MILWAUKEE — From strange horror movies to psychedelic 1990s animations to training videos filmed for McDonald's employees, one Wisconsin VHS vault has just about everything you could ever think of.
Welcome inside Max Knowlton-Sachner, aka Maxi Boy's, VHS library. There are about 3,000 VHS tapes inside.
“I like the quality of VHS. I like the warmth of it. I like how they look on a shelf," Maxi Boy said.
If he wanted to really flex an item in his collection, he points to the movie called Lunch Meat. It's a horror movie that most people have probably never heard of. It's a 'if you know, you know, kind of thing.
"I lean more towards, like, obscure things, not, like, real mainstream commercial movies like Forrest Gump.”
He has watched maybe three-quarters of the films, and he’s always adding to the collection. After all, he's a collector. It's all about the thrill of the hunt. Maxi Boy is always looking to complete a series, or looking for the next hard-to-find tape.
"What motivates me to collect more is just, like, I haven’t seen everything, especially with animation, which is, like, my main focus lately," he said.
Maxi Boy has been collecting VHS tapes for more than 40 years. Some of the videos are actually from his childhood. He just held on to them.
Watch the story to see more of Maxi Boy's VHS collection...
Some of his most prized possessions aren't even movies.
"Striking gold with VHS is when you find tapes that people have taped off the television from the 80s or 90s," he said.
That's because those tapes also include the commercials. In 2026, we skip commercials, or we pay for streaming services to avoid commercials, or we look at our phones during the commercials. But if you watch those old tapes, you may hear a commercial that unlocks something in your brain. You remember a jingle you haven't heard in a long time, and it transports you to the past.
“It takes me back to a time where life for me was easier, life for everybody was easier," Maxi Boy said.
This is heavily nostalgic for him. So if there was ever a house fire, he’s saving a taped TV show VHS and one other: “Would grab the tape of me on the news from when I was a kid.”
Because ultimately, this collection isn’t just about movies. It’s about memories. This VHS library is an ever-growing video vault. A museum that reflects who Maxi Boy is.
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