Sometime in the year of our lord 1991 I acquainted myself with the movie Highlander. Starring Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Roxanne Hart and Clancy Brown, the film had already developed a cult following in the five years since it had been unleashed in theaters. I was a pretty nerdy teen, deep into comic books, science fiction and fantasy novels, and was a devotee to movies like Star Wars, Terminator, Predator and Willow. I sought out a lot of science fiction and fantasy in my 14 years on earth at that point, and I prided myself on building a hefty collection of these movies taped-off-television onto 40 or 50 EP mode blank VHS tapes.
Highlander was a hole in my collection, not just literally missing from my VHS library, but also from my film experiences. It was one of those films that seemed to fly under my radar until one weekend when my mother set me loose at our local mom & pop video store called Home Video. I’ve written about this place before, but it bears repeating just how awesome this rental shop was. It was located in an unassuming blocky building that belied the absolutely bonkers video selection that his inside. The place was two stories and jam-packed with 10s of thousands of movies, cartoons and specials. The way the building was situated, you entered the building ground level on the second floor, and then in the middle of the store was a large winding staircase that led to the basement floor (my favorite area) which was were all of the horror, science fiction, fantasy, and kid’s videos lived. I spent what most likely amounted to days down in that basement sifting through these sections looking for my next favorite film. It’s where I discovered Full Moon Pictures flicks like Ghoulies and the Subspecies series, where I rented my first copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and where I fell head over heels for films like Nightbreed, Buckaroo Banzai, and of course Highlander.
The flick is one of those movies that hit me at the perfect time, both in terms of my age (14, was into vampires, immortality, being moody and sarcastic AF) and in the fact that spurred by that year’s sequel (the very weird Highlander 2: The Quickening), there was enough interest to launch a new syndicated television show called simply enough, Highlander: The Series. So even though I was 5 years late to the party, the festivities were really just heating up and I was all in. Though I missed The Quickening in the theater, I was already into the hour-long syndicated science fiction/fantasy/horror television genre, watching shows like Werewolf, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Forever Knight and the War of the Worlds show (also staring new swashbuckling immortal Adrian Paul), so the new Highlander show was basically appointment television for me.
In my neck of the woods, it aired on the local Fox affiliate on the weekend afternoons for the first couple of seasons and then I remember finding it on the USA Network with both re-runs of the first seasons and then new episodes of the remaining seasons. Around this time my folks landed on hard times, and we ended up moving to the next town over, downgrading from a fairly nice two-story house to a small two-bedroom apartment. I finished out three years of high school there, so I saw a lot of my friends during the week. But on the weekends, unless I rode the school bus to their house for a sleepover, I was basically trapped in the new apartment with no way of getting over to them to hang out. So, I spent an inordinate amount of time watching Highlander the series and daydreaming of sword fights and the burden of immortality (did I mention that I was also way into vampires during this period of my life?)
I adored the adventures of Duncan McCloud of the clan McCloud, his protégé Richie, his watcher Joe and all the love interests and crazy immortals played by guest stars like Richard Moll, Joan Jett, Roger Dahltry, Marc Singer, and even the lead singer of the Fine Young Cannibals as the villainous Xavier St. Cloud who used guns and didn’t give a shit about “the RULES”. I loved this show so much, that after graduating high school and getting my first job, I used my very first paycheck to buy two things: a long black duster and my very own samurai sword. Egads, I was on the cusp of becoming a mall ninja. I also tried “collecting” the show on blank VHS tapes, but as anyone who has tried to record TV shows knows, the process was maddening. Though the series was hardly so deep in its own continuity that they absolutely needed to be watched in order, it was still frustrating trying to get every episode of a season. And with no real internet at the time, it was hard to know exactly how many episodes there were, or what the order was supposed to be. There were definitely season finale cliffhangers and two-part episodes that begged to be on the same blank VHS tape, and making sure you were getting them all was very difficult.
