FRIDAY JUNE 20TH

VHS FEST NIGHT ONE
THE LOST BOYS (1987 - 4K REMASTER)

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Join us for VHS Fest, a special three night film festival celebrating films that represent the classic era of VHS video.  Each night you can take a stroll through our life size VHS rental store, indulge in some retro gaming, have a drink in our beer garden (with our VHS era playlist) and then enjoy a cult classic film from the era on the big screen. Tickets for individual nights are available as well as a discounted festival ticket for all three nights (night three revealed soon).

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Night one of VHS Fest sees us take a trip to 80s Santa Clara, California. When a newly divorced mother and two sons move to the coastal locale, it's only a matter of time until the town's local teen vampire biker gang attempt to recruit one of the family. It's then up to younger brother Sam and his two friends from the local comic book store to save the day.

 

Campy, gothic and cool with a rocking 80s soundtrack​​, The Lost Boys is a key touchstone of 80s pop culture and still the best teen screen vampire gang ever assembled (apologies to Twilight & Buffy). The stacked cast of 80s icons include Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, & Dianne Wiest (on the verge of winning her Oscar) all under the spell of ace cinematography from Michael Chapman, who by this point in his career had already shot Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and the iconic Michael Jackson 'Bad' music video for Martin Scorsese (not to mention Paul Schrader's 'Hardcore' , Hal Ashby's 'The Last Detail' the 70s Invasion of The Bodysnatchers remake).  Imbued with director Joel Shumacher's bold, vividly coloured visual style, ace production design and frenetic energy it deserves nothing less than to be enjoyed on the big screen in this new 4K remaster.    

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​The iconic teenage horror comedy is fun from start to finish and the perfect way to kick off a weekend of VHS classics.

SATURDAY JUNE 21ST

VHS FEST NIGHT TWO
COMMANDO (40TH ANNIVERSARY)

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Join us for VHS Fest, a special film festival celebrating films that represent the classic era of VHS video.  Each night you can take a stroll through our life size VHS rental store, indulge in some retro gaming, have a drink in our beer garden (with our VHS era playlist) and then enjoy a cult classic film from the era on the big screen. Tickets for individual nights are available as well as a discounted festival ticket for all three nights (nights three revealed soon).

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When ex United States Army Special Forces colonel John Matrix (Schwarzenegger obviously) has his now peaceful life interrupted by the kidnap of his young daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano - Charmed), he must race against the clock to rescue her from a band of classic 80s bad guys that includes Dan Hedaya (Blood Simple, Clueless, The Usual Suspects, Mulholland Drive), Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2, Weird Science), David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors, Twin Peaks), & Bill Duke (Predator, Menace II Society) with the unwitting help of innocent bystander Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong - The Color Purple). 

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But hey, who cares about the plot? All in all it's a fabulous excuse for Arnie to charge around the roads and shopping malls of upstate California as well as the Island hide-out of a Latin American dictator, reeking havoc with large guns (both the human flesh kind and the mechanical kind) whilst uttering ludicrously funny quips. Extremely dated and extremely entertaining this is the epitome of the non franchise 80s actioner that was such a staple of the era. 

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Helmed by cult director Mark Lester (The Class of 1984, Firestarter, the latter being THE key influence on Stranger Things) and during Arnie's unprecedented hot streak sandwiched between The Terminator and Predator, Commando is everything you could want from an Arnie movie and more. With endless one liners, a penchant for 80s action movie outfits (bicep revealing vests, denim dungarees, camo, chainmail & leather trousers) and explosions bigger than Arnie's pecs, this is the perfect Saturday night VHS Fest choice. Let's party!

SUNDAY JUNE 22ND

VHS FEST NIGHT THREE
COCKTAIL

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Join us for VHS Fest, a special film festival celebrating films that represent the classic era of VHS video.  Each night you can take a stroll through our life size VHS rental store, indulge in some retro gaming, have a drink in our beer garden (with our VHS era playlist) and then enjoy a cult classic film from the era on the big screen. 

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Hot on the heels of two breakthrough performances in Tony Scott's Top Gun and Scorsese's The Color of Money, and right before what is likely the most unprecedented unbroken run of successful (either financially or critically) movies in cinema history that would last until present day, Tom Cruise graced this popcorn classic with the presence of mega-star. Transforming what was essentially a b-movie into a box office smash that would take in nearly nine times it's own budget at the box office. 

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When young Brian Flanagan (Cruise) is discharged from the army he dreams of making it big in business in New York City, despite taking the right classes and applying for the right jobs he is repeatedly rejected until in desperation he stumbles upon veteran bartender Doug Coughlin (an unforgettable Bryan Brown) and accepts a job in order to make ends meet. Eventually hatching a scheme to start his own bar by making in money bartending in Jamaica he falls into a whirlwind romance with an American artist Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) holidaying at the resort as darker storm clouds begin to gather over his life, love and dreams. 

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A movie that created an entire generation of bartenders, Cocktail is a flashy, funny and sometimes dark comic book coming of age fantasy that reflects the changing tides of the era. A fascinating study of how the charm of the yuppie dream was beginning to fade, Tom Cruise plays it braggadocious and cocky before craftily deploying his trademark earnestness.

 

Despite it's dark interior the fabulously thin plot allows for the full popcorn movie guilty pleasure experience of a breezy romance movie about an ambitious bartender in 80s America and was undoubtedly a staple of the VHS era with its vibrant fashions, soundtrack, quotable dialogue and undeniably charismatic central star. We can't wait to visit with the current undisputed (as of 2025) king of the box office and all round champion of cinema in his 1988 guise in what is probably the most VHS centric release of his career. An epic way to end three nights of VHS Fest.