Review Video Rental Memories

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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Sometimes your first encounter with a classic movie was by hiring it from the local video store....

Unfortunately, your first encounter with a dreadful movie occurred the same way!

What "classics", cheesy or otherwise, do you remember seeing this way?



 
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Hux

Member: Rank 6
As a kid, I always saw this cover in our local corner shop (they also did videos) and was desperate to see it based purely on that (it had that whole Knight Rider/StreetHawk vibe). Never saw it in the end of course.

I now realise it's some terrible Charlie Sheen nonsense so probably missed out on nothing.

 

duzit

Member: Rank 6
There was a time I belonged to 2 video stores & something that the elders here will know,
Columbia Video Club. My whole life I have loved movies, so when I was able to afford them,
I made sure I got my fill. The stores & the club lasted until I discovered something called
"Netflix". Again, I will be dating myself, but the Netflix then was not the Netflix that it is now.
I got tired of running to the stores w/late fees. So I signed up for the very new DVD home
delivery service. This was WAY before streaming, a DVD took about 1 week to arrive in the mail.
The plan I belonged to allowed 2 DVD ' S out at the same time. The trick was u didn't receive
them together. I loved not having to run to the stores, no late fees, mailed them back in the
pre-paid envelope & waited for the next one to arrive. Long story short, I am one of the original
Netflix members. I have long since stopped the DVD ' S & am now happy w/streaming. Until they
come up with something better, this is the way I will see my movies. I know this was long,
so thanks for reading◆◆◆♡♡♡


ps: I probably helped put the stores out of business...
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
I miss video stores so much. The only chain store we had in our area was Movies America, and everything else were mom & pop types stores where they had such a wonderful, eclectic mix of movies. I remember sitting for hours just talking with store clerks about movies, and having someone actually recommend movies to check out, not an algorithm that told me what "others who watched what I liked watched". Growing up, my family and I haunted these shops, finding all sorts of movies that were off the beaten path, and spending many an hour watching movies together. I truly miss those days. I'm glad that I can now stream movies, with no threat of late fees, and that there are places online (like here) where I can go to get actual suggestions, but there was something magical about those shops (like the little room in the back that had the strings of beads for a door that you couldn't go into as a kid).

I applied to work at several shops, but never got hired, mostly because I had long hair at that point. It used to frustrate me, because I knew more about movies than most kids, and would have been a much better asset.
 

TheSowIsMine

What an excellent day for an exorcism
VIP
We had 3 in my neighbourhood and sometimes none of them had something I wanted to see.
One of them, a very small one, had this guy working there, and he always gave me tips. It was cool that he kept an interest in his customers.
Sometimes you got a free drinking glass with a movie. It had the poster on it, which faded overtime in the dishwasher.
Eventually torrents came along and downloading wasn't illegal in Holland, so bye bye video stores.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
Sometimes you got a free drinking glass with a movie. It had the poster on it, which faded overtime in the dishwasher.
The most you could get at any of our video stores was a contact buzz. There was always a funny smell coming from the back room of the one video store that I could never identify until I got older.
 

Janine The Barefoot

Wacky Norwegian Woman
Any and all memories welcome...
I used to take my pet white rat (Snowball) into Blockbuster on my shoulder with me to rent movies. The evening mgr. said she was an "acceptable" visitor as long as the ratings complied with her age group! He also told me not to bring her in during the day because the day manager wasn't as "rodent friendly" as he was.... the evening visitors on the nights she came with me all agreed!

:emoji_chipmunk: had to go with the squirrel because there aren't any rodent symbols.... :emoji_cry: :emoji_astonished: :emoji_baby: :emoji_scream: :emoji_shrug:
 

Janine The Barefoot

Wacky Norwegian Woman
as long as the ratings complied with her age group
Our last movie together was Dr Doolittle.... then she passed away in her sleep on my chest. Damn I loved that critter. You should of have seen us cruising around town with her on my shoulder and the window of my car rolled down just enough so the wind could blow over her. I think she was a dog in a previous life!

:emoji_kiss: :emoji_dancer:
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
Sweet! hahaha

I grew up in an apartment, so I didn't grow up with pets, and never really became an animal person. I had friends with pets, and I liked them, but I knew I didn't have to take care of them and could leave at some point. Then I married an animal person, and I have to deal with cats. Guess who hates cats. Just guess.

That being said, I would love to someday own a python. Alas, the lady has a fear of snakes. So, yeah, no python for me.

As one of the ranking Queens of Weird Pet People
If any of them have more than four legs, you can keep that to yourself. My wife has to kill those for me.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
No specific ones are coming to mind, outside of remembering that the Star Wars, Star Trek and Indiana Jones covers all used beautiful poster art. Which honestly makes me lament the time when movies had really fantastic posters to advertise them.

I think of the genres, though, it only made sense that the movies I gravitated toward - based only on VHS covers - were sci-fi and horror. They were always fantastical or entirely surreal, and always caught my eye. Then there were the adult covers, which I only briefly saw until my mom caught me in the special room and dragged me by the hair back through the beaded curtain and slapped me upside the head.
 

TheSowIsMine

What an excellent day for an exorcism
VIP
The Wraith is actually a nice movie.
As a kid I was always at the horror section and I remember some of the vhs covers and later watched the movie. Some disappointed and some didn't.
There was one cover that always stuck with me, but I never knew thew title, only the picture. Eventually I watched a horror film and looked it up on imdb, and there is was, it was that picture. In this case the movie was not a let down. But its a shame I didn't see it as a kid, when horror where still suspenseful for me.
This was the dutch cover.
 

High Plains Drifter

The Drifter
VIP
I now realise it's some terrible Charlie Sheen nonsense so probably missed out on nothing.
Actually it is corny but it does have a few race scenes, plus Clint Howard, and Randy Quaid are in it. I always liked the car in the movie, plus someone restored it back to the way it was in the movie so that's always a plus. If you like bad movies, give it a watch.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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I remember this having a good write up in STARBURST magazine. and I seem to remember it being oddly eerie in a bizarre rubbery special effects kind of way....

Not sure it's quite the masterpiece it seemed now though.....






 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
The Wraith is actually a nice movie.
As a kid I was always at the horror section and I remember some of the vhs covers and later watched the movie. Some disappointed and some didn't.
There was one cover that always stuck with me, but I never knew thew title, only the picture. Eventually I watched a horror film and looked it up on imdb, and there is was, it was that picture. In this case the movie was not a let down. But its a shame I didn't see it as a kid, when horror where still suspenseful for me.
This was the dutch cover.


 
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