Badmovies.org Forum

I'm not talking about netflix and I'm not talking about redbox. 

I'm talking about a good old fashion videostore, where you could go in and you only had the slightest clue what you were looking for.  Maybe you wanted to see a Western or maybe you wanted to see a comedy, but other than that ... no idea. 

So you looked at the boxes.  The boxes had awesome imaginative covers (that were sometimes better than the actual movies) and the back of them told you the plot.  You didn't have a review or star ranking right there to look at.  You had to make a judgement call as to whether Bloodsucking Freaks was better than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I mean, you'd heard Texas was a classic from some friends, but what do your friends know? 

Or maybe one of those times you DID have something specific in mind... but they were all out of copies.  So again, you wander up and down the isles, picking up boxes looking them over until something jumps out at you. 

That is what I miss.  I miss NOT knowing what something is going to be and the joy of discovery.   

Anybody else? 


...


Dagnabbit when did I start getting old? 

I'm lucky, or stubborn, because I still go to the local Hasting's and browse the rental shelves at least once a week.
Netflix would be cheaper, I know, but I just enjoy this way more.

Yeah I miss those days of wandering the back isle of Blockbuster where they kept the direct-to-video stuff with all the marvelously misleading cover artwork.  I found a few gems back there.  I found a bunch of other stuff too.  And they had little signs with the employee's picks for good movies, so if you saw a list with something you liked you could maybe check out one of their other favorites.  And just the whole atmosphere of being surrounded by other folks that were going to spend their Friday evening sitting in front of their TV set.

What I don't miss is driving back in the next morning to drop it off though.

I don't miss renting very much.  I worked in a video store for several years in the 1980s and I got to take home whatever movies I wanted for free.  The only rules were:

* I had to wait until the store closed to grab the new releases (we had to give customers the opportunity to rent them)
* If I took home a new release, I had to return it the next morning so that it would be available for customers when the store opened

Plus, I got to order movies whenever our sales rep. came in.  Somehow, we ended up with copies of movies like THE WORM EATERS and THE CORPSE GRINDERS.  I wonder who ordered them?  :wink:

After I quit that job, I only occasionally rented movies.  I used to buy them instead.  Then when DVDs took over the market, I got rid of all my VHS tapes and started a DVD collection.  I don't buy too many movies anymore (maybe about 20 per year at most).  I'm mostly a Netflix guy now.

Yes. Movie night used to be more of an event when you had to drive to the store and browse the shelves looking for something that caught your eye. Like Jack said, though, returning them was a pain.

It had its advantages and disadvantages.

The fun was browsing the aisles for the right movie, and there was always a bit of a thrill in that I never quite knew what I was getting. Once I got home, I was basically stuck with that movie and had to sit it out, even if terrible. Nowadays, I can start a film on netflix and switch to something else if I don't like it. There's something nice about having that freedom, but I also think it's given me a shorter attention span for movies.

Yes, I miss renting and there just being rental places around. Oh, you can still find them places but they're much rarer nowadays. Thanks to renting VHS tapes, I saw a wide range of films from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and before - more than I probably would have ever seen otherwise. It used to be a family or friends ritual to go to the video store and browse for some movies to pick up. I recall really enjoying the browse and search for the movie oftentimes more than the movies themselves. You'd search through all these different VHS box covers and of course, often the video box art was so much better than the actual movie. Then you'd get or make popcorn and watch the films with friends and/or family. The rewinding VHS and returning them the next day was an hassle so I often rented over the weekend during which many local stores let you keep the movies until Monday many of them being closed on Sunday so of course, many times I'd actually watch some of the movies more than once. I also rented an awful lot of wrestling videos  back in the 80s and 90s, primarily the 80s and saw a wide variety of wrestling from the 70s-80s WWWF/WWF, NWA, Canadian International Wrestling, and elsewhere. You could find obscure oddities on VHS and direct to video releases back then some of which are still not on DVD. The whole experience of renting actually involving some form of socialization is largely what I miss, the act of going out with friends and family, often times chatting with the video store clerks, etc.

