Reading about this perhaps little-known Swedish film, it sounded like something I could relate to, I myself am a massive collector of DVDs, and this was all about a video collector, and it was rated well, so I hoped for the best. Basically, Ennio Midena (Stefan Sauk) is a VHS (video home system) video tape collector. He used to run Sweden's best video store but has since moved to Gothenburg and developed a drinking problem since its closure. The only people that still rely on Ennio's collection video cassettes are his friends, who often come over to watch a film with him, or other collectors or nostalgic fans of videos looking for titles, especially 1970s and 1980s horrors and thrillers, to borrow or buy from him. Ennio is close to being evicted from his basement flat-cum-video library. But he believes his problems may be solved when he receives a call from an anonymous woman. She is looking for the film Zombie (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters), a rare and collectable film to find on video tape, and she is offering 10,000 euros to purchase it. But things go awry for Ennio when the movie gets stolen, and he must start a desperate hunt for a perpetrator. The mysterious (and possibly murderous) buyer threatening him is known only as Faceless, but Ennio will stop at nothing to get the rare tape worth thousands back. Carolin Stoltz During his search, Ennio meets divorced fellow alcoholic Simone Karlsson (Lena Nilsson), who has an obsession for everything from the 1980s, especially the music, fashion, and culture. Simone a victim of workplace bullying and struggles to develop a relationship with her grown up daughter. These outsiders joined by nostalgia and broken dreams starts a romance. But Ennio is in danger of losing all grip on reality as he looks for the tape before the proposed handover to the buyer. Also starring Morgan Alling as Giallo-Bosse, Martin Wallström as Chefen - The Boss, and Amanda Ooms as Simones Kollega - Simone's Colleague. The performances are fine, there is a story I could just about follow (loosely based on a real-life collector, who cameos as a janitor), I'm not sure if I fully got the romance, but I guess it doesn't matter. What I enjoyed were the many references to movies, the 70s and 80s, the incessant synth music score, and the many dark scenes filled with purple and pink lighting. The film works well as great nostalgia for any retro fan or cinephile like me, and with its eerie atmosphere throughout, it an intriguing dark romantic comedy thriller. Good!
10 Reviews
Really, not that interesting.
midnightmosesuk12 October 2022
I can understand how people can enjoy the references to other films and the general overall nostalgia of this film but, to be perfectly honest about it, it needs more than just milking the nostalgia of its audience to keep them engaged.
The film is very slow and boring, I only made it to about half way through before I gave up and turned it off. I'm not a guy who does this usually, I'll sit through a film I'm not enjoying simply because I want a complete picture of the film before I write anything. I'm also fine with "slow burn" movies, if the plot is and characters are engaging, I can sit happily taking it all in. But I simply lost patience with it.
This film may well appeal to others, but it just wasn't for me.
The film is very slow and boring, I only made it to about half way through before I gave up and turned it off. I'm not a guy who does this usually, I'll sit through a film I'm not enjoying simply because I want a complete picture of the film before I write anything. I'm also fine with "slow burn" movies, if the plot is and characters are engaging, I can sit happily taking it all in. But I simply lost patience with it.
This film may well appeal to others, but it just wasn't for me.
zobieman looses tape
allanmichael303 July 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Interesting idea but not the zombie movie i was looking for,it's a long winded story of who took his tape with him trying to track down the thief only to discover it was in his microwave. The man was an achoholic and so was his girlfriend so maybe that why it got put in microwave. This movie was on sky premiere i don't know why!
Tedious and slow
PeteThePrimate27 May 2022
Probably the worst foreign language film I've seen. Advertised as a romantic thriller, there's little romance and even less thrills and it's not even a decent study of the various characters in it. Maybe you have to be a VHS nerd or a lover of the film genres/directors mentioned in the film.
Splendid !
vanburen-2964425 March 2019
Great little film that I picked up for just £5. Lots of nods to giallo films and will relate to people who stalked the video shops in the 80s such as myself looking for obscure films we thought we would never actually get to see. Give it a go you could do a lot worse with your 90 mins.
'Videoman' is a delightfully vivid, deliciously downbeat drama that is well worth 'tracking' down!'
