The time has come for another edition of VHStival, Alamo Drafthouse Raleigh’s amazing weekend of cool screenings, a VHS swap and even its own beer, the Mind Rewinder. You can get a recap of how it all went down last year here.

The event runs from August 30 to September 1st, and for those in the Raleigh area, it’s something you really don’t want to miss. Just visiting the amazing Video Vortex is worth the trip itself.

Get ready for the return of the most radical rewind-inclined weekend of your life!

Fire up your VCR and join us for four VHS-fueled, fun-filled days and nights celebrating the glory of VHS with screenings, special appearances and analog-driven events sure to soak you with nostalgia and inspire you to REWIND YOUR MIND!

VHStival is coming back to Alamo Drafthouse and Video Vortex (a real live video store with over 75,000 titles you can rent for free!) in Raleigh, NC from August 29^th – Sept 1^st, with spectacular screenings of rare, iconic, and totally wild VHS-driven films, special guest appearances, and awesomely interactive VHS-centric games and events, all in celebration of the almighty videocassette!

Presented by Alamo Drafthouse in association with Lunchmeat VHS, and sponsored by SHUDDER, Troma Entertainment, and A/V Geeks, this year’s VHStival will kick off on Thursday August 29^th with two sold out shows of Joe Bob Briggs’ HOW REDNECKS SAVED HOLLYWOOD with Joe Bob live and in-person!

The TOTAL VHS PARTY continues all weekend long, inviting ardent Tapeheads and casual cult film fans alike to revel in an avalanche of vibrant VHS glory!

Note: Video Vortex is a full-service video store that rents an enormous catalogue of 75,000 Blu-rays, DVDs and VHS to the movie-going public… for free! Here’s some coverage from its opening in early 2018:

https://variety.com/2017/film/news/alamo-drafthouse-video-rental-store-1202643737/#article-comments

https://www.slashfilm.com/alamo-drafthouse-video-store-video-vortex/

VHStival will also abound with radical VHS-driven activities and interactive events including VHS tape swaps (where you can buy, sell, and trade your way to ultimate VHStacks of video gold!), the VHSpeed Stack Challenge, VHSink the Titanic (which will involve tossing copies of Titanic on VHS at an inflatable Titanic), and more!

NOTE: Vendor tables for the VHS swap are free of charge, but are extremely limited. You may fill out a vendor table request by visiting the official VHStival landing page here: VHStival.com

The fest will also feature Video Vortex’s signature gameshow VISIONS OF VHS, where viewers will experience clips of the weirdest, wildest and most beloved VHS content, and then answer trivia questions about the clips for radical prizes!

We’ll also be having our first-ever VHS & VIDEO STORES PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE PANEL DISCUSSION: Join an assembly of VHS and video store experts and enthusiasts from around the nation — in an interactive panel discussion about the influence and importance of the VHS format and video rental spaces in the past, present, and future.

VHStival will also mark the launch of MIND REWINDER: an absolutely radical limited edition, VHS-inspired beer from Raleigh, NC’s Trophy Brewing, created in collaboration with Lunchmeat VHS.

Also featured at VHStival will be an interactive submission station for the upcoming book STUCK ON VHS: The Visual History of Video Rental Stickers by Josh Schafer and Jacky Lawrence, to be published by Birth.Movies.Death in 2020!

The station encourages attendees to bring in their tapes with the coolest, most unique, interesting, and essential video store stickers and have them scanned and photographed for potential to appear in the published book!

To cap off the event, there will be a special edition of VIDEO KARAOKE in the Video Vortex lobby where guests can perform their favorite karaoke jams, and take home their performance recorded on an actual VHS tape! It’s the ultimate retro karaoke keepsake to remind you to always rewind!

VHStival is created and spearheaded by Josh Schafer, editor-in-chief of long-running video-worship publication Lunchmeat Magazine and LunchmeatVHS.com.

