Crocker Jarmen

I put in most of my video store hours at Jumbo video.

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At the back, they had a "Castle of Horror", where all the horror movies were kept. You walked through a drawbridge type gate covered in cobwebs, and inside there were a couple of monster dummies. It was atmospheric enough that I saw little kids nervous to be in there quite a few times.

I remember watching the BETA selection shrink over the years, going from their own shelves to a ghetto on the wall and then one day disappearing.

There must have been a large Italian community, because they had one section with only Italian dubbed tapes of American movies (I remember looking at the weird covers for Goodfellas and The Deer Hunter in particular).

I remember as a 10 year old, going with my Dad and spending maybe 2 hours browsing, but enjoying it! I want to kill myself if I'm in any store for more than 15 minutes, but back then, with no message boards or IMDB, the video store was the way to learn about movies. I loved checking out the covers, reading the back, looking at the actors listed. I had just started to learn about directors and I remember having my mind blown when I saw Stanley Kubrick directed The Shining. I remembered his name from 2001 and I was amazed someone would make a "slasher' movie after making a big special effect spaceship movie.

All the moves were in black boxes, but the new releases were in bright pink. Really made them look special. My father would make me stand by the counter and wait for people to return tapes, asking the clerk for first dibs on anything that looked cool.

The 1989 Batman was the first time I saw multiple copies of the same movie. They must have bought 100 tapes and it was bizarre to see so many copies of the same movie on the shelf.

When the rental business started to cool down, they lowered the price so you could rent five movies for five days for five bucks (something like that). New releases remained normal price and they had a special section called "TOP 100" of all the classic movies (stuff like Oscar winners and The Godfather) that also remained normal price to rent. One day I started doing a count of how many movies were in the "TOP 100" section and gave up when I hit three hundred.

They had laser discs come and go, then in the 2000s switched over to DVD, though they kept a respectable number of VHS tapes right up until the end. The manager at the time looked exactly like Larry David. Then a few years ago they announced they were selling off all their DVDs and closing the doors. I went an snapped a few pictures of the ruins of the temple I spent so much of my youth worshiping in.

Wish I could have taken some pictures in the glory days with the shelves bulging with tapes and the walls plastered with posters.

Alan Smithee

I remember the first local video store (Aggie Video in Davis, CA) that got games- they had a sign in the window saying "We now have Nintendo games!" I was the first one on my block to get an NES, but I never saw the point of renting a game. If I was just going to spend a few dollars to play a game, I might as well go play the real arcade games. When I brought a new Nintendo game home, I'd play the heck out of it the first few days, then either keep playing it intensely or go back to a different game, keeping the other ones on the shelf to pull out again later. At least on tape, you can watch a movie just one time and then return it having seen pretty much all there is of it, but a game is different every time you play it and I didn't want to have to return it after a day or so. It really pissed me off that more stores rented games than laserdiscs- I actually rented those!

Rockmjd23

Nice pictures, Crocker. It's sad knowing that something as simple as browsing a new release wall will no longer have a place in our lives. This thread is bumming me out.

LorenzoL

The new generation version of this is probably scrolling through the titles on Netflix.

Supermallet

I don't have too many memories from the VHS era, mainly gazing in awe at the Nightmare on Elm St. covers while my parents picked whatever forgettable blockbuster that had just come out. They seemed so mysterious, it was like I had found the Necronomicon itself. The movies never lived up to those covers.

When I got into DVD, I found Laser Blazer, a store that started out selling laserdiscs. They had so many DVDs, I couldn't believe it. I remember spending hours there looking at movies and chatting with the staff. Now they're long gone.

asianxcore

The first one that comes to mind was when I first moved to California from Michigan.

In the county I moved to in Southern California, I remember seeing signs for a 99 Cent Video Store. I was curious so I went to check it out, fully expecting to just run into a bunch of garbage releases or a bootleg store of some sort.

To my surprise it was a fully functioning, legit, funky VHS rental store. The owner was super friendly, showed customers things that were coming in catalogs if people were curious. I spent almost all my time in this store renting Horror films and for 99 cents, it was an absolute steal. I remember renting stacks of Horror films to last me the weekend and getting into a lot of films I still love now. The first time I ever saw 'Dead Alive' (1992) Unrated was because of this store!

Sometimes I wouldn't rent anything and would just check out all the awesome box art in the Action & Horror movie sections.

Coral

I worked in a large video store in '89. They had a pretty large collection of VHS... and popular new releases they would have at least 15 copies of them.

