Dan Kinem, who writes for a blog devoted to VHS culture, said the terrible quality of VHS “works well” for the horror genre.

“You just don’t get the same feeling in a pristine print of a DVD,” Mr. Kinem said. “With VHS it’s like I’m experiencing an old grind-house movie theater. I would never watch them on a computer.” The distribution arm of the blog for which he writes will release the 1986 micro-budget horror film “Gore-Met Zombie Chef From Hell” on VHS this year.

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Paige Kay Davis, the director of business development for Camp Motion Pictures, chalked up the popularity of the format — sales of “The Basement” exceeded her company’s expectations, though she wouldn’t give figures — to a mix of nostalgia, remorse and discovery.

“VHS represents a period when you could walk into a mom-and-pop video store, and what you could rent was limited to what was right in front of you,” Ms. Davis said. “There were these amazing illustrations on the big boxes, and no one had any idea what the movie was. You were taking a gamble. It’s the opposite of instant gratification.”

Releasing films on VHS can be a chore. The titles tend to be obscure, and many were shot only on low-quality video to begin with. It can be hard to track down who owns the rights. Hiring a company to produce boxes and labels for a product that was thought to be obsolete can be expensive.