6.08.2015

Swamp Thing 1982 Embassy VHS Cover




























This has been what I can only describe as one of the Holy Grail's of VHS tapes for me. For years I've wanted this tape so badly. I've hunted and hunted for this with no luck. In all the years I've been searching for it, I'd only ever come across it twice, and both times the dealer practically wanted my soul for it. I mean, I love this film, but not enough to go broke for it.

Sure you can easily pick up the Embassy Swamp Thing slipcase VHS for really cheap any day of the week, but I wanted this 1st ever VHS release from Embassy, the gorgeous clamshell version. I mean, look at how beautiful this is! So aside from dealing with dealers on various sites, I would constantly troll eBay literally every day or in the least, every week for this particular release. I'm talking many, many, many years. And in all those years, I never came across one. Not once. That is until one late night last week when it hit me that it had been about a week since I'd done one of my mandatory eBay searches for this. There it was, and my jaw literally hit the floor. A starting bid of $6, with the "Buy it Now" option of just a whole $10. Needless to say I wasn't going to take the chance at trying to snag this under $10 so I jumped on the "Buy it Now" option and this amazing tape is now in my possession, just a total sum of just $14.

Getting this for such a cheap price is one thing, but one of the things I was not prepared for was how minty this tape and case would be. I mean, it's Near Mint! The picture that was used for the listing certainly gave no indication as to it's condition. Some people have a knack for taking good product pictures for eBay listings, others do not. This seller unfortunately did not as it was slightly out of focus, and dark. So you can imagine my surprise, and then utter glee, when I opened the package to find it near flawless and unfaded. When it comes to VHS dealing, it just doesn't get any better than this folks.

If you know anything about me, then you know I'm an extremely patient person. So much so that it can drive quite a few people mad. LOL. But in this case, my patience payed off big time and allowed me to finally secure one of my most sought after tapes for an extremely reasonable and healthy fee. It makes me happy that there are still people out there who are not in the business of selling tapes just for profit and to take advantage of those who they know are willing to sell an arm and a leg. In essence, to rip people off. So whether this eBay seller knew what they had or didn't, my hats go off to you.

Since I'd finally acquired this Holy Grail tape of mine, I decided to give this another watch since I realized it had been many, many years since I'd actually watched it. I always remembered this being a bit dark and weird, but as I watched it again after so long, I was taken by surprise (by a lot of things) at how campy and cheesy it was. I'm having a helluva great time revising this and you can expect a full-on review coming soon.

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