Hit pause and rewind, VHS is back!

Would you be surprised to know there’s a new film getting a VHS release this year?

The People’s Joker, a DIY parody about a closeted trans girl “Joker the Harlequin” trying to make it in comedy, has had an unconventional path to release, and has now found a home on several formats, including on a beautiful purple VHS.

The poster for Vera Drew's "fair use film."

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The People's Joker / Altered Innocence

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Vera Drew, the film’s co-writer, director, editor and star, says the retro format was always crucial to the movie. “The movie really is supposed to feel like you're watching an otherworldly VHS tape, or something somebody’s personality transposed through this glitchy analog dream,” Drew said of her film, which she describes as a “queer comic book coming of age story.”

The ‘physical’ media community

After months of secret screenings, People’s Joker publicly played at OutFest in 2023 and, this summer, has screened in more than 100 U.S. theaters. But Drew is so happy with the VHS release, adding, “I think that will end up being the definitive version.”

Frank Jaffe, head of film distribution company Altered Innocence, saw it at Outfest and knew he was the right person to release the film. Jaffe wanted to “connect with cool queer cinephiles,” and to make sure the film had what’s called a “physical” release — something tangible that viewers can touch, hold and feel. Basically, something that won’t disappear if your streaming subscription of choice loses or sells the film rights.

“One small reason why people are into physical media is the community that you can build through it,” Jaffe said, imagining friends lending their DVD or VHS copies to each other. (For the Gen Xers out there who swapped mixtapes, you know what we’re talking about here).

And that kind of community is what’s been driving this renewed interest in VHS, especially right here in Los Angeles.

Listen • 17:50

Listen • 17:50

Hit pause and rewind! VHS is making a comeback

#299: 

VCRs are buzzing again in the city...that's right! Watching a movie on VHS is back! But in 2024, with streaming and Blu-Ray, why watch something on tape? HTLA producer Victoria Alejandro spoke with VHS vendors, collectors, and other tape aficionados around the city (including filmmaker Vera Drew of "The People's Joker") to understand the subculture, the community, and let YOU know why tapes are back, baby!

Guests: Filmmaker Vera Drew, head of Altered Innocence Frank Jaffe, Michelle Halac and Alex Gootter of Hollywood Entertainment, Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales from Whammy!, Eliana Oropeza from Aztec Pickers, Jackie Forsythe from AMIA

Treasures at the tape swap

At the end of June, the Gardena Cinema, L.A.’s last family owned movie theater, hosted a VHS tape swap in partnership with the video store Whammy! It drew in all sorts of fans and curiosity seekers from New Beverly Cinema projectionists Danielle Wakin and David Chien (who grew up just down the street from The Gardena Cinema) to volunteers like VHS aficionado Conor Holt.

Theater owner Judy Kim speaking to New Beverly Cinema projectionist David Chien at the Gardena Cinema tape swap.

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Victoria Alejandro

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Over a dozen vendors tabled inside the 800-seat theater with crates of tapes. Every possible genre and niche was on display, from mainstream 90s horror to Mexican films from the 60s to punk concerts from the 80s.

Eliana Oropeza, who sources and sells tapes with her husband under the name “Aztec Pickers,” drove all the way down to Gardena from Fresno. She said they found out about the event through a tape collectors Facebook group that has over 100,000 members.

Oropeza's husband at the Aztec Pickers' VHS table.

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Victoria Alejandro

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Oropeza said Aztec Pickers gets their tapes mostly from estate sales or other long-time collectors, which often means there’s a lot of storytelling that goes into each tape.

“That sharing of knowledge, it’s like old times, right? We're coming here, of course, to sell, and also to learn,” Oropeza said about the culture surrounding tape swaps. “And when we talk to each other, it brings the community together, you know?”

How did I not know that existed?

