OldBoy

Your physical collection. Doesn’t have to be first and mine isn’t, but what got you into your somewhat “addiction” (if you want to call it that) of collecting?

John Woo’s The Killer Criterion DVD. I sought this out bc I rented from library and loved it. Was starting to go OOP, or maybe already, so I jumped, got at decent price, new, (since been sold ) and since then, I have had this urge to get movies I love in sometimes great packages and can watch anytime I want. Not necessarily great addiction/healthy, but I just say, expensive, somewhat at least, hobby.

But getting The Killer way back in like 2001 or something was the spark to my now, healthy in abundance only, collection.

And then finding this site a year or so later, has absolutely contributed.

stvn1974

I put a DVD player in layaway with snapper case editions of Blade Runner The Director's Cut, 2001 A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Pink Floyd's The Wall. I was so excited on the way home.

OldBoy

I think I had all those snappers, except Floyd. Man snapper cases. They were the worst.

TheMovieman

Not sure which movie, but I think it was my parents that got me into it with VHS tapes throughout the 80s and into the 90s before transitioning into DVDs with a few Warner titles that came free with the purchase of a DVD player (Sphere and Twister I believe were two of them).

The Cow

Picked up Star Trek TMP on VHS when I worked at a grocery store in the mid-80s. Paramount had a 75th Anniversary collection of tapes that were affordable at that time, and I started with those.

TGM

probably the first one

rbrown498

"Sniffles Takes a Trip" was the first film I ever owned on any format, and it started me down this long, twisted path. I collected Super 8 films until I discovered CED and VHS, then Beta, then Laserdiscs, then DVD and Blu-ray...and now I'm swinging back to collecting film prints again.

I still have this film, by the way. It's a bit worse for the wear, but it still runs through a projector remarkably well for a 45-year-old print. LIke most of the films one could buy in the mid-'70s, it's silent (with "superimposed subtitles," as the back of the box trumpeted) and in black and white, but that just adds to the nostalgia factor for me.

TomOpus

No fucking idea.

But I sure as hell can tell you about my first threesome.

Adam Tyner

Batman on VHS (Christmas ‘89?) is the first movie I remember owning. My father was an avid collector, but Batman was the first that was unambiguously mine.

Troma actually inspired me to start collecting movies. Summer into Fall of ‘92, I bought a pretty sizable stack of official Troma VHS releases. MST3K followed not too long after that.

I helped pick out a bunch of Laserdiscs, but that was ultimately my father’s collection more than it was mine. And it was all discount bin stuff from Camelot Music anyway.

Collecting in a broader sense for me really started during the DVD era. I had a couple dozen DVDs before I even had a player, starring with Austin Powers and Cube back in the summer of ‘99.

PhantomStranger

Two movies on VHS - Superman: The Movie and Enter The Dragon. I had no idea what I was getting into...

Alan Smithee

Some of my first pre-recorded VHS purchases:

Halloween (at K-Mart around Halloween, not the original 1970s tape issue but still a bit collectible now. Crap pan and scan transfer of course.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark/Temple of Doom for Christmas
Time Bandits when it was reissued on VHS Hi-Fi at $19.99- had seen it earlier on the CBS Late Movie and fell in love with it.

Got a 2nd VCR that year and copied tons of rental tapes before graduating to laserdisc and pretty much stopped renting and just buying instead, making up for my sins of copying.

Hazel Motes

I remember it clearly. It was 2001 (the year not the movie) and I made a conscious decision that I wanted to start a vhs collection and the first movie I wanted was Ferris Buellers Day Off. Which I bought from the local HMV. 20 years later and I’ve been through 2 Ferris Bueller dvds and 2 blu rays. And I’ll probably buy the 4K whenever that happens.

I don’t have that vhs tape anymore. I wish I did, but it’s okay because I still have my very first vhs tape ever. It was a gift from my moms friend in 1990, Tim Burton’s Batman.

The vhs tapes I reaaaaaaaally wish I still had are the Ghostbusters 1 and 2 tapes I had where my parents recorded them on blanks off tv. I must have watched each movie 100 times from 1990-2000. I miss the tv alternate takes and especially the 1990 commercials that I’d grown accustomed to seeing. All the times I’d seen GB and I didn’t even know until the early 2000’s that Ray got a ghost BJ. The 90s were a more simple time. In fact I’d trade in my 4K steelbook set anyday to have those tapes again. Ahh nostalgia.

