Before BETA and VHS, SUPER 8MM HORROR FILMS was the shit.

Before there was Beta and VHS players, back in the late 70's and early 80's, Super 8mm films were the shit. I was eight years old and I had a heavy, shady black Super 8mm sound Black Howell movie projector.  And with it I had a few Super 8mm horror films, TROG, DAMIEN: OMEN 2, ALIEN (spanish speaking edition),  THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA, DINOSAURUS and a few others.  Some films with sound,  some silent with subtitles.  The Super 8mm mini short films were short versions from the feature film.  Some of the films ran for 5 minutes,  and some 18 minutes.  They came in beautiful, square sealed colorful boxes with the original movie poster pressed into the box, when you open the boxes,  a sweet, fresh film strip smell came from inside the boxes.  I used to bring my films and film projector to my friend's houses and show them the films. 

I remembered many times begging my sister to take me to Times Square, NYC so i could buy a few Super 8mm films.  This was the early 80's when Times Square was super seedy.  Every Electronic store in Times Square would carry this Super 8mm films for sale,  some of them ran expensive and some 3 for 10 dollars.  And they had all types of Super 8mm films for sale cartoon, dramas, sports, even porn, with Vanessa Del Rio. Times  Square was a scandal. 

The problems I had with Super 8mm films was they would split right in the middle of viewing, or the side sprockets would break when projected.  But that's what made Super 8mm film viewing fun, to see some random Super 8mm horror film projected on the wall with a bunch of friends and just have them stare at the wall in awe, then out of nowhere film would split in half. Those were the good ole days.  Then came Beta, Laserdisc, VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray and that is another story.