Long Time readers might remember that I used to have a lot of fun participating in a weekly pop culture project called the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, or just the League as I preferred to call it. The project was spearheaded by Brain over at CoolandCollected.com, as a way for folks to find new sites and share inspiration. I met a bunch of cool folks through the exercise, and though I didn’t participate every week, I always had a blast when I did. The League has come and gone a couple of times, and finally Brian is giving it another go, though this time a bit rejiggered for a more modern content sharing community. With the rise in folks ditching traditional sites for Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook he wanted to make sure that everyone felt they could participate no mater how they interact with the pop culture community, so the Project is now been re-dubbed the Pop Culture League and has a spiffy new logo to boot…
The first new assignment is up which is simply, Shelfie. So to answer the call and jump back in the saddle with the folks who are participating I present my most recent obsession, my Dead Media collection of copies of the 1987 Fred Dekker flick Monster Squad on VHS from all over the world!
This is actually not literally on a shelf, they’re currently giving me inspiration on my desk, but you get the idea. I’ve made no secret that Monster Squad is one of my favorite films and even though there isn’t a ton of merchandise floating around for the film, there’s enough to keep a true fan busy for awhile trying to pick it all up. Since I don’t have the wall space for the various movie posters I’ve mainly been concentrating on acquiring Squad ephemera (press kits, photos, international programs and fliers, and magazine articles), but this past year I decided to challenge myself by trying to hunt down copies of all the various releases of the film on VHS. What I really wanted was a way to display my love for the film literally here at Branded HQ and this seemed to be a fun way to do it. Not only do these tapes feature a lot of the alternate poster art, but it’s just really cool seeing all of these together. So what do we have in that picture above? Going from left to right we have…
The CNR Video, ex-rental VHS from the Netherlands…
Next up is the Australian Filmpac ex-rental VHS in that snazzy red clamshell case…
This one is a little worn, but I kind of like that. I imagine it was rented a bazillion times which makes me happy. Next, a couple of releases from the UK, an Braveworld/World Vision ex-rental and the Braveworld/World Vision mass market releases of the film on VHS…
Note the altered Craig Nelson poster art and the alternate UK log on the ex-rental (and Horace’s rad Monster Squad shirt!) Also, I love that red tape cover on the ex-rental as well, it reminds me of the green on that was on all of the E.T. VHS releases…
Moving right along, here are a couple of German releases. First is the VPS Video mass market release of the VHS (where the film was re-titled Monster Busters!)
Then here’s a German ex-rental from Videoplay-Spielfilm that has the most boring VHS tpae stickers ever…
Now let’s jump over to Spain for a couple more releases. Here we have the Record Pictures ex-rental VHS with some of the gaudiest cover art ever (and a re-titling of the film to Una Pandilla Alucinante), as well as an Action Time Video ex-rental release of the Beta version of the film…
Staying in and around the area of Spain, here’s the Transvideo ex-rental release of the VHS from Portugal (re-titled Deu A Louca Nos Monstros)…
Next up was a very hard VHS to find, and I wasn’t even sure it existed until I had it in my grubby little hands, this beautiful Italian ex-renal from Gallery Panarecord (the Italian subsidary of Worldvision) complete with the most bizarre poster for the film (re-titled Scuola Di Monstri, Monster School)…
Next, let jump to a completely different continent with my absolute favorite VHS release of the film all the way from Japan, this Hearld Videogram ex-rental that is appropriately Halloween-y!
The next release came out a little later, but it’s still cool all the same, it’s Danish VHS where the film was re-titled Monster Klubben. This is also the only international paper sleeve release that I’ve found…
Rounding out the international releases of the film that I’ve been able to source is another rare one, this time from Mexico. I am super intrigued by this Videomax ex-rental (from Blockbuster of all places), because this is the only release of the film that has a longer running time than the standard North American release. Most versions of this film are 93 minutes long, with a handful of the international releases edited down to 89 minutes. But this Mexican release is 100 minutes! I’m working on getting a new VCR set-up so that I can figure out what exactly is in those extra 7 minutes of film…
Last, but certainly not least, is the US/Canadian release of the film by Vestron Video. This copy came from my favorite Mom & Pop video rental store in Duluth, GA, Home Video, and it’s teh absolute gem in my collection. I’ve personally watched this copy at least 20 times over the years, both as a rental, and then after I bought it from the store when it closed…
So there you have it. There are at least two more international copies of the film that I have yet to get my hands on, one from Turkey and another from South Korea. If anyone out there has any connection that could help me get copies of those two I would be eternally grateful!
If you dug this tour of my pop culture shelfie and would like to see more posts in this vein, or if you want to join in on the fun, then here are some links to other sites participating this week as well as to Cool and Collected, who hosts the League…
Here’s the collection of Chris over at Stunt Zombie…
The collection of Brother Midnight at Green Plastic Squirtgun is insane…
Linz over at Pop Rewind loves her some Terminator collectibles!
Cody at Copyright 1984 showcases a bunch of pictures of his rad collection…
And finally Brian over at Cool and Collected short a great video of his Batman shelf…