Alan Smithee

Why would you start collecting VHS in 2001? DVD had already pretty much taken hold by then.

Hazel Motes

Side note. I had a handful of movies on vhs in the 90s. Batman, Hook, Halloween II, Silence of the Lambs and a few others but I wasn’t collecting them at that time I DID however start collecting wrestling vhs tapes around 1996. Both original WWF tapes and hundreds of events on blank tapes from the glory days of wrestling tape trading. So technically my collecting started earlier, but just not for movies.

Hazel Motes

Because I didn’t own a DVD player until 6-7 months later. I collected both for awhile. Also you’re memory of when DVD really took hold and made vhs obsolete is a bit off. VHS was still very much alive in 2001.

Mike86

Hard to really say. As a kid, and to this day still I loved the Back to the Future Trilogy. I remember really wanting the movies on VHS.

We didn’t really get a bunch of official tapes, but I did get Back to the Future from McDonald’s as part of a promotion they were doing. Looks like that promotion was in Christmas of 1994. So I would have been eight at the time.

Later for my birthday one year (maybe 1995 or possibly 1996) I got the two sequels, which my parents got me from a local rental place who must have been selling extra copies or something.

I also remember getting the Batman movies as a kid. I had (still have actually) Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin. Oddly missing the first, but I have a recorded copy off of tv.

Also became a fan of Star Trek pretty early on. Had a few episodes of TOS (The Cage, The City on the Edge of Forever, and A Piece of the Action), as well as the film The Search for Spock. From TNG I had the episode Relics, as well as the films Generations (the one VHS I own that’s in widescreen) and First Contact.

Josh-da-man

Alan Smithee

OldBoy

having both your parents bathe you as a youngster doesn't count.

Neil M.

I had a lot of VHS releases but I never looked at it as "collecting". I only bought movies that I watched multiple times. I also never bought anything that I hadn't either seen in theaters or rented before. I started collecting more in the dvd days, mostly with the Criterion Collection and lots of cheap dvds. Now I pretty much only buy Boutique labels and Steelbook or other Limited editions.

kahuna

For me it was not a movie it was "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever" on Laserdisc

Mike86

Kinda fun seeing that. I don’t remember anything like that airing, but I know my copies of Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III were from a local rental place.

GoldenJCJ

My parents let me join on of the Columbia House VHS 1¢ clubs when I was 11 or 12 in the early 90s. I started by making complete collections of Back to the Future and Star Wars.

I had a decent sized collection of VHS tapes up until I got my first DVD player for Christmas in 1998. My first DVDs were The General’s Daughter and Ghostbusters. Finding all the supplemental material on DVD really opened my eyes to the world of collecting.

mwbmis

Star Wars, Empire, and Raiders on CED. I don't remember which one was first or even if they bought at different times. The hobby didn't really kick into gear until I joined Columbia House in the late 80s. The first DVDs I bought were the Fugitive, Das Boot, and Boogie Nights when I impulse bought a DVD player in early 1998. Things really started started getting crazy then.

rw2516

Christmas Eve 1983. I receive a VCR and a blank tape for a gift. Never seen one before. I assumed it was a video version of audio cassette deck. I get home with the thing and contemplate what the hell I going to do with this thing. I noticed the audio out, so I hooked it up and ran audio to AUX of receiver. Turned on MTV then HBO. Cool! Sound coming out of stereo (in mono). If nothing else it was worth having for that.
Let's see how this recording part works. I insert tape. It's almost 10pm and HBO is showing a secret sneak preview. I decide to record it. Turned out to be CREEPSHOW. That was the first time I recorded something. Another secret sneak preview was on at midnight. Turned out to be ALONE IN THE DARK. I didn't record it but it scared shit out of me.
Next day was Christmas, everything closed. Went to adult bookstore that was open to see if they sold blank tapes. Nope. But I bought a porn just to try out prerecord tape in the thing.
There weren't any rental places around yet. Those started popping up all over a few months later. At some point during the first week I had the VCR I was in Peaches Records and noticed they had a video section. Titles were $60. Don't remember what order I bought them in but the first titles I bought were
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
HILLS HAVE EYES
DAWN OF THE DEAD
ROLLING THUNDER
and several concerts.