GEMINI HOME ENTERTAINMENT
"Bringing the World Into Your Home"
Est. 1991
HR
The tapes were found in a storage unit in Meridian, Idaho. The unit had been abandoned — rent unpaid for fourteen months — and the contents auctioned off to a man named Dale Threadgill, who intended to resell the VHS collection at a flea market. He kept the Gemini Home Entertainment tapes separate from the others. He told the person he eventually gave them to that they felt different in his hands. Heavier. He couldn't explain this more precisely.
There are twelve tapes in the series. Or there were twelve. The count changes depending on who you ask and what copies they have. Some tapes appear to exist in multiple versions that are not identical. The divergences are small: a different angle on the same footage, an extra three seconds before a cut, a narration that says something slightly different than the version uploaded two weeks earlier.
Tape 1: Peaceful Getaways
The first tape is a nature documentary. This is what all the early tapes are. Mountains. Rivers. Wildlife footage — deer, birds, insects going about the business of being insects. The narration is calm and pleasant, slightly too formal in the way of early-nineties educational videos.
There is nothing wrong with Tape 1 for the first eleven minutes.
At the eleven-minute mark, in the background of a shot of a meadow, something moves. It is at the edge of the frame. It is large. It is not a deer. The camera does not pan to follow it. The narration continues about the migratory patterns of elk. The thing in the background moves again, between two trees, and is not seen again in this tape.
Tape 3: Outdoor Explorations
The host appears for the first time. He gives his name as Douglas. He is cheerful and wears a green jacket. He guides the viewer through a forest trail, pointing out fungi and bird nests and the behavior of light through leaves.
In the background of three separate shots, the same shape is visible. It is larger than in Tape 1. It is closer.
Douglas does not appear to notice it.
Tape 7: (Title obscured by tracking damage)
The first six minutes are static. Then Douglas is back, but something is wrong with his face. Not dramatically wrong — not Hollywood monster wrong. Subtly wrong, in the way that a photograph of someone you know can look like a photograph of a stranger if you look at it from the wrong angle.
His voice has changed slightly. His eyes don't move the way eyes should move.
He talks about the nature of the wilderness. He talks about how the wilderness is always there, outside your window, even when you can't see it, even when you think you're safe inside, the wilderness is right there outside. He talks about how the creatures of the wilderness are patient. How patience is their great virtue.
He says: "They've always been here. Before the houses. Before the roads. Before you."
He says: "They've been very patient."
He smiles.
Tape 12: (If it exists)
Nobody who claims to have Tape 12 has ever produced it. The descriptions of its contents vary. One person says it's a recording of someone's living room, shot from outside the window. Another says it's static for the full runtime, but if you watch the static long enough, shapes resolve. A third account says the tape is only playable once and then degrades.
Dale Threadgill sold the tapes at a flea market in October. He sold them to a couple from out of town. He doesn't remember their faces. He says this is strange because he's normally good with faces. He says the tapes felt lighter when they were gone.
The Gemini Home Entertainment logo: two twins, smiling at each other. If you look at the space between them — the negative space, the gap where they aren't — it looks like a third figure. Looking outward. Looking at you.
Gemini Home Entertainment: Bringing the World Into Your Home.
You wonder sometimes what that means. Into your home. The world, into your home. As if the world is something separate from where you are. As if the door is the only thing keeping them distinct.