When I wrote my article on rare and expensive VHS tapes recently, it got me thinking about all of the VHS tapes I used to collect as a kid, the plastic cases, and the ritual of actually putting them into the VCR. The first VCR we ever had was my Grandma’s and it had a remote control on a wire, and I can still hear the whirring of the tape as I rewound back to the beginning of the Power Rangers movie to watch it all over again. I imagine fans of the original Alien Movies will have similar thoughts (probably without the remote control on a wire), and now they can add the new movie to their VHS collection with all the other 90s Alien films!
If you’re reading this and wondering what a ‘VHS’ is while looking at TikTok for the answer, then thanks for making me feel immensely old. VHSs are the black boxes with tape in them that you’ve probably seen people pulling out of dusty boxes when characters move house in movies. It stands for ‘Video Home System’ and was the king of the movie scene until DVD took its place. Now that we have Netflix and Sky TV, DVD and even Blu-ray are becoming less and less used, so the fact that 20th Century Studios are making an effort to keep physical media alive, one that’s technically considered dead at that, is frankly amazing.
The Alien: Romulus VHS will drop on December 3rd and shows the film in 4:3 ratio just like we remember from the CRT TVs of old. As the movie takes place between the events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) it makes sense for the film to come out on VHS for us to watch in the same vein as the other movies; it’ll keep things looking fairly similar when doing a movie marathon! The official blurb tells us that this is ‘an ultimate movie collector’s dream, the fully functioning VHS tape was created in celebration of the 45th anniversary of the legendary Alien franchise, the box features artwork by renowned artist Matt Ferguson.’
Obviously, if you don’t own a VHS anymore, then the film will still see a release on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD for anyone who’s firmly in this decade and isn’t living in the 90s like the Dodo team. We’ll be tracking down a VHS on December 3rd, however – who knows, it could be added to our rare VHS list one day!