I came across so many movies I've never heard of before... lots of B movies, and independent films.
What's great was we were allowed to "rent" 2 movies per shift free of charge. With 5 shifts a week, I took advantage of it probably three times a week (ie. 6 movies) on average. Discovered many movies that way.

The most memorable part of the job was the customers. Not the average once or twice a week customers, but the very frequent ones. One guy came in so often, that he didn't even have to show his ID or membership card (sort of like Norm on Cheers). He would work the afternoon shift 6 days a week... and every single night after those shifts like clockwork, he would drop by and rent 2 movies - and almost always they were older films.

I also learned that the biggest renter of porn were women and Asian men.

PhantomStranger

Their whole color scheme was built around that ugly yellow hue. They gave away awful-looking t-shirts once in that color, I remember it hanging around the back of my closet for a few years before I finally decided to toss it. I think they even painted their store vans in that color.

DieselsDen

I worked at Tower Records in Sacramento while in between careers. What struck me was a consistent crowd of customers (the unemployed, the unemployable, social shut-ins, ardent movie buffs) who would make it a point to rent every one of the newest weekly releases, regardless of quality. They knew when the new titles went up, and rent them alphabetically. Small movies and direct-to-video releases like AMERICAN ME, MEATBALLS 3, RAPID FIRE, CRITTERS 4, and IRON EAGLE 3 were always being rented out, and some would get visibly upset if their next choices were unavailable.

When it came to renting porn, you had two kinds of people: those who were self-conscious and babbled on nervously and endlessly while the transaction was being carried out as if to distract the clerk from the titles, and the others who were dead quiet and made minimal conversation while at the counter as if they were renting the movies for some science experiment. I once had a guy buy one heterosexual video and nine homosexual titles and insisted on explaining to me how he wasn't gay while he sweated up a storm.

Neeb

I got hooked on Video Watchdog because I could always find copies at Tower. Now, if Barnes and Nobles goes away...

nickdawgy

Video Choice on Beach Blvd in OC. My Dad rented Tales from the Darkside and Faces of Death on Christmas Eve. Good times.

Original Desmond

I remember as a kid wandering around seeing all of the R-rated movie covers , of course i couldn't rent these movies at that point but they thrilled and terrified me

Ones which stood out were 'Eaten Alive', 'i spit on your grave' and 'alien terror' and 'the exterminator'

This is the cover for Alien Terror

http://80sfear.com/blogimages/atvhs.jpg

Alan Smithee

I was sorta self-conscious about renting porn once I was finally old enough to. I'd usually rent one porno along with one regular movie to call less attention to it. I soon figured out (this was before the internet) that the current stuff was all direct-to-video, and the ones I really wanted to see were the older ones that had actually been shown on film in theaters- which finally became known as "classics" by the mid-90s. Got over the self-consciousness pretty quickly though- I remember the guy who checked out "Behind the Green Door" for me commenting that it was a good movie, and after I was working at a movie theater and had seen just about every mainstream movie out there, I was quick to point that out to anyone who gave me crap about it. (By then my renting habits had shifted largely towards older movies or less-mainstream stuff that the theater I worked at didn't get.)

One time when I had to laugh at someone else renting porn was at The Wherehouse in 1990, when the guy in line before me rented "Driving Miss Daisy" and... "Ball Busters." I wanted to make a joke to the clerk after that- "I know ONE of those just won Best Picture, but don't remember which!"

Oh- and I know I'm going to hell for this, but one time me and my weird friend found someone's receipt left in a porn tape's case after they had returned it and it had gone back on the shelf. It had his phone number and everything on it, so we called him up and pretended to be religious fanatics telling him we knew what he was watching and to forsake his sins!

