Let's Read: Video Watchdog, Issue 6 (July/August 1991)

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I bet that got your attention, didn't it, @janenightshade? :D

A number of years back, a friend made me an offer I couldn't refuse: an incredibly good deal on a stack of around fifty issues of Video Watchdog magazine. Now, I've never considered myself a cinemaphile--I'm just an ordinary guy who enjoys horror films a little more than the average moviegoer--but Video Watchdog was, in my not so humble opinion, a top-tier publication that managed to outlast many of its contemporaries and competitors. They dubbed themselves "The Perfectionist's Guide to Fantastic Video", but 'fantastic' in this case didn't equate to 'amazing', it equated to 'way out there'.

Within the pages of Video Watchdog, you never really knew what you'd find. While the magazine tended to cater to horror and sci-fi fans, it wasn't uncommon to read about Venezuelan bootlegs of old spaghetti westerns, pending English dubs of Chinese martial arts flicks soon to hit the rental circuit, an interview with the director of a forgotten B&W classic, and a feature breakdown on the latest Anime laserdiscs all within the same issue. Video Watchdog was a movie magazine for people with...eclectic tastes. If you've been following me for any length of time, you can already see the attraction. :)

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Pages 1 and 2 of the feature on subliminal images in film.

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Early issues of Video Watchdog like this one were printed in black-and-white, with spot-color covers. Full color issues didn't arrive until the magazine's 100th issue, although full color covers started with the magazine's thirteenth issue.

One of the things that really stands out to me, even with these early issues, is just how supremely devoted to the cinematic art this publication was. Famous film critics and historians contribute heavily to the publication--a pre-fame Mark Kermode either writes or co-writes much of the content surrounding The Exorcist in this particular issue, for instance, despite living in England and working on his PhD at the time. Additional contributions come from around the world, from video jockeys living in Ontario, Venezuela, Italy, and France all writing in to report the latest on the home video front in their necks of the woods.

Then there's Tim Lucas, the magazine's publisher.

There have always been film critics since the first silent pictures began to replace Vaudeville performances, but Lucas was something different. At a time when everyone else was a film critic, Lucas was a video critic. He was far more concerned with the home presentations of film than he was the theatrical releases. While other reviewers were content to start and end their discussions with the on-screen story, Lucas dug into the movie's guts to get the stories behind the stories. When movies received home tape releases, Lucas made sure his readers understood the importance of aspect ratios. When films were trimmed or compressed from their cinematic presentation to fit VHS, Betamax, CED, and LaserDisc, Lucas told the audience the hows, wheres, and whys of those changes. When everyone else raced to be first to print with their opinions on the newest releases, Lucas dug up the weird, the obscure, and the obscene from the rental shops. Basically, if you or anyone you know enjoys reviewing home video media, whether it's on old, outdated physical formats or streamed directly to your computer over the internet, you and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Tim Lucas for blazing the trails and creating the templates we use today.

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A little makeup and a lot of pea soup got left on the cutting room floor.

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Beyond the main features, Video Watchdog contained a number of regular entries as well: a letter column; "Biblio Watchdog", a section for film-themed book reviews; notes on retitlings (old films re-issued under different names); "Video Around the World", for both domestic and international release news (and the occasional capsulized review).

For a bi-monthly 64-page black and white digest-size magazine to command a $4.50 cover price in 1991 dollars (or $3.00 per issue if you subscribed), it has to be something exceptional. Video Watchdog is absolutely that exceptional, with every page catering to everyone with even a passing interest in film. From high-end videophiles to low-end tape trawlers, hardcore devotees to weekend watchers, if you can't find something in an issue of this magazine to pique your interest, you should have your eyes and pulse checked. Even this twenty-seven year old issue is packed to the gills with great interviews and historical pieces that haven't lost a smidge of their original value.

Sadly, Video Watchdog is no longer around. It ceased operation in 2016, filing for bankruptcy after twenty-six years and nearly two hundred issues published. But that leaves plenty of opportunities for you to score back-issues and beef up your library with stuff you'll read and reference repeatedly over the years. It takes a lot to be a perfectionist, but Tim Lucas and his crew managed to make it look easy even when everything conspired against them.

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Back cover.