So, what's the tie-in to this supposedly classic VHS gorefest from the 1980's, newly minted onto the post-millennial digital format known as DVD. Well, Gary P. Cohen's pair of low budget horror comedies are indeed loaded with galloons of fake 'buloo-ud'. They're also "not funny", not funny at all.

The Plots:
Video Violence 1
Steve and Rachel Emery have just moved from the hustle and bustle of New York City to the suspiciously quiet suburbs of New Jersey. When their video store starts receiving cassette tapes of real killings, the couple tries to contact the police. Wouldn't you know it – the entire town is involved with psychotic serial killers Howard and Eli in a craven conspiracy to create and distribute their own snuff films. And guess who the locals now have in their cinematic sites?

Video Violence 2
Howard and Eli now run their own cable access television program, where murder and mayhem still rule. They even offer up some audience participation as residents from the local community send in their own homemade horrors. As our duo tortures an actress onscreen, we see snippets involving an execution, a gore drenched orgy, and a photo shoot gone splatter. But the questions remains – is it all real? Or are Howard and Eli simply letting the FAKE blood flow to grab ratings.

The DVD:
A pox on all involved in the creation of Video Violence 1 & 2 – a big, fat, hairy, parasite-infested and pus laden set of sores on anyone who believed that this pair of productions had any meaningful motion picture merit whatsoever. Yes, this is coming from the guy who liked the 2006 Black Christmas remake. This is from the cinematic aesthetic that praised Pervert!, enjoyed Ultraviolet, touted Tiki and still believes Street Trash is one of the lost masterpieces of post-modern macabre. Take this obviously antagonistic opinion for whatever you feel it's worth, but after spending almost three hours with the straight to video vileness, it's clear that this DVD release will only instill nausea, not nostalgia, in unsuspecting fright fans. Whoever championed this chum as anything other than homemade horror horse apples, devoid of anything remotely entertaining or enticing, needs immediate electro shock schlock therapy. While they may, at one time, have been worthy of a place alongside the rest of the rejects on the bottom shelf of your Mom and Pop Rental Palace memories, a space certainly taken up with its far share of Charles Band and Vestron Video releases, these foul films also argue for the death of VHS, and a continued curse on the purveyors of such completely unwatchable works of dung.

Let's establish something right up front – nothing gets this horror geek going better than a good old fashioned balls to the wall bloodletting. Something as grue-tastic as Day of the Dead, Dead Alive, or Freddy vs. Jason (the unrated version) satisfies a solid sense of claret craving in such a longstanding terror tester. But there is a fine line between the grotesque and the goofy, and Video Violence steps over said boundary time and time again. The basic premise – that we are watching snuff films made by the craven populace of a tiny New Jersey burg – is rendered inert by the amateur antics of the special effects used to realize said storyline. Severed heads offer a moment or two of funky fun before instantly resembling doctored up mannequin domes. Similarly, dissected limbs all suffer from lessons learned at the Tom Savini School of Weapon Reconfiguration and Jump Cutting. The machetes and knives used here are all given the standard 'half-moon' modification so that the illusion of bodily harm can be created on camera. One time, it's interesting. After the 10th time, it's tedious. Add to this fact that some of the killings are just plain stupid (OOOOO! He's strangling her with a plastic bag over the head! I'm shakin'!!!!) and reek of the routine, and you've got a limp nasty noodle that even the most squeamish scare aficionado could bite into.

But at least the arterial spray is better than the comedy. Someone here read one too many Truly Tasteless Jokes books in their lifetime, and decided that such pre-school snickers were perfect for the film. Imagine, if you would, a narrative that constantly tosses death-innuendo catchphrases at the screen, and then dares you to laugh at them...out loud! Only super steroided action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme can get away with such cheap throwaway lines and not have an entire audience ready to lynch them. Cohen's idea of humor is overloaded with puns, mixed metaphors and sorely uneven notions of wit. Even the most outrageous moments – many revolving around a dipstick sheriff and his country bumpkin bewilderment – just don't fly. We see through the ruse, recognizing the insertion of gags and groan-inducing quips when no invention or originality can be found. Obviously marketed to those who remember these titles when they represented the "cutting edge" of analog atrocities, Video Violence 1 & 2 now symbolize the end of an era in DVD technology. Once crapfests like this unacceptable offering become standard sell-through fair, it's clear that we can no longer consider the format a preservationist's medium. Frankly, there is no excuse for putting this puke back into the movie marketplace.

The Video:
Welcome to the world of multiple technical strikes. Camp Motion Pictures, the company that originally released this title into the VCR void, makes the leap to digital with all its 1.33:1 full frame analog issues intact. The picture here is horrible. Unlike Tempe, a company prone to giving its Super VHS releases a mandatory run through a post-production clean up, Camp simply ports over the piss poor video feed circa 1987 and makes a DVD out of it. As a result, there's a lack of correct color, faded or cloudy details, lots of flaring, bleeding and white-outs, and fairly frequent tracking problems. This critic typically uses Artisan's abysmal transfer of Shadows Run Black as the bottom of the barrel image standard. He now has a new benchmark for all bad films to beat.

The Audio:
STEEEEEEERIKE TWO! Overmodulated, atonal, and completely lacking in any redeemable aural elements, the Dolby Digital Stereo presentation here is just pathetic. The speakers are filled with flat Mono mixes, the nonstop musical score in Video Violence 1 enough to drive even the most life loving and affirming individual to put several bullets into their aching eardrums. Even worse, the dialogue frequently gets lost in various ambient elements (street traffic, interior echo) and the camcorder recording approach fails to correct the problem.

The Extras:
...and you're OUT! Nothing is worse, especially in the case of a bad cinematic stool sample, than when a filmmaker attempts to defend his dross. Lucky for us, Cohen is here in three separate situations, and ready to play protector of his muse. First up is a little something called "Violence on Video: An Interview with Gary Cohen". Arguing for his accomplishments in a minor Q&A, you'd swear he was Herschell Gordon Lewis the way he praises his productions (truth be told, both films owe a HUGE debt to Mr. Blood Feast and his exploitation style of sluice). He even sounds dejected when discussing the criticism of his efforts. Cohen is also on hand for a couple of commentaries. He shares the unseen stage with cast and crewmembers Mark Dolson (F/X), Mark Kwiatek (also F/X), Art Neill (Video Violence #1's hero Steve Emory), Paul Kaye (yokel), David Christopher (another yokel) and Uke (vile killer Eli). In between all the backslapping and happy memory lane tripping, we get some interesting onset anecdotes, and there's lots of discussion about the film's many gore sequences. But after suffering through these films once, revisiting with a group of individuals who actually enjoy them will be pushing the likeability limits of even the most enthusiastic added content fan.

Final Thoughts:
This is an easy one. Skip It. Avoid It. Read this review until the very end and then forget you ever heard of Video Violence 1 & 2. If you're still not convinced, go and research obscure, outsider horror films from the 1980's on Google, locate one or two examples of the era's worst, enjoy the critical evisceration given to them by a (hopefully) competent critical guide, and then multiple the dismissal by several dozen. Then and only then will you experience the amount of awfulness present in this dire DVD. Camp Motion Pictures may be thinking that it's serving an under-represented market (i.e. – cinephiles in love with the lowest levels of camp and kitsch) but they're barking up the wrong bush. Something like Video Violence 1 & 2 will only convince the dazed demographic that they smoked too much Paraquat-laced wacky weed back in the Greed decade. After all, no one could possibly enjoy these offal offerings sober. Even under the influence of some powerful mind altering substances, they would still stand as a pair of the worst movies ever to mar magnetic tape.

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