Video Watchdog: A Magazine for True DVD Lovers

There is no shortage of DVD coverage in the world today. There are a plethora of media sources that pretend to be informing consumers of what’s new in the world of DVD. What this coverage mostly consists of is a list of titles that are coming out in a particular week. (Usually a far from complete list, it omits anything but the most high profile titles from the largest companies.) Sometimes you even get a review of the movie itself. For true movie lovers who would like to know something more than who stars in the movie and how much money it made on its opening weekend there is a nifty little magazine called Video Watchdog.

Video Watchdog has been out since 1990, beginning its life as a compilation of reviews of film rarities that barely got any attention in the mainstream press. This small magazine (about the size of TV Guide before its recent revamp) was born out of publisher Tim Lucas’ love for odd movies: cult movies, B-movies, cheapo horror flicks and sleazy exploitation films of every stripe. Most of these films could not even be found in stores. It was actually a job to track them down on barely-legal bootleg tapes. Now that DVDs have taken over the world, these once hard-to-find treasures are becoming more and more accessible and DVDs have become the primary focus of the magazine. There are a few short columns dealing with books and CDs but the bulk of each issue if taken up with DVD reviews.