Oh, how I miss the heyday of the video store, when guys like West Virginia-based brothers Richard and Michael Henderson could gather together some friends, shoot a movie on VHS, and land national distribution for the result. Who doesn't remember walking into their local mom and pop shop and seeing at least one of the Henderson brothers' two movies on the shelf?
Well, actually, nobody remembers that, because the Henderson brothers are fictional characters, the subject of director Justin Channell's mockumentary WINNERS TAPE ALL: THE HENDERSON BROTHERS STORY, which is described as being like "if Christopher Guest made a movie about the Polonia brothers". I'm sold!
The official synopsis:
“Winners Tape All: The Henderson Brothers” tells the story of Michael and Richard Henderson, two stepbrothers from West Virginia who saw an opportunity in the burgeoning VHS market in the 1980s and made their own backyard horror movies that made it to video stores across the country. Their films “The Curse of Stabberman” and “Cannibal Swim Club” made a huge splash with horror fans when they hit video store shelves back in the late ‘80s, but the story behind the films has never been heard… until now.
“Winners Tape All” covers the Henderson Brothers’ rise to prominence, and fall from grace when the independent video store boom burst. However, they rose once again with the recent rediscovery of their films by horror VHS collectors. One fan of their work, Henry Jacoby, even started a distribution company, Blood & Guts Video, to distribute the Henderson Brothers’ movies to a wider audience.
Of course, anyone familiar with the work of Justin Channell will probably recognize this film is actually a mockumentary starring his frequent collaborators Zane Crosby and Joshua Lively as the Henderson brothers. Fans of low-budget horror cinema will also recognize that Henry Jacoby is actually played by filmmaker Chris LaMartina (“Call Girl of Cthulhu,” “President’s Day”). But isn’t it more fun to pretend it’s real?
The trailer for the movie debuted online this morning, and it looks very entertaining me. The basic concept is great, and it appears to have been brought to the screen with some fun performances from the leads. I also love the low quality glimpses we get of the Hendersons' movies.
Co-star/associate producer Chris LaMartina also made WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL, the movie that was presented as being a long lost TV recording from 1987, and I'm getting that same kind of nostalgic vibe from WINNERS TAPE ALL. I enjoyed WNUF, and I'm really looking forward to checking this one out.