Community and a love of film is what drives the folks behind Hollywood Entertainment, a featured vendor at the tape swap, and a nonprofit that boasts adventurous and underseen programming for film events. The three founders, Alex Gootter, Michelle Halac and Mike Perry, care about sharing things that never made it off of tape onto Blu-Ray or DVD, or got wide distribution.

Michelle Halac, Alex Gootter, and Mike Perry of Hollywood Entertainment selling VHS at the Gardena Cinema.

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Victoria Alejandro

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The three film lovers got together in April 2020, streaming rare, unavailable and unrentable films online under the name “Moviepassed,” raising money for community and art spaces during the worst of the pandemic lockdown. They’ve since changed their name and moved their screenings into brick and mortar spaces around the city — and across the nation — including 2220 Arts + Archives, Whammy! and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

“The best compliment we can get after something is ‘How did I not know that existed?’” Gootter said.

It’s not hard for a film to fall through the cracks.

For example, movies like The Wrong Guy, a 1997 Canadian comedy starring Dave Foley and Jennifer Tilly, are impossible to stream due to a snafu with the film rights.

“You were lucky to see it if you happened to catch a Tuesday afternoon rerun on Comedy Central in like, 2000,” said Michelle Halac. So, the trio at Hollywood Entertainment managed to hold a screening of it in 2023. 

“The three of us have spent our lives digging for treasures like this,” Halac said.

Don’t throw away those tapes

The name on everyone’s lips when discussing the state of tapes in L.A. today is Whammy!

It’s an actual video store on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake run by husband and wife team Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales, who opened the space in 2022.

Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales prepare to open Whammy! for the day.

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Victoria Alejandro

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“We love being literally underground,” Gonzales said of their basement space with an alley entrance. The shop is covered wall to wall in VHS tapes for sale, with a microcinema in the back that seats around 50 people.

Varho and Gonzales also care about featuring films that were only created for the direct to video market, or giving directors who never thought they’d get to see their work with a crowd the chance to do so. “For people to come out and celebrate works that maybe they hadn't been asked to celebrate in a long time, I think that does speak to the core of what's magical about VHS,” Gonzales said.

And celebrating movies that are “stuck on tape” can help plastic waste from entering landfills. “I think about all the tapes being thrown away every single day…they're not particularly recyclable,” Varho said. “If you can adopt a few into your home, that just helps so much.”

The Whammy! membership troll beckons you to join.

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Victoria Alejandro

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Now, if you’ve thrown out your VCR in the past few decades, which is likely, you might be wondering how to adopt a tape into your own home. Whammy! has a sister nonprofit to help with that. Gonzales started TAPE — that’s Teach, Archive, Preserve, Exhibit — in September of last year. The nonprofit offers VCR rentals, analog camera rentals, digitizing services for tapes and general workshops for all things film related.

Gonzales hopes TAPE can fill a little bit of the gap left by the Echo Park Film Center, which offered similar services until its closure two years ago. The collective shuttered their physical location after 20 years in business.

What about our home movies?

Jackie Forsythe, Whammy!’s technical director, says this work is also crucial for preserving people’s memories. Forsythe is a recent graduate of UCLA’s Master of Library Sciences program and while there she was part of a student chapter of AMIA, the Association for Moving Image Archive.

The AMIA zine stands out among free media preservation zines at Whammy!

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Victoria Alejandro

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Forsythe’s passion is home movies. “They're meant to be seen by people who love you and who you love. And so when we lose access to them, it's devastating,” she said.

On Aug. 24, Forsythe will be part of the team behind Home Movie Day at Whammy!, an event where people can make an appointment to have their tapes looked at, digitized, and even learn how to clean and maintain their VCRs. And, if participants want, they can have their home movies screened in the microcinema.

While those hard plastic tape shells might not break down in a landfill, the tape itself has a ticking clock before it starts to degrade. VHS has an estimated 30 year lifespan, so helping people digitize and preserve is key in the case of precious memories.

The act of screening is crucial to preservation, Forsythe said. “I think the key to getting people to care about things is to have a culture around viewing it.”