An Interview with Nick Prueher, Co-Founder of Found Footage Festival
The original VHS copy of "Computer Beach Party," found at a thrift store in Ohio.
Tell me a little about what you do.
We are strictly video collectors. We collect VHS tapes we find in places like thrift stores and dumpsters. In 1991 we happened upon this training video in the break room of the McDonald’s I was working at at the time. It was so ridiculous and so wonderfully dumb that I took it home and showed it to my friend Joe. We immediately fell in love with this tape, and thought there had to be more videos out there, just waiting to be discovered. We started looking in thrift stores and other out-of-the-way places for more VHS tapes to use to entertain us and our friends.
Over the years we’ve amassed this huge collection. Finally in 2004 we thought, we should just take this out of the living room and put it in a movie theatre. It was a total surprise that anyone beyond our immediate friends showed up, but it ended up selling out and we started getting offers to bring the show elsewhere.
Are these tapes that you find marked? How do you know when you’ve found something good?
You grab stuff that looks promising. I don’t really pick up unmarked tapes that often, unless there’s something on it that’s intriguing. Occasionally we will find an old VHS camcorder and it will still have a VHS tape inside of it, unmarked, but you know it’s been recorded on as a home movie and they just forgot to eject it before they sold the camera. We always pick up those.
We’ve kind of honed the skill over the years. We found a video the other day in a Memphis thrift store that said “Nicole’s First Communion” written in pencil on the label, and then below that was written “Dirty Dancing”. [Laughs] Those things are intriguing.
Normally what we do is we screen clips from instructional videos and exercise videos and home movies that we find, stuff that wasn’t meant to be shown in public.
So instead, with this tour, you are screening an entire movie called Computer Beach Party.
We mostly just find special interest tapes -- like tons of people bought exercise videos, got sick of them, and dropped them off at Goodwill. When you’re looking at a sea of those types of movies, then you see a movie called Computer Beach Party from 1985, and it has a couple on the beach kissing, next to a computer... we’ve been collecting for twenty years and have never found a movie good enough to base an entire show around. So you know that Computer Beach Party has to be fairly special, and we stand behind it.
At least movies like Meatballs or Porky’s can tell a confidant story; a dumb story, but confidant. This one is just the perfect storm of awfulness.
I understand that you’ve built an entire act around this movie; you do live commentary, a little trivia at the end...
We wouldn’t want anyone to have to suffer through this alone. There is nothing more excruciating than watching people try to be funny and failing; it’s heartbreaking. We’re there to make it go down a little easier.
Have you managed to find out anything about the people who were involved with Computer Beach Party?
We did some homework, and actually spoke to the girl who plays the romantic lead. Her name is Stacey Nemour. Probably the most charitable way to describe her is that she's an “untrained actress”, an unformed diamond.
We spoke to her and found out that she’s dating the director, who has never made another movie in his life. Her brother was the lead singer for this hair metal band called Panther, and they were enlisted to do the entire soundtrack. They have two complete musical performances during the movie, which you have to just sit and watch. Luckily the Central Cinema serves booze, and we suggest at that time people get up and grab a refill.
The movie was shot entirely in Galveston Texas, and they apparently used a lot of locals as actors.
I’m sorry, is Galveston a beach town?
Galveston is not exactly known for its lovely beaches, although there is a beach.
What should one wear to this event? Is there a recommended dress code?
In Milwaukee people came in captain’s hats and Hawaiian shirts and beach shorts, and brought a beach ball to pass around during the movie. We suggest that people do the same.
There’s one article of clothing that’s featured prominently in the movie. The lead actress wears a one-piece swimsuit that has a big Betty Boop on it. We found one on eBay for almost $300, so we couldn’t buy it. If there’s a Betty Boop bikini in someone’s drawer, that would be a good thing to wear.
Can I entice you to offer some sort of best-dressed prize?
We’ll do it. Best-dressed movie-goer gets a Computer Beach Party poster.
Do you accept video donations?
We get to Seattle once or twice a year, and we’ll be hitting all the local thrift stores when we get in town, but we’re only here a short time. If people have found anything, video-wise, in or around Seattle, we encourage them to bring it to the show.
It’s garage sale season now in Seattle, so if you have some time on Saturday, I suggest you drive around.
That too. We’ll be back in December, and we always like to feature locally found stuff.
Saturday, July 24, 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. // Central Cinema, 21st and Union // $10 in advance / $12 day of
