Writer/filmmakers Nick Pruher and Joe Pickett spend all summer holed up in their Queens, NY apartments watching hours of VHS tape, looking for the wackiest, most unintentionally funny stuff ever caught on analog. The fruit of those efforts becomes a comedy showcase, the Found Footage Festival, which is coming to the Lakewood Theater May 8.
Pruher and Pickett find these VHS gems in thrift stores, garage sales and in the trash. This is the third show the duo has taken on tour, and this year’s videos includes a montage called “the best of harassment,” where they cobbled together 17 workplace harassment videos. A montage called “Hunks” features mustachioed dudes from the 80s, including Fabio, a Memphis-based wrestling duo, and a “Playgirl” exercise video. That’s followed by the “Babes” montage. “It’s the sexiest show we’ve ever done,” Pruher said.
Pruher started collecting weird VHS tapes in high school after he found a training video at the McDonald’s where he worked titled “Inside and Outside Custodial Duties.” The tape was “so insultingly bad” that he yoinked it so that he could show his friends. Now he has thousands of tapes in his apartment and just upsized his storage unit.
Read more and watch a trailer for the Found Footage Festival Vol. 3 after the jump.
For a video to make it into the festival, it has to be on tape – no DVDs – and it has to be unintentionally funny. “The main thread we’ve found in all of this is that it’s usually people who have a lot of ambition and access to video equipment, but not a lot of talent,” Pruher said.
Tickets are $10.
