Houstonia’s The Must List tells you about something going on in Houston that you absolutely cannot miss.

Never trust a British lawyer in a gimp suit. That’s one of the most valuable life lessons one can learn on a Thursday night at the reopened River Oaks Theatre, courtesy of a new monthly series that brings a little mystery to the showtimes list. Dubbed “Tape Worms,” it promises viewers a chance to watch a VHS rarity on the silver screen. The catch: They won’t know what they’re watching on any given night until the theater’s program manager, Rob Saucedo, steps up and gives the introduction.

The idea came about early on in River Oaks Theatre’s reopening programming plans, as an unexpected way for cinephiles to both celebrate physical media as a community and enjoy movies they may not otherwise have an opportunity to watch anywhere else.

“VHS culture has really grown in the last decade or so. Collectors are really making this VHS culture thrive. I have a pretty big collection of VHS tapes, movies that haven’t officially ever been released in America, or were do-it-yourself films that were being made by filmmakers in their hometowns and were never given wide release,” Saucedo says. “I thought that the Tape Worms might be a great way to showcase some of these films, and added the extreme novelty of letting guests watch a movie on VHS in a movie theater in this, our year of 2025.”

Right now, Tape Worms selections come from his own archives. Saucedo estimates that he owns enough VHS to run for a few years before needing to call in other collectors, though he’s open to inviting what he calls “guest programmers” to share their own hidden gems.

The first entry in the series was in October 2024, when the River Oaks Theatre finally reopened to the public after a three-year renovation. The Killing of Satan, a faith-based action movie from the Philippines pitting a magical ex-con against the Prince of Darkness himself, was chosen to align with the Halloween season. In November, Saucedo went with the thoroughly entertaining Shotgun, a jingoistic revenge thriller involving a serial killing English gentleman sporting a BDSM theme and a penchant for scenery chewing.

Tape Worms selections are usually intended to coincide with seasonal events or upcoming wide releases. For example, Saucedo screened the Turksploitation film 3 Dev Adam this past January as a lead-in to the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe entry Captain America: Brave New World. The movie features completely unlicensed versions of both Cap and legendary luchador and actor El Santo saving the world from none other than household name supervillain…errr…Spider-Man?

It's silly stuff, and that’s exactly why Saucedo wants to share it all with the Tape Worms audiences. Before each showing, he reveals the title of the evening’s mystery movie and asks visitors to genuinely consider what they’re viewing as art. Even with the movies’ low budgets, technical issues on the cast and crew level, and flagrant intellectual property law violations, Saucedo makes the request to appreciate the earnestness and confidence with which these works were crafted. He makes the point that there are “a lot of great filmmakers out there who didn’t necessarily have the resources of Steven Spielberg or George Lucas,” and wants viewers to embrace his selections “at face value” rather than grading them against slicker productions.

“I’m not really a big fan of the whole so-bad-it’s-good mentality that some film fans embrace. My approach has been [that] there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. If you’re enjoying the movie, that means it’s a good movie,” Saucedo says. “Why would you want to put yourself above that film and make yourself feel like you’re better than the film?”

In fact, audiences aren’t allowed to deliver a live commentary on the movies. This isn’t a free-for-all public performance of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (which, it should be noted, always held a genuine affection for the movies it skewered—a significant comedic factor that imitators often overlook). Visitors must adhere to the same etiquette as if they were watching anything else at the River Oaks Theatre. The rule helps get viewers to engage closely with the art projected onto the screen, and Saucedo notes that even with a rotating monthly date, the Tape Worms shows almost always sell out. After all, the theater is providing a unique, social cinematic experience, as many of the movies themselves didn’t make it stateside, only released in a small geographic region, or fell out of print decades ago.

“You may never find a copy of this movie anywhere, and you have to maintain that memory of watching in the theater,” Saucedo says.