Click the image to watch the classic OVERVIEW
video segment from 1987!
A great
introduction to Video Watchdog!
Welcome to VIDEO WATCHDOG!
If you're not
familiar with VIDEO WATCHDOG...
where have you been?
So what does VIDEO
WATCHDOG cover?
Horror, science fiction, mystery, film noir, animation,
exploitation, sleaze, martial arts, fantasy from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
to the Bond series, even the most dreamlike examples of European and
Asian art and action cinema. If it stands outside the mainstream, if it
takes you outside the bounds of your own imagination, it's VIDEO
WATCHDOG material!
Explore our website.
Partake of the special departments, including Tim Lucas' award-winning
Video WatchBlog and our
exclusive VW Round Table Discussions. Rummage through our
Back Issues,
or look up a favorite movie in our
Review
Index. If we sound like something that would interest you or someone
you know,
Subscribe or order a single issue. We guarantee you'll be back for
more!
About VIDEO WATCHDOG
Tim Lucas
launched "The Video Watchdog" in October 1985, when it became the first
consumer guide to home video releases in the pages of VIDEO TIMES
magazine. Tim's popular column later continued as a shot-on-video
featurette appearing in Michael Nesmith's 1987
video-magazine-on-videotape OVERVIEW and, in print, in the pages of the
FANGORIA spin-off, GOREZONE—where it came into its own by narrowing (and
sharpening) its focus to horror, fantasy and cult cinema!
In June 1990, Tim's column was reborn as its own magazine, subtitled
"The Perfectionist's Guide to Fantastic Video." It became an immediate
hit with the most ardent and obsessive collectors of video arcana.
Today, VIDEO WATCHDOG is still going strong, with an eye-popping,
all-color format!
Our feature articles have sunk their teeth into a wide variety of
subjects—everyone from Jess Franco to Jack Hill to Andy Milligan to
Krzysztof Kieslowski, movies from BLADE RUNNER to TWIN PEAKS
FIRE WALK WITH ME to METROPOLIS and the classic horror films
of Universal and Hammer. We've also published ground-breaking interviews
with Vincent Price, Oliver Stone, Roger Corman, Barbara Steele, David
Cronenberg, Clive Barker, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN's Donnie
Dunagan, Curtis Harrington, Donald Cammell, John Brahm, Jess Franco,
Reggie Nalder, Udo Kier, makeup maestro Dick Smith, TOMB OF
LIGEIA's Elizabeth Shepard, Gordon Hessler, Antonio Margheriti,
Jean Rollin, Gordon Mitchell, Pupi Avati, Richard Kiel, Ernesto Gastaldi
and the queen of European character actresses, Harriet White Medin.
But it is for our film criticism that VIDEO WATCHDOG is most acclaimed.
In twenty years of publishing, we have amassed a larger collection of
informed thought pertaining to genre filmmaking than any published to
date in book form—literally thousands of reviews! Often imitated but
never surpassed, VIDEO WATCHDOG's reviews are serious without being
humorless, academic or overly technical. They delve into matters of
letterboxing, missing or restored footage, alternate versions, even how
domestic releases compare with overseas editions! And the WATCHDOG's
Kennel of contributors consists of only the very best writers and
historians working in the field of fantastic film research and
criticism, including John Bender, Stephen R. Bissette, Michael F. Blake,
John Charles, Max Alan Collins, Bill Cooke, Shane M. Dallmann, David Del
Valle, Darren Gross, Sheldon Inkol, Paul M. Jensen, Alan Jones, David
Kalat, Bill Kelley, Mark Kermode, Tim Lucas, Gregory William Mank,
Maitland McDonagh, Kim Newman, Gary Don Rhodes, David J. Schow, Richard
Harland Smith, Brad Stevens, Nathaniel Thompson, Rebecca & Sam Umland,
Bill Warren, Tom Weaver, and Bret Wood.
VIDEO WATCHDOG is also renowned for its celebrity guest columnists.
Douglas E. Winter's "Audio Watchdog" has been reviewing new CD
soundtrack releases since issue number 22. In issues 83 through 127,
we were the exclusive source for "Joe Dante's Fleapit Flashbacks," the
collected FILM BULLETIN criticism of the future director of GREMLINS,
THE HOWLING and LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION, written
between 1969 and 1974. VIDEO WATCHDOG is currently hosting "Ramsey's
Rambles," film-related essays by acclaimed horror novelist Ramsey
Campbell.
Our Letterbox correspondence is often as fascinating as the articles and
reviews we publish. Who else can boast of receiving mail from the likes
of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Joe Dante, Gordon Hessler, Jeff
Lieberman, producer Richard Gordon and so many other genre luminaries?
Since the founding of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Film Awards in
2003, VIDEO WATCHDOG has been chosen as Best Magazine by the voters for
5 consecutive years.