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CONFIRMED FILMS / EVENTS:

JOE BOB BRIGGS LIVE!: HOW REDNECKS SAVED HOLLYWOOD

The world’s most beloved drive-in movie critic presents over 200 clips and stills to review the history of rednecks in America as told through the classics of both grindhouse and mainstream movies. You will learn: The identity of the first redneck; Why the redneck is the scariest monster in all of film history (with visual evidence); The existential difference between Forrest Gump and Sling Blade; The reason God loves rednecks... and dozens of other historical facts that you didn’t realize you needed until Joe Bob deposited them in the rear lobe of your brain. A truly gargantuan 2-hour onslaught of backwoods wildness!

FOUND FOOTAGE FEST

Various / Directed by Various

The renowned and righteous champions of unearthing the most ridiculous bits and clips from VHS, FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL returns to VHStival 2019 with a totally awesome two-night spectacular! Come join Nick and Joe as they guide you through an analog-driven odyssey of absolute home video insanity, complete with one night focused on the eye-popping, flesh-spewing show they have deemed FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL AFTER DARK! Fans of the weirdest of the rewind weird, with a twist of signature comedy commentary, these shows are not to be missed!

BASKET CASE – 4K RESTORATION

1982 / Directed by Frank Henenlotter

The feature debut of director Frank Henenlotter (Brain Damage; Frankenhooker), 1982’s BASKET CASE is perhaps his most revered; a riotous and blood-spattered midnight movie experience, now immortalized in a lavish new 4K restoration by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Duane Bradley is a pretty ordinary guy. His formerly conjoined twin Belial, on the other hand, is a deformed, fleshy lump whom he carries around in a wicker basket. Arriving in the Big Apple and taking up a room at the seedy Hotel Broslin, the pair set about hunting down and butchering the surgeons responsible for their separation. But tensions flare up when Duane starts spending time with a pretty blonde secretary, and Belial’s homicidal tendencies reach bloody new extremes.

Filmed on a shoestring budget against the backdrop of 1980s New York (where the movie would become a staple of the infamous 42nd Street grindhouse circuit), BASKET CASE has clawed its way from its humble origins to become one of the most celebrated cult movies of all time.

HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT

1986 / Directed by Jeff Krulik, John Heyn

The ultimate ultra-independent heavy metal party documentary that swept through living rooms via VHS bootlegs comes to the big screen! Teased hair, tight pants, zebra print attire, and extreme intoxication abound as maniac metalhead youth scream and stammer into the camera and give insight on what really happened in that total tailgate blowout Maryland on May 31, 1986 before JUDAS PRIEST hit the stage! Plus, after the documentary, explore what remains of the heavy metalers 30 years later, along with more “Parking Lot” surprises and content!

*HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT Co-Creator Jeff Krulik will be on-site for a special Q and A after the film!*

THE TOXIC AVENGER

1984 / Directed by Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman

Tromaville has a monstrous new hero. The Toxic Avenger is born when naive and put-upon health club mop boy Melvin Junko falls into a vat of toxic waste. Now evildoers will have a lot to lose! One of the greatest Troma films by writer and director Lloyd Kaufman, THE TOXIC AVENGER is a classic horror comedy that must be seen to be believed. If you've managed to go this long without catching this classic, there's no time like the present.

LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT

1990 / Directed by Kenneth J. Hall

The scariest exercise video ever made comes to the big screen for the first time ever at VHStival 2019! Tone up and get totally terrified with the quintessential scream queen Linnea Quigley (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD; NIGHT OF THE DEMONS) as she stretches, slashes, gyrates, and mutilates her way to holistic horror fitness! Without a doubt one of the most titillating, ridiculous and fantastically fun direct-to-video workout tapes ever to invade your VCR, with plenty of blood and bare skin to surely satiate the hungriest of weird cinema hounds! WARNING: This motion picture contains scenes of horror and nudity that may be considered too intense for anyone under the age of 18!

*FIRST-EVER THEATRICAL SCREENING, with a special video intro from director Kenneth J. Hall, and an interactive workout session inside the theater!*

GIRLS AT THE CARNIVAL

1998 / Directed by Various

GIRLS AT THE CARNIVAL is an inadvertent documentary, an unadulterated shot-on-video look at mid-western life in the early 1990s. As this recording was never meant for reproduction or mass viewing, each scene is rich with spontaneity; each spoken word is obviously unscripted and devoid of conscious thought. Follow Jenn, Kelly and Nellie through a world of obscenity, lust and hedonism and decide for yourself how the moral fabric of America's heartland has dissolved like a pair of thin cotton socks soaking for weeks in a sink of extra strength bleach.

