In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Friday, January 22, 2010

VHS Diplomacy

Here's a biggie from the eighties. Embassy Home Entertainment.



That intro was pulled from my prized copy of The Video Dead. Embassy, established in 1981, was the home video arm of Embassy Pictures. Although they did have quite a few theatrical titles in their roster like Blade Runner, The Cotton Club & The Graduate, Embassy became synonomous with horror flicks. Over their tenure, they released such fare as The Stepfather, Children Of The Corn, Parasite, Phantasm, Mausoleum & The Supernaturals. They also seemed to have a nose for sniffing out future icons, after they picked up the early works of directors like Wes Craven (Deadly Blessing, Swamp Thing), David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Brood), Joe Dante (The Howling) and James Cameron (Piranha 2: The Spawning). Sadly, Embassy became defunct circa 1986 and their catalogue has been dispersed to several different companies over the years, with many titles like Death Ship and Rituals* still waiting for a DVD release.

To check out the Embassy-themed Coverbox Wednesday that I posted in April 2008, click here and let the memories flood in.


*Code Red did have a special edition Rituals DVD in the works, but it has since been put on hold due to rights issues. I also believe it has been released as The Creeper on one of those 50 horror film collection sets, but the quality is so incredibly shitty it is barely worth mentioning.

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