Weirdling_Wolf21 February 2022
'Videoman' is one of the all too rare films featuring a greatly flawed middle-aged male protagonist I can readily relate to, which, quite frankly, also made for frequently uneasy viewing! Ex-video-shop proprietor Ennio Midena (Stefan Sauk) is a disenfranchised, heavy-drinking divorcee, an increasingly bitter loner, wholly unwilling to connect to the self-absorbed swill of social media, an analogue diehard in a disorientating digital age of instant gratification, constantly obsessing about once again opening a niche video emporium; his dream one step closer to corporeal reality as he has secured a mysterious high-paying customer for his rare, mint-condition VHS copy of maestro Lucio Fulci's legendary video nasty 'Zombie'. The strangely charming 'Videoman' is an engaging, appealingly retro-flavoured, darkly tinged, character-based drama about the murkier side of life-consuming collector-mania, metropolitan loneliness, boozy existential despair, all blissfully bathed in the neon-hazed hue of lovingly synthesized 80s nostalgia!
The fitfully likeable, irksomely opinionated Ennio's maddeningly circuitous path to desperately locate a valuable missing tape, finally get free of debt, and find love is rarely less than compelling cinema. Ennio's stultifying insular, basement-dwelling inertia is considerably brightened by the arrival of 80s music fan, Egypt-loving dipso Simone Karlsson (Lena Nilsson). And the film's elusive nemesis 'Faceless' makes for an eerie peripheral presence, and the Giallo pastiche is amusingly staged, and the slew of euro-cult references are a delight, especially edifying is the lurid discussion over Rosalba Neri's 'body part' double in Fernando Di Leo's gruesome Giallo 'Slaughter Hotel'. An additional B-Movie bonus is the spot the-cult-movie game director Kristian A. Söderström clearly wants us to play, as 'Videoman' features 'Eye-Patching' excerpts from Bo Arne Vibenius's iconic 'Thriller: A cruel picture', and his lesser-known grindhouse classic 'Breaking Point', with a splendidly grisly 'insert' from Carlo Vanzina's cult 80s slasher 'Nothing Underneath'. Metalheads might also appreciate the brief cameo by writer/musician Daniel Ekeroth as fellow video collector Jonas 'Franco' Karlsson. 'Videoman' is a delightfully vivid, deliciously downbeat drama that is well worth 'tracking' down!'
The fitfully likeable, irksomely opinionated Ennio's maddeningly circuitous path to desperately locate a valuable missing tape, finally get free of debt, and find love is rarely less than compelling cinema. Ennio's stultifying insular, basement-dwelling inertia is considerably brightened by the arrival of 80s music fan, Egypt-loving dipso Simone Karlsson (Lena Nilsson). And the film's elusive nemesis 'Faceless' makes for an eerie peripheral presence, and the Giallo pastiche is amusingly staged, and the slew of euro-cult references are a delight, especially edifying is the lurid discussion over Rosalba Neri's 'body part' double in Fernando Di Leo's gruesome Giallo 'Slaughter Hotel'. An additional B-Movie bonus is the spot the-cult-movie game director Kristian A. Söderström clearly wants us to play, as 'Videoman' features 'Eye-Patching' excerpts from Bo Arne Vibenius's iconic 'Thriller: A cruel picture', and his lesser-known grindhouse classic 'Breaking Point', with a splendidly grisly 'insert' from Carlo Vanzina's cult 80s slasher 'Nothing Underneath'. Metalheads might also appreciate the brief cameo by writer/musician Daniel Ekeroth as fellow video collector Jonas 'Franco' Karlsson. 'Videoman' is a delightfully vivid, deliciously downbeat drama that is well worth 'tracking' down!'
unexpected dive in the depth of the mind.
BumbleBII29 August 2018
This was an unexpected good movie with both laughter and a creping sensation down the neck, that made me check the door lock an extra time time when i got home. With excellent feal and referens to the 80,s VHS boom for all the nostalgic movie fans. Also fun to see some (in Sweden) big actors in not the biggest roles. And all actors deliver without a doubt a good preformance.
A well made movie that suprice you in more ways than one.
Collectors choice
kosmasp17 January 2019
This may have a bigger impace on people who had video store to go to. And I mean the one that had VHS tapes to rent or sell you. And then there is the Giallo aspect to it. I'm not really a fan of the genre overall, but you do can feel the love the director has for the genre. There are so many references to it. And the other great thing (if you are into that): it mixes comedy (not slapstick mind you) and horror - and it does a fantastic job at that.
