Monday, September 28, 2009

Thriller - A Cruel Picture

Alright, this isn't supposed to become the prime blog collectors turn to to check out what's going on the the world of rare VHS auctions... but I am gonna turn your attention to just one more exclusive auction; The Swedish VHS release of THRILLER - EN GRYM FILM, or as it's known in English THRILLER - A CRUEL PICTURE, directed by Bo Arne Vibenius and starring Christina Lindberg. This female revenge film is very very rare on Swedish VHS. For a long time only one copy was known to exist but now this second copy has turned up. It's not on eBay but on the Swedish eBay equivalent Tradera. The auction is running for another day and the latest bid as I write this is just over 5000 Swedish kronor ($715+). For the auction go here.

PS: No, you don't need to participate in the auction in order to watch the film as there's a really good reg. 1 DVD out. And in contradiction to the tape it's fully uncut (but be aware there's also an R-rated DVD. Make sure you get the right one, LOL).

Ghost of Guts Eater: SOLD!

Lars Jacobsson in Malmø, Sweden has lost his religion (i.e. he's giving up collecting old dusty video tapes) and he's selling off most of his treasured collection on eBay. The most interesting of his auctions is definitely his Swedish VHS release of the old Thai horror film KRASUE SAO from 1973, known in English as GHOST OF GUTS EATER. Lars' tape is the only known copy to exist among collectors (and the Swedish release is the only one in the entire world outside of Thailand! As a matter of fact I'm not even aware of any VHS or VCD releases FROM Thailand!!!) and in addition to this there's also the fact that GUTS EATER is actually a pretty entertaining film in that genre which I like to call the "flying head with intestines dangling underneath" genre (it may sound like common sense that such an expensive tape would be entertaining but trust me my scaly friend many VHS collectors pay good money for crap films simply due to their rarety!).


The auction ended yesterday and an unnamed collector in Switzerland won it for the whooping price of 510 dollars. Not the highest price ever for a video tape but high enough. Apparently, the same collector also scooped up Lars' BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA Hong Kong ex-rental VHS for $152.


Congrats to whoever that Swiss collector is (btw, a couple of years back I bought BMWB directly from TaiSeng in the US for ten whole smackeroos. Haha. But of course my tape is the sell-thru release and it doesn't have the rarity of an ex-rental tape (which also has a much, much cooler cover art work, that's for damn sure!!). The film and the version of it is entirely the same tho).


Read more about GHOST OF GUTS EATER in this old post.

Ghost of Guts Eater scans:
Top pic: The Thai poster. Middle pic: The Swedish VHS. Bottom pic: Custom made DVD cover done by some geezer Patrick knows. LOL.