It was third time lucky last night when we finally all go the experience the incredible events of The Video Store Birthday Party! Now you can join in the 1980s sleazy UK video store party at home as we’ve uploaded it in all it’s low-fi slightly ‘Not Safe For Work’ glory right here:
PLUS here’s the fake-out video store footage that we originally thought was the party, but turned out to me a man who hates trailer tapes simply checking his video camera in a rental store.
Well here’s an update on that Video Store Birthday Party tape, it was the wrong one again! Yes it’s now going to be referred to as The Cursed Birthday Party Video Tape as once again we managed to not watch the correct tape. After having the wrong tape the previous time I’d worked my way through the stash of tapes and found one that started with a home recording inside a vintage video store and assumed that this was the birthday party. As I wanted to watch it with all of you in person I only watched the first few seconds and then stopped it, which was my big mistake. Turns out it’s a different tape entirely and it’s just someone in a video store checking to see if their video camera works.
So that was a disappointment on the night as it only ran for a minute and then went into a vintage TV recording of the Australian soap opera Sons & Daughters. Hoping against hope that the correct Birthday Party was still sitting in the rest of the tape stash waiting to be found, I went through the rest of the tapes last night and it’s my great pleasure to say that we now 100%, totally, positively, absolutely have the correct tape. I say this with such assurance because I did the thing I didn’t want to do, which was to actually watch the tape on my own to fully check it this time around so there’d be no more disappointment!
So come and find out what happens on this now cursed tape as we unveil it for the first time as part of our Best Of Found Footage Night, this Monday 4th April at PimpShuei! Show starts at 7PM and will be over by 8PM. FREE ENTRY as awlays!
We’ll be closing our 100th Night with the now legendary Video Store Birthday Party tape, it’s only really legendary because I keep talking about it, but that’s a fair enough reason. So what’s the story behind this particular tape then?
Back in January we had Video Store Night at The Duke where we watched an evening made up of old promotional tapes that we’d acquired from a closed down video store, the tapes had been sitting behind the counter for decades until we were able to get our hands on them. So we dedicated a night to finding out what was on them, the highlight of which was going to be watching this tape, which according to the seller had been used to film someone having their birthday party in the store. Sadly he told me the wrong tape which meant that when we went to watch it there was no birthday party, which was a shame. But I’ve now gone through all the tapes and found the right now, so we’re going to close the 100th Duke by finding out together what happens at the birthday party in the store.
Remember we haven’t watched this tape, I’ve just watched the first 5-seconds to check it’s the correct one now. The one thing that makes me slightly nervous about playing this tape though is that fact that two of the other tapes we got from the store had been recorded over with home made porn! Which we only found out when we played them for the audience, let’s just say they didn’t stay on screen very long, but did make everyone laugh. So who makes porn films and then just leaves them behind the counter for decades? Also if they made porn films there, what’s going to happen at the Birthday Party? You’ll have to come along to the 100th Duke to find out!
Monday 4th April – PimpShuei – Show stars at 7PM Ends around 8PM
This April Alex is heading all the way to Philadelphia, USA to represent The Duke at the Cinedelphia Film Festival, a massive 2-week extravaganza of incredible films, offbeat TV and general video madness. We’ve been invited to take part and we’ll be unleashing a best of our Found Footage Show on Saturday night right in the heart of Philadelphia.
To warm up for this we’re doing a bonus Duke night at one of our favourite London bars, the one and only PimpShuei. Come along and join us as we run through the show we’re put together for Philadelphia and unleash on you the best of our Found Footage finds! We really want to see how it all plays with a crowd so please do come along and check out the show, plus we might throw in a few extra surprises along the way.
Also as Evrim can’t make our 100th Duke Night he’ll be here this time so come and join us as we belatedly celebrate 100 nights of film chaos with him at our 100.5 night!
Shows starts at 7PM and should run about 45-Minutes, stick around after the show for drinks and fun. FREE ENTRY as always!
The Duke Mitchell Film Club 