Last night, I got in a little dreamtime, oneiric thrift store shopping. In the dream, I walked past a cardboard box full of films and a ridiculous title caught my eye. It was something like Wolf Renderers III. Werewolf film.
Names are tricky in dreams. The words swim around. “Wolf Renderers III” is the best approximation of how clunky the title was, but with the key elements of “wolf” and “the wrong word for tearing” still intact.
I was disappointed to find that the box only had Wolf Renderers II and III on DVD, but even in dreams, I know thrift store rules. Someone has always got there ahead of you and scooped up the beginning of any series.
But right next to the two DVDs was a big block of 3 VHS tapes all sharing a single box. Do you remember those? The cardboard forming a sleeve you were supposed to ram multiple tapes into?
It was Wolf Renderers I through III, together at last in an obsolete format. The cover image was of a werewolf standing in some regular-ass bedroom. Not even an especially nice catalog-quality bedroom, but one with some barely-made bed in the background.
The budget was … obvious.
I figured I could throw out the VHS tapes and hang up the box art, so I bought the box set. I must have got them by exchanging whatever currency is accepted at dream thrift stores. A memory I didn’t have a use for anymore, maybe, like how Bazooka Joe gum smells.
A bargain.