We live in an age of digital perfection and cinematic precision where seemingly anything you could want to watch is available in the highest quality with little more than a search, a scroll, and the push of a button.
But where’s the personality? Where’s the hands-on feeling of sliding a videocassette out if its box? Where’s the nostalgic hum and whine of the VCR or the wear and tear of a dragging VHS tape proving just how well it’s been loved and re-watched again and again?
For Sean Peel, the founder and force behind the traveling cult movie party pop-up VHS & Chill, those are more than bygone memories. They’re experiences that he just can’t let go of.
Launched in 2016, VHS & Chill has hosted watch parties in bars, venues, theaters, and guerilla pop-ups across the OKC metro, focusing on the wildest cult action films, B-movies, and sci-fi spectaculars, always inviting viewers to cast off any pretense in exchange for pure, nostalgic fun, and always spotlighting the unique, lo-fi charm of VHS.
Sean Peel: The experience of watching the old scratchy VHS tape, you know, with the lines, with the fuzz, with the pops, with the sounds. I mean, to me, as a '90s kid, it's fantastic.
And I know that a lot of young people come to my shows because they never got to experience that. They grew up with HD and streaming and stuff. So you know, they see it and they think it's wild. They think it's crazy, you know, when the tape almost eats itself and there's lines going up and down the screen and people are clapping and whooping and stuff. They get a kick out of that. They think it's hilarious because they didn't experience that. It's a new thing to them.
Brett Fieldcamp: But when Peel first began hosting all-VHS screening parties in his garage in 2016 on a wall of vintage CRT televisions that he’d stacked up, that demand for retro media hadn’t quite taken off yet. Movies on tape were easier, and most importantly, cheaper to come by, and the medium’s characteristically low-res charm hadn’t yet become such a popular internet aesthetic.
Sean Peel: The VHS landscape in 2016, when I started this, compared to 2026, is night and day.
It all started just hanging out, having beers in my garage with my buddies, you know, watching RoboCop on a wall of TVs.
There would be shows in my garage where 25, 30 people would show up. It’s part of that don't want to grow up thing that happened back in 2016, 2015, and stuff. And I didn't want that to just end.
Brett Fieldcamp: Recognizing the nostalgic hunger for that kind of raucous movie party experience – and for the kinds of wacky, off-the-wall, and often obscure films that he collected on VHS – Peel began taking the show on the road, hosting regular weeknight screening parties anywhere he could.
For the past decade, it’s been a way for him to meet likeminded movie fanatics and to grow into a part of the city’s moviegoing community, leveraging his hyper-indie pop-up experience into real theater management, for a time with Rodeo Cinema and now as a collaborator with the Oklahoma Film Exchange.
Sean Peel: My favorite thing is meeting people and talking to people and talking about movies.
I've been doing VHS and chill shows for 10 years, and I can say, I swear, every show is different people, and personally I like that.
Brett Fieldcamp: But after ten years of makeshift movie screenings, tape swaps, and pop-up events, and with a whole new era of interest and cost for nostalgic media and retro aesthetics, Peel decided to hang up VHS & Chill and step away in 2026, with a farewell tour of events around OKC culminating in a final blowout screening of 80s cult favorite “Buckaroo Bonzai” at the Oklahoma Film Exchange Friday, August 14th.
But unexpectedly, the brand he created is now set to continue without him after a group of fans received his blessing to carry on the mantle, and secured his entire collection of over 1600 VHS tapes.
Sean Peel: I got approached by a group of people after my last tape swap. They'd heard it was ending, and they were like, "We don't want it to end.” I was like, "Ah, I'm tired, I’m old,” you know. And they made me an offer.
I thought VHS & Chill was over, and my heart was just like, "Oh my God!” These local Oklahoma people who know my shows, who've been to my shows, don't want it to end. They'll keep doing VHS screenings at bars and venues.
I couldn't believe that somebody would want to keep it going.
Brett Fieldcamp: But as he prepares to press play on VHS & Chill one last time, Peel still looks back and loves every grainy, warped, tape-stretching minute of the experience.
Sean Peel: I always tell people the 10 years of doing VHS and Chill was totally worth it.
The amount of people I've met, the connections I made. I mean, making a TV wall in my garage led to me doing these things.
I've met Oklahoma filmmakers. I've met Hollywood people. I met, you know, directors, producers, deadCenter people. I've done events with them. I've been quoted in Variety magazine. I have that framed in my house
Because before that, I was just a guy in IT who liked movies and worked at video stores when he was in high school. I was just a guy.
All of that was because I built a TV wall in my garage, and it led me to here.
Brett Fieldcamp: Peel’s final presentation with VHS & Chill takes place at the Oklahoma Film Exchange in OKC Friday, August 14th, but the events will return early next year under new leadership.
For more, visit vhsandchill.net.
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