Link VHS Tape

HBO Home Video pressed "Link" in 1986, one of the stranger entries in the decade's killer-animal subgenre. The film runs on a premise that shouldn't work but absolutely does: a zoology grad student, a reclusive professor, and an orangutan named Link who turns out to be significantly smarter, and significantly more dangerous, than anyone prepared for. Terence Stamp is the professor, and he plays it completely straight, which is the only reason the movie holds.

The mid-80s were a productive stretch for British genre pictures that got buried on American VHS before they found their audiences. "Link" came out of Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment in the UK and arrived stateside through HBO Home Video in the same year American rental shelves were packed with creature-feature variants chasing whatever slipstream "Gremlins" and "Cujo" had opened up. The killer-chimp and killer-primate lane was its own micro-category: trained-animal dread, no digital effects, practical everything. What separated "Link" from the disposable entries was Richard Franklin directing. Franklin came off "Psycho II" and brought genuine craft to the stalking sequences. The ape on the cover, match lit, staring directly at the camera, does exactly what the best VHS cover art was supposed to do: it tells you the movie's deal in one image and doesn't lie about it.

This copy is the HBO Home Video release, big clamshell case. The tape label and spine carry the 1986 copyright. Condition on the shell shows shelf wear consistent with a rental life, which most copies of this title led. The cover art is intact with no tears, though the corners will show their age. Pop it in a VCR to check playback before committing it to display. Run a finger along the hinge seam on the clamshell and verify it hasn't cracked through.

OWNER VERIFY: Confirm the 1986 HBO Home Video copyright date on the tape label or cassette housing.