Thursday, March 18, 2010

Friends of Danish ex-rental tapes unite!



In northern Europe we always hear about the serious Swedish VHS collectors (of Swedish tapes). I've often scratched my head as to why these people were so eager to collect severely censored tapes. It's well documented that Sweden, Norway and Finland had harsh censorshit regulations and thus had video releases missing all the fun. However, in the sinful Scandinavian south aka the Babylon of Scandinavia aka Denmark, we had no censorship board to secure us from nasty video films and their bad influences on us and how these vile video tapes would corrupt our minds.

Gore and sleaze could be released here as over the top as could be. The only limitations were the lack of a film director's lack of imagination (and in a few cases lazy distributors who didn't check that they didn't receive tapes that were meant for other markets and thus were already cut). We had the only uncut, English dubbed and letterboxed release of NIGHTMARE CITY. We had the only uncut, English dubbed AND letterboxed release of EMMANUELLE IN AMERICA. There were quite a few uncut tapes here that didn't exist anywhere else.

Anyhoo, so what's all this about? Well, Hans-Jørn Reimer (aka Diabolik from world famous film forums such as Cinehound and Uncut.dk) has just opened a new Facebook group entitled DEVAG. At first I thought it was a Montana militia group but lo and behold it means Danish Ex-rental VHS Appreciation Group.

Finally a useful FB group! Go here and join. Even if you're not collecting Danish ex-rental video tapes you can still check out the hundreds of rare VHS scans.

6 comments:

  1. :) I can remember at least two trips from Stockholm to Rockugglen (was that the name?) in Copenhagen to pick up Danish Ex-Rentals... Good old times.

    Wasn't TRAUMA a Danish Fanzine?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yep, Rockuglen.

    Wauw, all the way from Sthlm to pick up tapes. But yeah I can understand that as it's a cool shop (and it's still there).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Please don't mention Trauma when I'm around. God I hated that magazine for being so crappily written. About every second word was misspelt. But yes it was Danish. I believe they still have a website.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LOL. I used to be part of a unit that "distributed" uncut shot back in the mid/late nineties. It was easeier for us to get the train/boat down there than shipping boxes of shit. I remember bringing something like fifteen copies of Aquarius (Bloody Bird) among other titles at one time...

    We used to advertise in T. I didn't want to trash the mag without knowing if you might have been part of it. But yeah, not to impressive, but it sold quite a lot of issues, and we gained new customers... Someday I'll tell you about the trips to René in Holland, and the boxes of shit from Greece... Happy days. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah, tell me about them trips to René. LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi,
    I'm very sorry, but for some reason all my covers fail to upload!!!
    Therefore I've made DEVAG into a fanpage.... Please feel free to join... Sorry for the inconvenience!!!!
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Danish-Ex-rental-VHS-Appreciation-Group-DEVAG/106406262713995

    ReplyDelete