has Lee got that I haven’t? Unlimited access to the videos, that’s what. I’ll never have it. With that realization, I leave. If I can’t have it all, I don’t even want a taste. Press Play recedes in the distance behind me. I have no video. Later, I go back. I rent Johnny Handsome. It’s terrible but Mickey Rourke is great.