*Featuring a special appearance from Derek Erdman, who originally distributed this found-footage essential. This screening will also mark the launch of a limited edition deluxe VHS re-issue of GIRLS AT THE CARNIVAL, unleashed by LUNCHMEAT! *

BLOOD KALEIDOSCOPE: THE TERROR OF TRASHMONGER VIDEO

2010 – 2016 / Directed by Trevor Bather

From the scummy recesses of middle-of-nowhere Delaware, unlikely shot-on-video enthusiasts Trashmonger Video emerged as an anonymous art collective in 2010. Shooting in their family and friends' homes strictly on VHS camcorders, they've generated eight films to date. BLOOD KALEIDOSCOPE: THE TERROR OF TRASHMONGER VIDEO acts as compendium for the whole ordeal, incorporating stories and moments from all of their films presented in an entirely new vision. Caked in ‘90s no-fi ethos and informed as much by Kenneth Anger as by SPLATTER FARM, the films of Trashmonger Video merge the surreal and the absurd with heavy gore and powerful paranoia to create a new language within the weird world of low budget filmmaking. Dreams, nightmares, hallucinations and mind-melting inspiration... all this and more await those who gaze upon the… BLOOD KALEIDOSCOPE.

*The TRASHMONGER VIDEO art collective will be on-site for a special Q and A after the feature!*

TERRORVISION

1986 / Directed by Ted Nicolaou

There are two types of people in this world: those who enjoy fun… and adults. TERRORVISION is 100% Adult Repellent, and ranks with heavy hitters like PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE and THE MONSTER SQUAD as a solid monolith of pure, undistilled power. When polyester swingers The Puttermans (Mary Woronov & Gerrit Graham) set up their swanky new satellite dish, they inadvertently beam in a carnivorous mutated spacebeast that can attack and devour through the TV. Luckily, Grandpa is a shell-shocked survivalist with a military-grade arsenal, and he and grandson Sherman are ready to blast the menace from the Putterman home. A criminally underseen goldmine of '80s schlock, this movie features more new wave hysteria, protoplasmic slime and hilarious dialogue than the next 20 years of video vomit would even hint at. Watch for funnybone-busting performances from Alejandro Rey as the dynamite Greek love machine Spiro and Jon Gries (a.k.a. King Vidiot from JOYSTICKS) as a guitar-shredding metal maniac named O.D! “TOO RUDE!!!” (Zack Carlson)

MIND REWINDER MIXTAPE

Various / Directed by Various

Dare to experience an utterly mind-melting menagerie of clips and snips from a collection of the weirdest, wildest, and most ridiculous VHS tapes ever to invade a VCR, compiled and curated from the LUNCHMEAT VHS archives! A mixtape that guarantees: Once you enter the Mind Rewinder, your brain will never be the same!

*Presented in celebration of the limited edition MIND REWINDER beer, brewed by NC local adult beverage heroes Trophy Brewing!*

THE ZOMBIE ARMY

1991 / Directed by Betty Stapleford

The Pentagon brass have a problem. They bought a former insane asylum to use as a base for an elite female unit but didn’t expect two of the most psychotic inmates to still be there! The two freaks start wreaking havoc on the Army by capturing soldiers and turning them into mindless zombies. Trapped in the tunnels under the old asylum, the soldiers must invent weapons to destroy the living dead! It’s the world’s first zombie combat rock music video!

“…the greatest shot-on-video (SOV) zombie movie of all time.” – Joseph Ziemba (AGFA, BleedingSkull.com)

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ATTEND!

Entry to the Video Vortex lobby events and VHS swaps for VHStival is FREE!

Tickets for the individual shows throughout the festival will also go on sale via the VHStival landing page and Drafthouse.com soon. Tickets will also be available the days of the event at the box office (while they last!)