We’re stepping back into the ‘90s and opening up The VHS Vault. Tonight’s batch of movies starts with a jungle-sized snack attack, then slides into slick apartment paranoia, we’ll also be turning the lights down for a ghost story that actually has teeth, then take a bizarre detour through early-’90s cyber delirium before closing on the horror tape you didn’t watch, you survived.
What’s up out there everybody? Welcome back to Movies Never Say Die. I’m Anthony Digioia, and this is The VHS Vault, where we crack open the dusty plastic clamshells, celebrate the movies that basically lived on late-night cable, and on “staff pick” walls. These movies also give some love to the weird, wild, and wonderfully rewatchable movies from our pasts that can still be the main event of any retro movie weekend. Now… let’s cue up the first tape, because in this one the jungle is open for business.
Anaconda (1997)
Deep in the Amazon, a documentary crew just wanted pretty shots and serious nature vibes… but they brought along a shady guide, a stressed-out boat captain, and enough ego to feed something very, very hungry. Because when the river goes quiet, the jungle starts feeling like a meat locker. It’s 1997’s Anaconda starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and Owen Wilson.
Anaconda is the kind of ‘90s rental you grabbed because the box art basically called out to you. Who didn’t want to see Ice Cube and J Lo battling a giant snake? It’s popcorn-monster cinema with zero shame, and honestly, that confidence is half the flavor. You get a documentary crew heading into the Amazon like they’re filming for Nat Geo, but the movie’s real mission is to turn “team-building retreat” into “floating panic attack” and with its foot on the gas pace it succeeds. I remember seeing this in the theater and even then it was silly, but it soon became “comfort cinema” through cable viewings and rentals when the good new releases were gone.
And it wasn’t just a cable staple, it was a bona fide hit. The budget is widely listed at around $45M. It opened with $16.6M in the U.S./Canada markets. And it went on to gross roughly $136.9M worldwide. That’s monster-movie math working perfectly. Recognizable faces, a simple premise, and a creature that turns every scene into a thrill ride of suspense. Critics to no surprise though, were not on board with this snake romp. Stephen Holden in his review with the times called it a “trashily entertaining reptilian version of Jaws” which I actually think is a solid compliment.
The cast is pure VHS comfort: Jennifer Lopez as the capable lead, Ice Cube as the guy who’s been mentally clocked out since the first mosquito. Owen Wilson shows up as Owen Wilson. And then Jon Voight arrives delivering one of the most gloriously unhinged performances of the decade. His whole vibe is “international villain sans cat on his lap.” And every time he speaks, this jungle adventure gets 5% campier. Is it classy? Not remotely. Are the characters making smart decisions? Hell no. But as a nostalgic watch, it’s the perfect “Friday night, lights off, snacks on” movie.
It’s loud, silly, easily consumable, and weirdly cozy. The performances inflate the bland characters perfectly and the group of familiar faces adds just enough pop each time the body count racks up. Plus Voight is a delightful menace with a farcical performance. Like a drunk dude at the bar showing you what he thinks is his spot on impression of Marlon Brando. And all the silliness in this one just works. Now after that campy jungle adventure let’s trade the river and trees for a high-rise, glass walls, and zero boundaries. It’s downtown living where the amenities include a view… of you.
Sliver (1993)
Here a successful woman moves into a gorgeous high-rise that screams “90s money,” complete with moody lighting, suspicious neighbors, and a vibe that says: nobody here owns curtains. And the more comfortable she gets, the more it feels like somebody else is getting comfortable watching her. It’s Sliver from 1993 starring Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, and Tom Berenger.
Sliver is peak “late-night cable with your finger hovering over the mute button so Stone wouldn’t wake the rest of the house”. It’s glossy, lurid, and paranoid in that very early-’90s way where every apartment has dramatic lighting and every hallway feels like it was designed specifically for shadows and slow walks. Sharon Stone plays the successful, newly single woman who moves into a sleek Manhattan high-rise and immediately discovers the building has a hobby: watching people. Not metaphorically. But… literally. Cameras, monitors, the whole “welcome home, we see you” voyeuristic package.
