[bluesparrow]

It's not really that strange. Back in the terrible old VHS days of the 80s, a movie would cost like $100 on VHS... in the US. And $100 in the 80s would be like $200 in today's dollars. Laserdisc was really expensive too, because it was aimed solely at collectors.

It's rental pricing. There wasn't yet a market for buying VHS so everyone rented, and to get a cut of the rentals the studios massively marked up VHS tape prices on their movies. It wasn't until the late 80s/early 90s that studios started realizing they could make a fortune selling $20 VHS tapes of big name movies, and the floodgates opened.