Then take the acting and it goes beyond all. It really is something and while it may not affect everyone who watches it, the sheer amount of dedication (the years it took to make and so forth) is amazing. Just for that I got mad love for this movie - and the director is one of the nicest people you can meet. And just to be clear, only met him once (festival) and loved the movie even before meeting (and telling him about it)
Then take the acting and it goes beyond all. It really is something and while it may not affect everyone who watches it, the sheer amount of dedication (the years it took to make and so forth) is amazing. Just for that I got mad love for this movie - and the director is one of the nicest people you can meet. And just to be clear, only met him once (festival) and loved the movie even before meeting (and telling him about it)
Offbeat comedy about caring passionately in a mediocre century
HuntinPeck8021 July 2023
Ennio and Simone are passionate people, survivors from the '80s in a spiritless new millennium. Simone drinks to dull the pain of her unfulfilled existence. Her daughter is giving her the cold shoulder, so she takes refuge in '80s nostalgia, and in her passion for ancient Egypt. Ennio is clinging to his old video stock. He is a collector and smalltime dealer of VHS at a time when people are already moving on from DVD. He loves giallo, '70s Italian slasher films. Picking-up a rarity advertised by Simone, who is clearing her shelves, he has the chance to sell it to a mysterious collector for a small fortune, and get out from under his debts. But then, much like Simone's distant daughter, his mint condition VHS tape disappears without trace.
What Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and High Fidelity did for sports and music fanatics, Videoman does for moviehounds. Like Hornby's heroes, Ennio needs to face up to changing times, but maybe he can still stay true to his principals without selling out? Simone likewise needs to stop propping herself up with booze and walk confidently towards a better future. Can they find their path together, or will their disappointed-positivity get in the way?
Videoman is an offbeat charmer, a comedy with a razor-sharp edge. Like a giallo flick it may lull you into a false state of security, only to launch a surprise out of the shadows. It's a bit funny, a bit depressed, a bit insightful, a bit stupid, a bit grisly. Ennio is, after all, immersed in slasher and T&A movies. Both he and Simone want respect, with little chance receiving any, except from each other. Their relationship is more mutually confessional than that provided to the geeky heroes of the aforementioned Hornby stories by their girlfriends. Videoman takes place in a twilit world full of repressed emotions, emotions that need to burst out. Sweden.
Much like Ennio's giallo classics, Videoman is likely to be a connoisseur's favourite, not a party piece, not a crowd pleaser. But it has a lot of charm, especially for anyone who remembers the '80s and VHS tapes.
What Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and High Fidelity did for sports and music fanatics, Videoman does for moviehounds. Like Hornby's heroes, Ennio needs to face up to changing times, but maybe he can still stay true to his principals without selling out? Simone likewise needs to stop propping herself up with booze and walk confidently towards a better future. Can they find their path together, or will their disappointed-positivity get in the way?
Videoman is an offbeat charmer, a comedy with a razor-sharp edge. Like a giallo flick it may lull you into a false state of security, only to launch a surprise out of the shadows. It's a bit funny, a bit depressed, a bit insightful, a bit stupid, a bit grisly. Ennio is, after all, immersed in slasher and T&A movies. Both he and Simone want respect, with little chance receiving any, except from each other. Their relationship is more mutually confessional than that provided to the geeky heroes of the aforementioned Hornby stories by their girlfriends. Videoman takes place in a twilit world full of repressed emotions, emotions that need to burst out. Sweden.
Much like Ennio's giallo classics, Videoman is likely to be a connoisseur's favourite, not a party piece, not a crowd pleaser. But it has a lot of charm, especially for anyone who remembers the '80s and VHS tapes.
Videodrome meets bar fly with 50 shades of Giallo
emieloftherose13 January 2022
After I finished the exciting novel named 'sterven met tussenpozen' by our flemish writer Filip Keyaert about a video shop owner during the 80's, his daily life behind the counter, the all round customers, one close buddy and a loving wife at home, I wanted to track down 'videoman'. Finally watched it and I can only say it's a sublime little movie. Very well made with great actors and recommended to all video lovers back in time !
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