Financially, Sliver started strong in theaters, opening to about $12.1M in the U.S./Canada. It ultimately made around $36.3M domestically. With worldwide numbers soaring to around $116.3M. On a budget in the neighborhood of $30–40M. So audiences were in, critics on the other hand were out on this movie. In her review with the Times Janet Maslin said, “the story was senseless and its star Sharon Stone was given little of interest to do.” And it’s tough, she’s not entirely wrong, but it doesn’t hinder the guilty pleasure factor that fuels this entire movie.
But at the time this one was fresh. After the years the nostalgia has grown and now part of the fun is the time capsule factor. This is Sharon Stone coming off the Basic Instinct aftershock and pulling in a salary of $2.5M plus percentages. Joe Eszterhas was on the script and Phillip Noyce was directing, so the movie is constantly trying to look expensive and dangerous even when it’s being a little ridiculous. William Baldwin brings that “handsome-but-mysterious” vibe, Tom Berenger brings the grizzled tension, and the building itself does a lot of heavy lifting as the real co-star: all glass, angles, and suspicious silence.
It had to be edited 100 times to avoid an NC-17 rating and for young Anthony, I hope the true unrated cut makes it to 4K someday. Is it a great thriller? Not really. Is it a great vibe? Absolutely. It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to close your blinds, as soon as it gets dark. All of which makes Sliver one of the classic erotic thrillers from the ‘90s. Alright, I hope you’re all still here. Because now that we’ve survived the “somebody’s watching” era, we’re stepping into the “something’s whispering” era. In a story where the scariest surveillance system is your own mind.
Stir of Echoes (1999)
Here a regular guy with a regular life gets hypnotized at a party and suddenly his brain unlocks a cool new feature: seeing things he can’t unsee. Whispers. Visions. A presence that won’t stop knocking from the inside. And the closer he gets to the truth, the more the neighborhood feels like it’s hiding something under the floorboards. It’s 1999’s Stir of Echos’ starring Kevin Bacon.
Stir of Echoes is one of those late-’90s gems that feels like it should’ve been a bigger “everybody saw this” hit, but instead it became the “wait you haven’t seen this” Kevin Bacon thriller you rented with friends or family. The premise is simple and beautifully cruel: a regular Chicago dad gets hypnotized at a party, and suddenly his brain flips on the “supernatural reception” like somebody found the remote and hit INPUT. Now he’s seeing flashes, hearing whispers, has visions of a ghostly girl and realizes his seemingly normal house is keeping receipts from past trauma.
Financially, it did respectable business, but it should’ve been a bigger hit. It cost about $12M, opened to $5.81 million, and finished around $21.1 million domestically with worldwide numbers pushing the final tally closer to $23M. So decent, but not a true indication of dialed in the filmmaking was for this one. Even critics liked it, Roger Ebert called it one of Kevin Bacon’s best performances and Janet Maslin in her review had good words as well but it sadly wasn’t enough to push this to the $50M+ movie it should’ve been.
Mostly because it came out not long after the similarly occult themed mystery thriller The Sixth Sense. So it did get a bit overlooked. I remember seeing this at the second run theater on a day off. It had me locked in and it was one of my first DVD’s as well. I was writing a lot at the time and I loved the structure of this story, how it dropped its clues, and how it was able to play with the tension at ease. Kevin Bacon is the real MVP here. He sells the slow unraveling without turning it into cartoon madness. He’s scared, frustrated, obsessed, and still trying to do normal life stuff, which makes it creepier.
Director-writer David Koepp keeps it grounded and grimy, so it plays like a ghost tale that wandered in from the real world, not a fog-machine funhouse. And yes, it had the bad luck of landing in 1999’s horror traffic jam, with The Sixth Sense still towering over everything nearby. But as a nostalgic watch, it rules: it’s tense, soulful, legitimately spooky, and packed with the kind of creepy moments that make you stare at your hallway like something could be lurking in the shadows. Okay, you’re definitely going to want to stick around. We’ve dealt with ghosts in the walls. Now let’s deal with nightmares in the digital world, because this next rental is pure early-’90s tech terror with a hefty side of VR neon.
The Lawnmower Man (1992)
In this one a scientist starts experimenting with virtual reality and intelligence enhancement, and chooses a sweet, simple landscaper as his test subject. At first it’s inspiring, like a sci-fi glow-up. Then the upgrades keep coming, and so does the power. And pretty soon, the real world starts looking optional, and the digital world starts to take over. It’s 1992’s The Lawnmower Man starring Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan.