I miss it.... to an extent.  There was a certain amount of joy in seeing what you could find.  Now things are easy to find but that slight excitement of what was available versus what you wanted to see.  Lead to some interesting times and a certain amount of oh wow I didn't think it would be there but was available. 

There's something to this as well. Having paid a bit more for the movies, one was a bit more inclined to finish watching them to get one's money worth, even if the movies were sometimes awful. Still, it was fun watching with friends and family.

Yes - in a way I do miss the 80's mom and pops VHS rent stores.

Looking at all those bad movie VHS box covers, couldn't wait to get home and watch it.

I still rent movies pretty often. I visit my local videostore pretty often to see what new movies are out or if they have some interesting used movies to buy.

I guess I miss the stores more than the actual renting of movies.  Just walking up and down the aisles having no clue about what some of these movies were like and only reading the back description and cover art for information.  Its the same with book stores going out of business.  I often find it strangely hard to browse just using my kindle's amazon app.  The recommendations don't often match up with what I'm looking for. 

Sadly it corresponds to movie covers(posters)  just getting lazy.  Nothing to really get the eye interested anymore. 

Nowadays, the closest thing I can get to matching the old school rental experience is browsing the VHS racks at thrift stores and the occasional yard sales, but even then VHS is becoming less and less common. Yes, I still have a working VCR, which my wife is baffled I keep, as most of our VHS has since left. I dunno, DVD is better, I guess, but finding a cheesy b-movie gem on VHS, particularly if one I haven't seen in years, is an experience that can't be matched.

I miss renting movies. I spend most of my teen years at video rental places. Lots of fond memories and good times.

I agree with you guys. It was really awesome when you'd stumble upon a great movie (good or bad) without knowing too much about it as far as reviews go in the pre internet days. For example, I discovered Black Christmas on VHS before it became so well known (not bragging though, just stating a fact). Totally blew my f**king mind. So yeah, there's a lot of nostalgia there for the old VHS stores.

What I miss is being able to goto the store physically inspect the videos I'm looking at. There was something about the cover art, the descriptions, and that moment when you've picked something out and are leaving when you see something else on the way out. I've seen some fun videos just because I happened to walk by and the cover art caught my eye.

I discovered such bombs as 'Time Runner' through renting.

I remember being a little kid in the 90s obsessed with horror, going to the video store with intent to rent a horror film that my parents would rent for me once I'd pick one out. I always marveled at the illustrated cover art of the vhs tapes, and wondering how the artwork matched the film itself. This was the 90s so a lot of 80s films were still laying around everywhere. I always saw these films as being so mature, and the cover art as being so mysterious and creepy. I made a few bad choices and rented some snooze-fests. But I also rented some awesome films too. I loved renting films in the 90s. Do I *miss* it in actuality? Not...really. Because finding old films these days streaming online or buying offline is more straightforward and so much easier. Nowadays I love to find and sift through old films with the help of the internet, rather than taking a shot in the dark. So I guess I miss the intrigue I had as a kid, but I enjoy the more straightforward investigative method that the internet allows of us today.  :twirl:

South Africa doesn't have anything like Netflix as yet so I either rent or take the plunge and buy. If I rent the movie and like it enough, I will buy it. Otherwise - as in the case of The Last Stand - it is a shot in the dark I take to buy but the film was worth it.

Sadly a lot of the once flourishing home video stores here in Pretoria have shut their doors.  :bluesad:

that is a shame.

Yeah, I do. I miss going into Blockbuster.

What I miss is the Mom & Pop stores. I used to go to a place that had a two-for-Tuesday deal, and the stuff they had was bonkers. VHS still has many, many films that are not available on DVD or streaming to this day. The Mom & Pop shops had the weird stuff.

Then Blockbuster came along and killed all of that. f**k that company, I'm glad they're dead.

Now, I vastly prefer being able to find the stuff I'm looking for, but I would not be the person I am today if I hadn't spent hours at my local rental place looking for oddities. I did the same thing with comic stores.

