A director has created the first direct-to-video movie to be released in 20 years — 10 years after the last VHS player ceased production.
The movie, titled This Is How the World Ends, is a drama set at a party at the end of humanity — an apocalypse brought on by AI. But why release it only on VHS?
Speaking to the Guardian, the director, Robert dos Santos, said, “I love the idea that you need to be part of the club to watch this. It’s for people that have a specific taste. There is a band of human beings who really understand what we’re doing.”
VHS was all the rage from the late 70s to the early 2000s, before being replaced by DVDs, which were sharper and much easier to rewind (if you know, you know). Then, Blu-ray and eventually streaming took over in the late 2000s and 2010s.
While it’s not clear what the last straight-to-video movie released was, the last major film released on VHS in the US was 2006’s A History of Violence. Funai Electric, the last VCR manufacturer, stopped production in 2016.
“It’s a film made by humans for humans,” he continued. “I want people to feel something that’s imperfect, because VHS is not a perfect medium, but there’s also a physical process to it. You have to order a tape and, for some people, actually go out and buy a VCR.”
While Santos wants to release This Is How the World Ends to push back against the digitization of media, the movie itself criticizes AI.
“Someone once said that if your mum can do it, it doesn’t have value,” he said. “If everybody can do something, then nobody can do it … what we’re drawn to is the idea that there are human beings interacting, engaging with one another, being part of the process.”
This Is How the World Ends won’t be VHS-exclusive forever
Don’t worry if you no longer have a VHS player and want to watch the movie. This Is How the World Ends flips the usual release schedule: “First you’d take a film to cinema, and then eventually at the very end you get VHS,” dos Santos explained. “And we’re like: no. If you want to watch this, get a VCR and let’s go.
“Then after that, we’re going to go to Blu-ray and DVD, and then after that, we’re going to go to cinema and streaming. But the first priority is VHS.”
If you do have a VHS player lying around, the movie will release on June 7 to coincide with World VCR Day.
