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| Show banner designed by Andrew Kern |
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| Show Poster designed by Hayden Hall |
The ninth annual VHS Fest at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater was an event that I'll never forget. It was three nights of horror flicks from the days when we'd bring home a pile of tapes from a video rental shop with only the box art and the description on the back to let us know what we were getting ourselves into. The event was hosted by Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher of the Found Footage Festival, with special guests Charles Pinion (director of Twisted Issues) and Frank Henenlotter (director of Basket Case, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker) in attendance to meet fans, sign autographs, and take pictures.
Wes and Sara made a massive VHS tape that was introduced on the lot a few weeks back. It has a whiteboard label and customizable stickers and skins that make it work for any event, but it is absolutely perfect for VHS Fest. They also decorated the lot around the giant tape with a Mahoningbuster Video theme.
Speaking of Wes, VHS Fest 9 was our debut on the Mahoning Lot Crew. It was hot as hell, especially on Friday, but we made a great team and it was a lot of fun. There were more tickets sold to this event than any other for the 2025 season and fitting every car on the lot was a challenge, but I think we did pretty well considering that it was the first time for both of us.
Everyone on the regular Mahoning staff was incredibly kind and gracious, especially Virgil, Mark, Dave, and Sandy, the latter of whom gave Wes and I nice gift bags with a VHS Fest 9 t-shirt.
We also helped JT set up the photo op stage for Troma Thon, which is next weekend. The hardest part of this was rolling out the astroturf, cutting it to size, and putting it in place. My first clue of how difficult this was going to be was the fact that the roll of turf was delivered by a forklift that was being towed by a truck. My next clue was the fact that the man who delivered it got the hell out of dodge before we could ask for his help. It was heavy as hell and loaded with dirt from whichever field it was taken from, and it took five of us to roll it out. Thankfully for the rest of us, one of those five was Alex (center of photo). Let's just say that if I do the Camp Blood tug-of-war again this year, I want that dude on our team.
The other part of setting up the Troma Thon photo op was hanging up the backdrop. This meant climbing on the roof of the concession building to take down the tarp and slide the top of the backdrop into place. The view is very cool! I'd love to watch a movie from up here one of these nights.
Dave told me the story of how this slice of pizza ended up in a tree by the front gate. I don't remember all of the details, but I do know that someone accidentally dropped a slice that landed face down in the dirt, and someone else decided to toss it into the bushes for the birds to eat, and it got hung up here. I wonder how many people pulling into the lot noticed it.
I got to meet directors Charles Pinion (center) and Frank Henenlotter (right) a few times throughout the weekend, both of whom were incredibly cool.
Frank Henenlotter signed the cover of my Basket Case VHS tape.
Charles Pinion and David Peck, who did the special effects for Twisted Issues and appeared in the film as "bad guy #4" signed the VHS copy of the film that I bought at VHS Fest.
As always, the lot is loaded with vendors for VHS Fest. I didn't get as much time to check out all of the tables as I did last year, but I still came home with quite a few awesome finds. I'm still a bit jealous of Virgil for the Airheads poster that he scored!
My holy grail for the weekend was an original release VHS of the 1981 slasher My Bloody Valentine. George Mihalka, who directed the film, will be in attendance later this year for Camp Blood, and I'd love to have him sign it to add to my collection. I found it and paid more than I wanted to for it, but I'm very glad to have it. The other highlight pickups of the weekend was a VHS copy of Gate II, which I was introduced to at the first AGFA Triple Ripper, and The Corpse Grinders, which I saw for the first time at Schlock-O-Rama VIII. Carl gave me that tape as a gift for helping him set up and break down his vendor table. I tried to pay him for it, but he wouldn't take it. He's a good dude.
I also picked up a tape called The Torment Of Ashley Williams from Transcendence Tapes Unlimited. This is a fan edit of The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army Of Darkness which has been cut together to make a single 3 hour film.
Last, but not least, I picked up Volume 9 and 10 of The Found Footage Festival on DVD to complete the set that I started last year.
I'll write more about each of the movies from VHS Fest 9 later. I'm a little burned out at the moment.
And with this weekend in the books, we are officially halfway through the 2025 season at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater. Onto the second half of the season!
