VHS: Roach (2022)
Film: Excellent
Transfer: Excellent
Extras: n/a
Label: schnoodle VIDEO
Region: NTSC
Released: 2024
Genre: Science-Fiction / Experimental
Synopsis: A pilot and her AI navigator must escape the poisonous dystopian environment of a disintegrating world – and a giant roach.
Special Features: VHS Tape comes with 3D and 2D versions / Includes 4 Pairs of Red-Blue Anaglyph 3D Glasses / 3 Stickers / 2 Pins
Review:
Heavily influenced by shoot-em-up video games and the physical nuances of worn, tape-based media, the short film by Canadian filmmaker schnudlbug is partly a dystopian vision of a world decimated by pollution, a mini sci-fi thriller anchored around a pilot evading a giant ship-eating roach, and a work prepared, produced, and lovingly packaged in the standard framework of a VHS release – tape, labels, and cardboard sleeve with art, credits, and pull-quotes.
Roach is available in its flat version as a free streaming work on Instagram, but in its limited VHS incarnation, viewers have the choice between a 3D version, or shuttling to the tape’s halfway point and watching a red-drenched flat version. On VHS, there’s no skipping, chapter points, nor menu to help navigate the two programs – just push the tape into the player, let it automatically thread the half-inch tape around the head drum, and wait for the disclaimer to pop up, warning the viewer of the film’s vivid strobing imagery before Roach unfolds like a miasmic chemical cloud, and ends with an action-packed bang in tactile 3D.
The core story involves a pilot who runs into an available, functional spacecraft, and boots up into the planet’s now-toxic atmosphere, relying on the craft’s occasionally bristling AI navigation system to find a strata safe from dense clouds and a roving giant bug determined to make a meal of the tiny craft and its pilot.
Schnudlbug’s use of 3D is initially very subtle – when compared to the vivid ‘red’ flat version, the colours are severely desaturated to a mass of grey, dirty mauve, and slight red and green for the 3D images. From subtle to defined, the 3D ultimately kicks in round the midpoint when the bug appears, and the craft swerves, crashes, and almost disappears in a binary gridwork that’s more than a clear nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the main titles of the original Doctor Who series.
The minimal imagery works in favour of the stripped down story, in which the pilot’s visage is rendered as a lean series of lines, and the craft resembles a beat-up maintenance vehicle for short cruises rather than a streamlined fighter with a hull packed with lethal ordinances.
The nuances of the story and schnudlbug’s visuals become more endearing with subsequent viewings, especially the vivid sound mix which supports the images corrupted by tape damage, glitchy horizontal disturbances, and objects that either poke through or emerge through the planet’s polluted, granular clouds.
Roach’s aesthetic is heavily strobe-based, but those who embrace the film’s design, especially on a large screen, will find a perfect marriage between its central character attempting to escape into safer strata, and the visual elements that seem heavily corroded – the exception being the pilot’s eyes, her voice, and tense breathing.
Available in mid-2024 as a limited VHS release, the tape also comes with four pairs of anaglyph 3D glasses, and a collection of swag: stickers and buttons. If you missed out on the tape version, the flat red version is just as enjoyable, and has a bit of an edge of the 3D edition with its richer colours that reveal more detail in the grimy clouds that wipe across the screen.
An interview with filmmaker schnudlbug is available from my filmmaking channel BHA+ as an audio-only podcast via Libsyn and other fine streaming services, and a visual version via YouTube.
Visit schnoodlevideo for his Instagram posts, to view Roach, and info on his multimedia services and exclusive interviews with musicians & composers. Schnudlbug’s music is available via schnudlbug on bandcamp.
© 2025 Mark R. Hasan
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Category: Blu-ray / DVD Film Review
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