By BILL REICK
Fans of obscure and hard-to-find horror rejoice! Ryan Graveface’s Terror Vision is opening a temporary space that promises to deliver a unique rental/retail experience. Together with filmmaker and actor Joe Swanberg (V/H/S, You’re Next), the independent record label will bring a huge collection of rare horror videos to a new location next to Chicago’s legendary cult movie house, the Music Box Theatre.
From April through September 2025, the Terror Vision pop-up will offer video rentals, original soundtracks on vinyl, and Blu-rays. The selection of tapes will incorporate a rotation of titles from both Swanberg and Graveface’s stockpiles, as well as a massive collection of over 70,000 films from the late and lamented Odd Obsession Movies, the Windy City’s celebrated indie video store, which sadly closed in 2020. Recently, we got the gory details directly from Graveface and Swanberg.
Filmmaker-actor Joe Swanberg and Ryan Graveface pose outside the Chicago location of the new Terror Vision pop-up.
“When I started Graveface Chicago on Milwaukee Avenue – this is the third year of that – I experimented with putting maybe 5,000 titles or so in the basement, just to see if anyone cared,” Ryan Graveface explains. “Admittedly, the way I did it probably wasn’t great. So, I’ll take the blame for that. It didn’t really hit.”
This is an opportunity for [Joe and me] to kind of combine [our collections] … Besides the Odd Obsession collection, I own, probably, 12,000 horror VHS tapes – literally, some of the rarest shit ever made. So, I’ll bring that stuff in here. Collectively, we haven’t really talked about it, but we have about 125,000 [tapes] … [The space is] 800 square feet. We can’t fit that in here. I’m not suggesting we’re going to be Scarecrow Video. They’re amazing…”
“We’re gonna be Scarecrow Video if it was only their rarest, coolest stuff,” Joe Swanberg enthusiastically counters. “I started my video store with my personal collection of VHS, and then I stuck to VHS only, and I started a little label releasing VHS, which I’m going to continue to do here. On top of the rental component, we will do drops of 25 to 50 copies of brand-new independent films and classic stuff. We’ll do cool stuff in collaboration with the Music Box. They might have screenings over there where the first 25 people will get a VHS of the movie.
I was doing analog-only, very old school, but that’s an extremely specific audience. Merging that with Blu-Rays, DVDs, and a little whatever. I want people to walk in here and go, “Oh my God, literally every movie is one I’ve heard of and never been able to find a copy of. Like, holy shit! This whole place is just renting me the rarest, coolest stuff.”
However, the duo does not discount the value of more pedestrian genre tastes, especially if there is an opportunity for crossover with the pop-up’s illustrious neighbor. “Technically speaking, we also possess super common stuff,” says Graveface. “So, if there was some theme [the Music Box Theatre] was doing next door, we could technically bring that in for that week. That could be more common stuff to tie into that. It allows us to be very flexible by monitoring their release schedule, which is certainly the intention.”
Graveface estimates that the Terror Vision pop-up will have around 10,000 to 15,000 movies available to rent, which Swanberg describes as “pretty decent, heavily curated stuff.” However, more important than any of the thousands of movies in the collection will be the community both men hope to bolster with the new location.
Chicago’s iconic Music Box Theatre.
“In terms of a collaborative relationship with the Music Box, one of the things I’m excited about is whenever I have filmmaker friends in town, they’ll end up doing guest curatorial sections over here,” Swanberg says. “It’s something I sort of dabbled with in my previous location, but now, being next to the Music Box, which is constantly bringing in guests and stuff like that, it’s very exciting to me. We’re talking about building a little area over here where we can do conversations with filmmakers … I’ve always been a community builder in my last little VHS store, and microcinema was all about finding the cinephiles and building that community. So, I think for six months, the goal is to create a space where Chicago’s movie geeks can pop in and go, Oh, thank you … This is the sort of place that I would be at on opening night.”
Both owners are veterans of horror retail and rental. While each of their previous locations has been successful, the new pop-up’s proximity to the Music Box Theater provides a brand-new, exciting opportunity to reach moviegoers and spark conversation. “I would say, for me, one of the most exciting components is collaborating with the Music Box,” Swanberg says. “Their programming is so good, and we will definitely be responsive to that programming. I think we’re both excited to have a lot of geeky stuff for the geeks but also to be moviegoer/cinephile-friendly and rotate it a lot. The six months that we’re doing this will not be a stable, come-in-here-and-see-the–same-stuff-every-time experience. We’re really excited about being responsive to the programming [at the Music Box], seasonally and monthly, making sure every time you go over there to check out the Music Box, you look in here and go, Oh my God! There’s so much new stuff that wasn’t in here the last time…”
Chicago horror obsessives can keep an eye out for the new location at 3729 N. Southport Avenue from April 1 through September 30. Hours will be posted on Terror Vision’s Instagram, coinciding with the Music Box’s release calendar.