I don't miss renting, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my hours of searching for good movies didn't shape my personality.

my old flat where I lived for most of my 20's actually backed on to a blockbuster store. sounds good, but they always had the worst selection ever. I'm not that picky, but they never had anything remotely interesting, just piles and piles of lame rom-coms and boring action flicks. the number of times I'd go in there out of sheer boredom looking for anything and coming out empty handed...lame.  :thumbdown:

I haven't converted to the digital age at all in that respect. I've never downloaded a movie, and I don't even know what Netflix really is. I mainly watch movies on youtube now. it's surprising how many completely random/obscure ones are on there in full. occasionally I'll take a punt on a cheap DVD on amazon.

Wow. I don't think I ever left a video rental store empty handed. But then again, I've never been to a Blockbuster store either.

you didn't miss much tbh...some had better selections than others but you'd never find for example a 70s giallo or anything even approaching 'arthouse'  - from my experience of browsing in them anyway.

 guess there was a clue in the name 'blockbuster' really... mainstream all the way. I think coen bros or david lynch was about as obscure as they got

Do I miss renting? Yes.  Do I miss the late fees? NO..

That was one of the things I disliked about Blockbuster.  You had an easier time getting the latest thing but not much in old selection.  I used to rent quite a bit from Hollywood for that reason.  I mean I couldn't find all the movies I wanted but at least things were available enough to an extent you could find it.  For instance, got into the Clint Eastwood westerns later in life couldn't find them in Blockbuster but could at Hollywood.  That isn't a huge stretch but I could at least find it there when Blockbuster didn't have it. 

The Blockbuster in my area had real a***oles working behind the counter, and a district manager that covered for their abusive treatment of customers.  And get this...they had Fulci's Zombie without a youth-restricted sticker on it. I got that changed after enough complaints, (seeing the movie and knowing it's NOT kid-friendly) and one of their employees took a real attitude with me after that. So as far as Blockbuster goes, I have no use for them.

One of the shops in my town used to be a video store since it's just sold pointless consumables for the middle class (under different owners)

haha true. I love the Coen Bros but I always think of them as a name drop for people who know nothing about indie film but want to show off some street cred.

As much as I miss renting obscure and b-movie stuff, I have to hand it to netflix. They offer a pretty decent selection of good documentaries and they often surprise me with some of the older films they offer for streaming. I suppose old b-movies are pretty cheap to license...

I think without a voting system (like so theoretically you could get anything onto netflix like Gasper Noe films or whatever) and a good global community implementation I would never support it, appreciate what they are trying to do though and I like how they release whole seasons at once.

(http://i.imgur.com/BOTaK5Gl.jpg)

My old membership card  :smile:

The video store closed in the early 2000s, it was one of my favorite places to rent movies. The staff would give you a hot cup of coffee if you came in on a cold day in winter. They had small snacks and treats on the counter they would put in your bag of rented tapes during the week of Halloween. Membership fee was $25 a year. God I miss that place.

The other card with written numbers was from another rental place. Each video box had a number and you had to write it down and give it to the lady behind the counter. If I recall correctly the two 14 numbers were definitely horror titles. The 8599 number must have been a new release I was eager to rent because I wrote it down big lol

It's great for classic TV shows. I started watching Miami Vice

I very occasionally rent movies at one of the few remaining stores in town called Wild and Woolly Video, and they've got most anything you can imagine, but I generally download a lot of obscure of crap from a private tracker or buy things I really want (although my buying habits have slowed down a bit).

What I really miss is being a child and browsing through the store and being amazed or weirded out by all of the horror VHS covers.  They were movies I was never allowed to see but I was fascinated by them.

Oh yeah, I miss the "rental experience." In the late 80s/early 90s I had membership cards for at least 4 or 5 local video stores (big chains and mom-and-pop shops) so if I had a certain movie in mind and it wasn't at one store, I had others that I could hit up for it.

As a preteen I loved wandering down the horror aisle and checking out all the weird/creepy/bizarre box cover artwork. I was literally too scared to watch some of those movies till many years later!!

...then Blockbuster came along and gobbled them up all those smaller stores, leaving us with  a bland, homogenized, sanitized family-friendly "rental" experience.  :hatred: