“When Video Attacks: The Art of the Video Mix.” Found Footage Magazine 10 (October 2024): 48-59.

Video mixtape is a term that describes hand-made VHS collage tapes primarily consisting of found footage re-recorded from movies, television, and home videos. Some call them “video complications,” while others colloquially refer to them as “VHS shit mixes,” “video cut-ups,” “scratch videos” (as the British call them), and to a few lonesome (or perhaps hopeful) creators they are “party tapes.”¹ Historically, such video collages were self-distributed, with the practice’s most popular titles being bootlegged and eventually shared on peer-to-peer networks. Although a small number of them have been commercially produced, none would be considered commercially successful. 

A wide majority of video mixtapes are compiled from short clips, often dubbed from other source videotapes, which mixtape creator-collectors consider to be the best of the best or the weirdest of the weird. They offer up some of the most extreme, bizarre, and sensational clips from people’s individual video collections. A few even include original material produced specifically for the mix. Some of the more extreme video mixtapes were officially (or unofficially) banned, an aspect that appeals to gore-hounds since it suggests this morally corrupt material is offensive enough to inspire some government bureaucrat to try to stop audiences from seeing it. Warning labels attached to tapes not only inform that the content is shocking, but also functioned as a challenge to potential viewers: Do you have the intestinal fortitude necessary to engage with this material?

In this paper, I consider a diverse range of video mixtapes to discuss their different aesthetic aspects while highlighting several of the most-discussed and paradigmatic works. I argue that the video mixtape can be seen as an extension of mondo film and the shockumentary, but also has roots in experimental cinema, video art, and zine culture. I will also demonstrate that these tapes provide a meta-commentary on the culture in which they were produced.² 

1. Andy Copp, ‘‘I Wish I’d Taped That’: The Original Underground Compilation Videos,’ Cinema Sewer, no. 23 (April 2010), 12.
   As Robin Bougie humorously writes of the early 1990s mixtape trading scene, “it was clearly mostly populated by lonely virgins living in their parents’ basements—with only two VCRs to use as equipment on which to create their VHS ‘masterpieces’” 
   (Copp, 2010:12). [↩]
2. Mondo films are exploitative documentary films known more for their sensational depictions of foreign cultures or emphasis on the taboo than for their accuracy. Shockumentaries are graphic documentaries that deal with the topic of death and violence in a sensationalized and shocking manner. For more, see:
   David Kerekes and David Slater, Killing for Culture (London: Creation Books, 1994)
   Mark Goodall,  Sweet & Savage: The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens (London: Headpress Books, 2006). [↩]