The Lawnmower Man is peak VHS sci-fi oddity. The kind of movie you rented because the cover promised “virtual reality,” and in 1992 that meant your imagination did half the special effects work for free. The setup is classic cautionary-tape material. Pierce Brosnan plays a scientist who decides to boost the intelligence of Jobe played by Jeff Fahey. A sweet, simple gardener, by using experimental drugs and VR. At first it plays like a geeky miracle… and then the movie yanks the wheel hard into “what if your desktop PC decided to become a prophet with a grudge?”
Financially, it absolutely worked as a weird-theater hit. It opened March 6, 1992 on 1,276 screens and debuted #2 with $7.7M just behind Wayne’s World. Final numbers would push to around $32.1M domestically. All on a reported $10M budget. So not bad. But critics were mostly not on board with this one. In his review for the NY Time Vincent Canby pretty much said nothing outside of rewording the synopsis and throwing in “torpor” a 25 cent word I had to look up. It means “a state of physical or mental inactivity” much like his effort with this review so he would know.
Now the real nostalgia juice is the early CGI. It’s ambitious, it’s loud, and it has that era’s unmistakable digital texture, like the future rendered through a neon fever dream. Some of it looks dated now, 100%, but it’s dated in a charming way. We found this one on cable and it soon became repeat viewing, mostly for the special-effects and maybe a little because of the sex scene too since I was a lawnmower teen in the summers on occasion. And you can’t talk about this one without the Stephen King footnote: it was marketed with his name, King sued, and the legal fallout included court orders and even contempt issues over removing his name from packaging/advertising.
So there was definitely some behind the scenes drama. On screen though, it rides the charm of Brosnan and Fahey and thrives on a brisk pace that keeps it feeling just fresh enough. Is it flawless? Far from it. Is it however a fascinating “we thought VR would eat the world” time capsule. And that ending… phones ringing everywhere… pure late-night cable legend. Now since we’re speaking on themes of technology you should not mess with. Our closer today is the ultimate “do not press play” legend. Let’s end on the tape that doesn’t just haunt you, it schedules the haunting.
Ringu (1998)
In this movie a rumor spreads about a videotape. You watch it, and you get a phone call. A few days later, you’re gone. A reporter digs in, thinking it’s an urban legend… until the clues start stacking up like a curse with a filing system. And what begins as curiosity turns into a countdown, and every answer feels like another step into the well. It’s 1998’s Ringu starring Nanako Matsushima and Hiroyuki Sanada.
Ringu is the final boss of creepy horror movies that rely on tension and timing over blood and gore. It’s not a jump-scare machine, it’s a slow story that builds foreboding tension and dread that seeps into the room and takes over. The genius in this movie’s hook is still undefeated: a cursed videotape, a phone call, seven days. It’s so simple you can explain it to a friend in one sentence, and then spend the next week side-eyeing every ringing phone after you watch it. I was between high school and college when this movie hit the states during the wave of Japanese horror splashing into the states during the mid to late ‘90s. It really hit differently than Hollywood horror. There was an artistic elegance in the scares, it got into your mind, and it made it feel smart.
Financially, it’s one of the great “small movie, huge impact” stories. The budget is commonly listed around $1.5M, and it grossed about $19.5M worldwide. Which is an absurd return for something this restrained and eerie. It premiered in Japan on January 31, 1998, and it basically helped kick the door open for the J-horror wave that followed with other movies like Ju-On and Pulse.
What hits hardest on these days on a rewatch is how grounded it feels primarily due to the natural lighting that strips away any studio gloss. Nanako Matsushima plays the reporter like a real person doing real work. She’s following leads, piecing things together, and trying to stay rational as the world gets irrational. And Hideo Nakata directs it with this calm, patient confidence, like he knows the scariest stuff is what happens in the quiet seconds when more often nothing “happens.” The imagery is iconic without being loud: the well, the static, the VHS tape’s ugly little collage of nightmares. It’s horror that looks like it was discovered and not created for cinema and even to this day with a smaller budget and much less gusto it’s still leaps and bounds better than the 2002 US remake. With this one by the time the end credits roll, you don’t feel like you watched a movie. You feel like you touched a cursed object and may need a few spritz’ with some Drakkar Noir to ward off any potential spirits.
Anthony J. Digioia II © 2026 SilverScreen Analysis & Movies Never Say Die