joliom

I worked at three different video stores in the past. Here in Hawaii, I worked at Diamond Head Video on Kapahulu. They had a large porn section (I think they used to be the largest adult video outlet in the state, actually). They were open 24/7 and I worked a lot of graveyard shifts when I was employed there. Because I was usually the only guy working at night, they tended to stick me in the back in the porn section most nights. Let me tell you, I saw all kinds of weird shit working back there. The guys who wanted to have in-depth conversations about their favorite fetish porn were particularly off-putting. Sorry, but I don't want to discuss how hard you get watching women get gagged or urinated on...just make your purchase and get the hell away from me. Girls buying porn were usually a lot of fun, though. They typically come in in groups and are pretty lit from partying at the clubs all night. They would usually flirt with me and see if they could get me to blush asking what porn I like to watch or how a particular sex toy worked. I guess hardcore porn is illegal in Japan, so a lot of Japanese tourists would come in and buy literally thousands of dollars worth of DVD's. We kept a stack of innocuous DVD covers behind the counter and used to have to hide the real covers behind them so they wouldn't get flagged by customs. I once made a $15,000 sale to two Japanese guys. They had so much stuff I had to get two people from the front to come help me bag it all and the supervisor had to open another register to keep the line moving behind them. The weirdest phenomenon were the tranny porn buyers. They were all the same. They always came in between 5:00 and 6:00 AM and were always well-dressed, middle-aged males that looked like lawyers, businessmen, or bankers. I never once sold a tranny porn to anyone who didn't fit that stereotype, and never at any other time of the day. I once sold some weird bondage porn, a two-headed dildo, some lube, and some "VHS cleaner" (the store's way of selling poppers without technically breaking the law) to a guy who I later worked with at my next job. He could never look me in the eye after that.

Krayzie

This reminds me of when I rented Bad Dudes on the NES since I liked the arcade game. I was pretty mad that the NES version was a one player game. Wtf!

AnonomusBob15

I used to roll up loose change and hike 20 minutes down a steep wooded slope to the nearest Movie Gallery for the Buy 2 get 1 free used tapes. I rolled 20 bucks of pennies to purchase a new copy of Interview with the Vampire.

They also had a gumball machine with foil wrapped gumballs, if you won, you would get a free rental.Every other quarter would win so I would get two rentals for a buck, plus the gum. They eventually dumped the machine from my abuse.

They also had a Here Now Guarantee on the blockbuster titles so id go in around close on their release dates, and get free rainchecks on all new out of stock titled.

PhantomStranger

The video stores became a lot less interesting when the chains started dominating the market. Hollywood Video and Blockbuster had cleaner layouts and a much less adventurous selection.

Original Desmond

yeah i also preferred the small independent stores over the big chains

another thing i remember, a new blockbuster comes out, you have it booked for a certain night and you have to wait until others return it to be able to get it and you know how people are late ! I remember sometimes going back 4 or 5 times waiting for a particular movie

TimeandTide

Placer Video in Yuba City, Calif., used to put their over-flow VHS titles in no particular order, and vertically, so the box art wasn't visible, on top of low shelves throughout the store. During one visit, I spotted a tape called "The Killer", another entitled "Reservoir Dogs". That Woo/Tarantino double-bill (or quad-bill, as I watched them back-to-back-to-back-to back) sparked my love of cinema. Thereafter, I gobbled up any HK action film, copies of Film Threat, and anything QT was influenced by that I could find.

Rockmjd23

Yep. I used to pick a horror series, rent every entry, and watch them all in a row on the weekends. I don't think Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 was available at the big chains at the time.

Crocker Jarmen

I remember the early days when most video stores were dank and hastily put together as a flea market booth. Crummy shelves, poor lighting, the owner chain smoking behind the counter... Those were the days.

brainee

I remember when Blockbuster took over the industry. Unless you were lucky and had a quality store hold out against the BB invasion (and they tried to invade everywhere), renting videos got a lot less fun really quickly. I remember a local video store I really liked ... must've been around the early 90's. Huge store. They rented adult videos, but did it in an odd way. All the adult videos were locked away where only the employees could access them. But they had just the folded up covers that people could browse (provided you were old enough). You brought the cover you were wanted and the employee got the video for you.

A Blockbuster opened up right across the street, with very aggressive pricing ($1/night, which was unheard of then). Most of the indie store's customers jumped ship, they went out of business, and BB got rid of the cheap promotion immediately after the competition was destroyed (in fact, their new prices were more expensive than the indy store was charging to begin with)

In the 90's, I was lucky to live in areas with fantastic local stores holding up. When I lived in Connecticut, there was a store (midway between Hartford and New Haven) called Mad Mike's Super Video. Size-wise it didn't seem impressive at first. But inside, the store was packed to the brim with movies. Not just any movies either. Mad Mike went through a lot of effort to get all kinds of cult, horror, foreign, and rare movies. There was a whole section for just "Something Weird Video". He bought a lot of stuff from Video Search of Miami, who charged outrageous prices for ultra-rare material (and a lot of exclusive subtitle jobs). That was where I heard of Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Tsui Hark, Paul Naschy. There was loads of anime before anime became cool. And he'd buy PAL tapes of things never released in the US, convert them to NTSC and rent those. And of course there was a gigantic porn section behind saloon-style doors in the back. Mad Mike himself was often in the store, and I'd talk movies with him. Though it worked out well for me, it was a bit disappointing to see hardly anyone else rent all these rarities that he had. I asked Mike about that, and he said that the new releases and porn kept the store going. But the other movies are the things he really loves. If nothing else, he was buying them for himself. And if anyone else wanted to rent them, that was just a bonus.

