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It's 8:57 PM Friday at your local video store. The yuppies have rented all the week's newest releases. You have to find something else to watch. As the clerk behind the front desk prepares to close up shop and go roller skating, you excitedly prowl the aisles. What to see? What is this?
And THAT is the feeling that Lost And Found Video wishes to capture. It's the "Hey, look what I found" sense of discovery that is shared by collectors and curio seekers, where half the joy of finding something unique is because you hadn't thought of looking for it in the first place.
Although this blog only officially debuted in 2019, the inspiration for it originally came way back when video stores were still a thing, and around a time when their VHS stock was being sold off to make room on the shelves for the (then) new format of DVD. Tapeheads were able to purchase interesting and unusual VHS titles for the price of a rental. I had intended to keep a blog, specifically to review the movies found under these circumstances, but life got in the way.
As I had spent twelve years of my fleeting spare time publishing the film zine The Eclectic Screening Room, this was yet another project that was pushed to the back burner. In the meantime, most video stores have closed up shop completely. The pastime of Friday nights at the video store has now been replaced by people streaming movies in their living rooms. But still, in this different era, we have the same mandate to bring life to film titles that have slipped through the cracks.
Lost And Found Video is all about the movies that were still on the shelves after everyone rented the current blockbusters: the ones that collected dust in the back of those mom and pop rental stores; the elusive titles that were put on the 99 cent rack to attract a certain daredevil viewer; the odd obscurities that fill out megapack DVD sets of so-called public domain material; the video boxes that exploited the name values of their stars who were either on the way up or the way down. It is all about the fun we had while sometimes being had.
As this blog fills with reviews, you'll see that it will be curated similar to a video store. The titles are divided into "sections", just like you would have seen at a Blockbuster or Jumbo: quirky independent movies, or low-budget genre films (western, horror, action, comedy, and so on). And since this site beckons from Canada, there will also be a generous selection of homegrown cinema (since most of our films end up in the "lost and found", so self-deprecating are we). With some exceptions, the films reviewed here generally date from the mid 1960s to the 1990s, which encompasses the time frame of movies made or seen during the video age.
This blog is also about a way of life, and a state of mind, that is fast disappearing from this age of instant gratification. "Then" is "now" again. We hope you enjoy taking the trip with us.