So, in 1995, when I walked into my local Media Play and found that there were finally episodes of Highlander the Series available for purchase, I was floored. I pulled a tape off of the shelf and marveled at how the spine acted as a puzzle piece that formed a larger image when you had the complete first season. The first two tapes split an upper case “H”, but the remaining tapes spelled out I-G-H-L-A-N-D-E-R. Each tape had two episodes of the series for a total of 22 episodes in the complete season. I think I literally said something dumb like “Sign me up!” to no one in particular as I marveled at the VHS in my hand. Then I flipped it over to check the price and my heart sank. The sticker on the front of the tape said $19.95. I did the math in my head as I stared at the remaining 10 tapes, $219.45 plus tax. I was devastated. Sure, I had a job working nights at the local Kroger on the stock crew, but I was only making $4.60 an hour and I had plans to get the fuck out of my parent’s apartment as soon as humanly possible as well as starting community college in the fall. Spending $220 was just out of the question. Treating myself to a $10 movie once a month or so was about all my budget could handle. But my love for the world of Highlander was still strong, so I bit the bullet and bought the first tape in the set and made myself a promise that I would try and pick up the rest here and there. I’d watched a friend start a VHS collection like this with the Robotech cartoon series the previous year, and he’d managed to almost complete his collection of the first Macross series in about 14 months (can you imagine the patience we had in the 90s?!). So, I had hope. I even subscribed to the Highlander store catalog in the hopes that I would get to a point where I could order them through the mail.
In The end, I never managed to acquire any other tapes in the Highlander VHS series. Every time I thought I had some extra cash in the late 90s, some unforeseen bill would pop up, some emergency, something. Later on, after the onslaught of the new DVD format obliterated my VHS collection, and almost permanently diverted my attention from the beloved format, I set my sights on the eventual complete series sets on digital video disc. Though still carrying a pretty hefty price tag of around $100 per set, they were half the price of the VHS sets and easier to squeeze into even my very tight budgets.
As the years wear on, my love of Highlander, and in particular the TV series, still blossoms. I go through periods every couple of years where I binge a bunch of episodes from my DVD collection, and I always end up fondly remembering those giant VHS season sets. These days I have access to the entirety of Highlander (all the films, the two television series, the cartoon, and the novels based on the property) on my phone. It’s kind of insane.
Flash forward to a couple of weekends ago. I found myself on a solo trip out of state attending my first Living Dead Weekend, a George Romero-based horror convention that is held in the iconic Monroeville Mall where he and his crew shot the original Dawn of the Dead in 1978. After having my fill of meeting some great folks and just taking in the ambience of the mall shooting location, I started to pack up my stuff and start the long drive from Pittsburgh back to Maryland when I overheard someone talking about a local used bookstore chain called Half Price Books. As it is I’m a fiend of scouring used bookstores, and I’d been hearing for years that Half Priced Books was an awesome store. Since I live in a used bookstore desert, I decided to make a side trip over to the store to see what they had in stock. Maybe I’d score a couple movie novelizations or some comic books. When I walked into the store though, the first thing that caught my eye was a pretty hefty used DVD/Blu-ray section along with a couple of spinner racks dedicated to VHS tapes. Picking through the tapes I really wasn’t finding anything all that spectacular when I glanced up on top of some nearby shelving units and spied something glorious. Sitting in nice, neat rows were all six seasons of Highlander the Series on VHS complete with the season slipcases. I chuckled a little to myself as I reached up and grabbed the first season, taking in the full spine-puzzle image of Adrian Paul and the Highlander logo, and bracing myself for some crazy “vintage” price tag on the side. I was shocked that the full season was marked at $15. Granted, VHS has been obsolete for over a quarter of a century at this point, and there’s no telling how well any of these tapes have held up over that time, but for less than the price that I originally paid for just the first tape in this set, I could own all eleven tapes.
I put the set back up on the shelf as I wandered around the rest of the store looking for other treasures. As I browsed the science fiction/fantasy section looking for novelization paperbacks and picked through the unfortunately sparse comic book bins, my mind kept sliding back to the Highlander set. Though I do pick up the odd VHS tape these days, it’s almost exclusively copies of The Monster Squad from other countries or films that my wife and best friend Paxton cover on our podcast the Cult Film Club. What in the hell would I do with a bunch of Highlander episodes on VHS? Like I said, I can instantly access the complete series on my phone. But those tapes would not leave my thoughts.
Of course, I walked out of that store with the season one set. I knew that I’d regret an opportunity like this to grab these for the price of a couple lunches. So, I finally own this giant brick of a VHS set, and I fully plan on watching through it ON VHS this winter to reacquaint myself with the series. Are there any dead media series or tapes that are weird grails for you? Hit me up on Blue Sky and let me know.