I lived in the San Francisco area for a while, and they had a fantastic store called Le Video (right across from Golden Gate Park). Like Mad Mike's, it was unassuming from the outside but just loaded on the inside. Since it was a bit of a haul for me to get across SF, their week-long rentals were really appreciated. I'm happy to see they're still around, though it looked like they almost went out of business earlier in the year (until they moved the movies entirely to the upper floor, and gave the first floor to an indie bookstore).

robin2099

I actually remember one of my local Mom and Pop stores called Accent Video used to have a porn room. They said for the longest time that the porn rentals were the only thing keeping them afloat. After Hollywood Video came into town as well as Blockbuster that was all she wrote for them and they had the customary going out of business sale.

Those sales were always so depressing. On the one hand you were able to buy stuff that you wouldn't see at the big chains. I remember buying The Pitt, Phantom of the Mall, and The Human Shield. But you see the store gutted and everything being sold was such a bummer.

Abob Teff

I remember when Alan Smithee moved in ...

I don't have much to add from the customer side. My experiences were much like everybody else's. Fantastic independent stores with friendly, knowledgeable, owners who were passionate about film.

One of the last independents I rented from was in Springfield. I never knew they were there until I went to take a class at the local community college and happened to pass by. The owner and I struck up a friendship and he got me into reading industry magazines. One night I decided to post a long-winded comment on a message board for one of the magazines. A few weeks later I walked into the store and the owner had a huge grin on his face ... My post had been published in the magazine!

My stories of working in video stores aren't much different than everybody else's either. Great regular customers, lots of loony not-so-regular customers. Unfortunately I only worked for the chains though.

My first video store job was a short stint at Family Video. I was fired after I accidentally outed my district manager's affair with the regional manager. Supposedly she had been in the store training me over the previous three months ... When her husband called looking for her I told him I hadn't seen her in 3 weeks (truth). Within 3 days I was fired (despite having received a positive review and a raise 4 weeks before).

I enjoyed my time at Hollywood Video the best. Worked with great people and had great customers (for the most part). I became "the cleanup" manager. My boss (the district manager) was not very good when it came to hiring store managers. Several times I was sent in to clean up after a manager was fired. In one particular store I did not make many friends ... 12 of the 15 staff members resigned before I arrived (they knew they were going to be fired) and the first night there I had to throw out the hookers (three of them) who had been working out of the store. We were also just down the street from the strip club ...

I was always looking for good help at that store. My boss kept trying to get me to hire anybody who walked in, but I was holding out for good candidates. One night I was talking to a young lady who had been coming in frequently. She was very personable, knowledgeable about movies, and cute. She was also pregnant and looking for a new job. She told me how she was currently working, but her pregnancy was going to make her current job difficult so she was looking for something else. I strongly encouraged her to put in an application as I was ready to hire her. After she left I told the staff I thought I had found our next new hire ... They either looked at me with a blank stare or began snickering. I didn't get it. Finally one of my employees pipes up "You just ran the hookers out, now you're going to start hiring the strippers?"

I think the thing I miss the most was our overnight store inventories/parties. Every inventory with me was a themed inventory, such as: "Spring Training" (baseball inventories), "An Inventory You Can't Refuse" (The Godfather trilogy), "My Precious Inventory" (LOTR trilogy), etc. When we were done (usually around 5am) we would all go to breakfast. Good times!

DJariya

I know the traditional video store is mostly extinct in many States. But here where I live, the one that I've gone to since 1991 still exists. I still try to go there a few times per week. I want to keep supporting his store.

They charge $2 for all blu rays and $1.50 for DVDs. They get movies up to 3 weeks before street date. I'm very friendly with the owner. He told me recently that they are doing okay, but not making that much money. But, his store has managed to stay in business even through the decline of the home video market.

At one point, I was visiting Blockbuster alot and paying for there over-priced rentals and also using the Netflix mail service until they stopped getting new movies in a timely fashion with all those delays. I kind of regret taking a break from visiting the store during that time. I didn't use his store even once during the 1 1/2 years I was an active member of the Netflix mail service, then that whole thing crumbled.

"Chi" is great to all his regular customers. I'll try to continue to support him as long as he still can afford to stay in business.