Do You Own an Old VHS Tape With a Four-Figure Value?

If you have a collection of old VHS tapes collecting dust in the basement—now is the time to break them out.

Yes, that long-extinct old fossil of the 1970s and 1980s is making a comeback, with reports suggesting that vintage film releases on video tape could be worth up to £1,500 ($2,100) in the U.K.

OK, so, the bad news is your old rental of Lethal Weapon is unlikely to fetch you quite that much, if anything at all. But if you happen to own little-known 1974 horror film The Legend of Hillbilly John, which can now fetch £1,000 ($1,440), you're in luck.

LoveAntiques.com has revealed 25 of the most valuable video collectibles on the U.K. market, largely populated by rare movies that were released unrated prior to the 1984 Video Recordings Act and weren't later released again in other formats, such as DVD or blu-ray.

The top tape to own is a 1974 horror called Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, which is worth £1,500. Second on the list is The Beast in Heat, released in cinemas in 1977 and worth £1,200.

Many of the films are releases deemed "video nasties," referring to the graphic horror content they contained. These were released without needing to go before the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which in the early 1980s had yet to begin regulating VHS releases, and were subsequently being pulled from shelves after the introduction of the Video Recordings Act.

If you're hoping to dust off your old tapes, LoveAntiques advises films that were mass-produced are worth "next to nothing"—sorry Lethal Weapon. The same goes for movies later released on DVD or blu-ray.

Tips for success, the website adds, include owning an ex-rental copy of a rare, low-budget movie, like those above, that was released in a small quantity as a one-off.