[FANTASTIC FEST 2019] ‘VHYES’ Review

Disclaimer: I supported and contributed to the funding of this film on Indigogo last year. I have no stake in the success of the film, and the thoughts are entirely my own.

December, 1987 – a 12-year-old boy gets a video camera for Christmas, and uses his gift to document…well, everything. Using what he believes to be a blank tape (actually his parents’ wedding video), he captures everything from natural family interaction, playing with his friend, somber moments, and recordings directly from late night TV. Somewhere along the way, it becomes about something more substantial about growing up and growing apart. There’s also a supposedly haunted sorority house that burned down, too. This becomes more important than you realize.

From co writer Nunzio Randazzo and co-writer/director Jack Henry Robbins and shot entirely on videotape and Beta, VHYes looks and feels authentically timestamped from my childhood. The content from TV is the big highlight, ranging from hysterically accurate to surreal parody, with everything in between. This is inspired by the variety comedies of the past like The Kentucky Fried Movie, Amazon Women On the Moon (especially), and The Groove Tube. The movie features a lot of great comedic actors and a few surprise cameos that are fairly obvious in retrospect if you know who the director is. Part of why I backed this was the sincerity involved, and it final product blew me away in that respect. The talent they managed to wrangle up, and the producers who came on board, is really just the icing.

I’m not a VHS collector or fan of any sort; I’m more interested in quality than nostalgia. But there’s something truly special about this movie that makes me feel that nostalgic aura that people must feel towards the format. I don’t understand it, but I respect it more. Compounded with home movies I’ve made in my youth on VHS, this doubles as something that really burrowed into my heart and made me want to revisit those memories again. VHYes has an emotional core that is surprisingly poignant, and a format that is difficult to realize but is expertly stitched together. The final moments are incredibly strange in a very, very charming way. Look forward to catching this gem in the near future, I think you’ll be pleased.

Good news! In addition to premiering at Fantastic Fest 2019, VHYes has been picked up for distribution from the good folks at Oscilliscope sometime in the near future! Check out Robbins’ short Painting With Joan with the hilarious Kerri Kenney, one of the proof-of-concepts that became part of VHYes!