VIPCO (Video Instant Picture Company) were founded in the late 1970s by a man named Michael Lee. During this first incarnation of the company, they would release a host of controversial movies on VHS in the UK market, including such legendary titles as Driller Killer, Shogun Assassin, The Bogeyman and probably most contentiously of all, the strong uncut version of Lucio Fulci’s undead epic Zombie Flesh Eaters. After the introduction of the Video Recordings Act in 1984, all UK VHS releases needed to be certificated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Censorship as they were at the time, Censorship has since been dropped in favour of the less controversial sounding Classification). Lee and his company were one of those most affected by this change and many of his titles were no longer deemed legal in the UK, the BBFC would cut or ban outright certain titles that had been released by VIPCO causing a whole world of trouble for Lee and many of the other distributors operating in the UK at the time.

Directed by Jason Impey (Zombie Lover, An Autistic Film and The Bleed) in 2018, The VIPCO Story as it was originally titled is a documentary following the life and career of Michael Lee and his label featuring a host of fascinating interviews with Lee himself, as well as many of those involved within the industry at the time including artist Graham Humphreys, journalists like Kim Newman, James Simpson, Mark McKenna and Jay  Slater and filmmakers who like Impey himself have been influenced by the films in question.  The interview with Lee himself is excellent, he comes across as very open and happy to talk in-depth about his trials and tribulations including his prosecution for film piracy before he even started VIPCO, as well as the problems his business faced in the face of the Video Nasties panic in the 1980s. There is also quite a lot about the company’s return to prominence in the 1990s with the advent of DVD when they were able to release cut prints of Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox and Zombie Flesh Eaters to name but a few.

The documentary is very solid, featuring well-informed experts and some great stories from those involved in the business. I was particularly interested in one story from Michael Lee’s school friend Martin Myers, from Miracle Communications, whose father Michael was the man John Carpenter named his Halloween icon after. It’s also great to hear Graham Humphreys talk about the covers he created and the wonderful story of how Michael Lee, as Lord Buckethead, stood against Margaret Thatcher during an election purely to promote his movie, Gremloids. Michael Lee is definitely a one-off who made a huge impression on thousands of young people in the 1980s and beyond who have grown to love these obscure horror and exploitation movies that he brought to the UK marketplace.
To be fair to Jason Impey, this is a far better documentary than I was expecting it to be.  The interviews with Lee are excellent as he recounts his experiences of running VIPCO and the fight to keep his movies on shelves.

If you enjoyed documentary films like Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape (2010) and Ban the Sadist Videos (2005) this film works well as a great companion piece to those. This DVD release from Filmlandia is bare bones and features just the film and some trailers for other Filmlandia releases. If I’m honest I think this probably deserves a 3.5 out of five but as we don’t give halves at Musique Machine, I am going to have to give it a 3 out of 5.