‘I miss those days terribly’: readers proportion their defining video retailer recollections

‘Our local video shop man got into big trouble’

After a movie were within the cinema yet sooner than a movie used to be on basic sale (also referred to as ‘Home Release’) there could be a window of most likely a couple of months the place the retail worth of a unmarried VHS tape could be about £100 [$133]. In an international of virtual media that now feels mad, but it surely used to be clearly winning for the condo stores to shop for tapes at that worth.

Our native video store guy were given into giant hassle for making copies. You simplest wanted two VHS machines and a color photocopier for the field duvet and also you have been in industry. MrChevette

‘Just in time for my birthday’

My daughter walked previous the video retailer on her approach house from college. She knew I liked The Big Lebowski, and he or she went in on her approach house from college and badgered them – canIhavethepostercanIhavethepostercanIhavetheposter – till they after all gave it to her, simply in time for my birthday. BeaverHsteman

‘Laughed like drains every week’

Blockbuster Friday used to be a factor with us again within the 90s. Stock up on beer after which take out the dumbest taking a look horror movies shall we to find. We laughed like drains each and every week. Good instances.

‘Best job I’ve ever had’

I labored in a video condo retailer on weekends all over faculty, 2004-2008. And it wasn’t a franchise both, it used to be a small “mom and pop” retailer. Best process I’ve ever had, stick a film at the TV placing up within the nook of the ceiling, prepare the cabinets in step with my very own whims and fancies, turn during the movie magazines that I introduced myself, take house the most productive posters.

I liked tailoring a advice for a buyer. Considering what they have been within the temper for, what actors they appreciated/disliked, what they’d noticed in recent times. I liked handing a movie to a buyer at the Friday night time shift after which listening to their overview at the Saturday afternoon after they returned it. MarySays

‘She was laughing so hard’

I labored in video shops for years; I be mindful, one night time, those two guys and a girl got here in to the shop I used to be operating at in a decidedly rural a part of Arizona. They appeared round for slightly and picked out some motion films, It were a sluggish night time, and my co-worker and I were observing Much Ado About Nothing at the retailer’s video observe. While the only man used to be trying out the movies, the girl and the opposite man walked over to the observe and began observing the movie. After he completed trying out, the primary man joined the others in entrance of the observe. They stood there observing for rather some time. Finally, the primary man grew to become to his partners and exclaimed, “I can’t understand a d*mned thing their saying.”

My co-worker needed to retreat to the again of the shop as a result of she used to be guffawing so onerous. DWGrasse

‘Forgot to take it back’

Remember we employed Defence of the Realm from our native Threshers (a shockingly big variety!) after which forgot to take it again. We simplest realised thick finish of a yr or so later and will vividly be mindful my mum’s meltdown – she concept the overdue bills have been going to bankrupt us (consider in the event that they’d insisted on a day by day overdue charge, we can have paid for the movie. Like, the making of the movie). Fortunately it used to be SO overdue they couldn’t to find our card within the pile and had no thought we’d had it see you later. Upshot – we didn’t cross bankrupt. Great movie although. johnnysmooth

‘Threw the video tape at me!’

Worked in a video retailer in suburban Dublin, summer time of 1996, I suppose. A gentleman got here in and requested me for a ‘cowboy picture’ to hire, including that he’d noticed all of them because the 50s. Wayne, Eastwood, Cooper. You title it, son! So I really helpful his Jarmusch’s Dead Man.

He returned it the following day or must I say threw the video tape at me and simply mentioned ‘Kerrr-AP!’

So I requested him what his favorite western used to be and possibly I may just to find one thing equivalent.

City Slickers 2, he deadpanned. FatEric

‘The redneck antagonist was biting the head off a live chicken’

When we were given our first VHS participant, more than likely round 87 or 88, my circle of relatives used to hire movies from our native Mobil storage. It had a small-but-decent variety, even supposing by way of the top of the 1980s we had moved directly to a larger impartial condo store a few miles away, which used to be nonetheless going sturdy neatly into the 2000s.

My oldsters would naively/luckily hire stuff for me and my buddies to look at after college on a Friday, typically 15 or 18 certificate after we have been in point of fact too younger for probably the most content material. I understand that they have been rather shocked by way of Robocop particularly, yet they nonetheless carried on renting no matter I requested for, alternatively beside the point it used to be for a tender teen. During one screening of the dismal horror movie Geek (sometimes called ‘Backwoods’) my mum got here into the living room with a tray of sandwiches and beverages for me and my buddies simply because the redneck antagonist used to be biting the pinnacle off a reside rooster, and to these days I be mindful her exclaiming: ‘Oh no, no, that’s no longer really nice in any respect,’ sooner than strolling out of the room and letting us watch the remainder of the movie. ProfyleNeim

‘We watched in stunned silence’

I used to be 14 when my older brother moved again house, bringing with him a VCR – a recreation changer on the time. Our native document store had simply began renting out tapes, and one particularly stuck my eye: The Terminator. Somehow, regardless of being underage, I controlled to hire it.

That night time, a gaggle of college buddies came to visit, and we watched in surprised silence as Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged from the time displacement sphere and started his relentless, robot hunt for Sarah Connor. We have been utterly blown away.

Since that night time, I’ve owned The Terminator in just about each and every structure it’s been launched – VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and now 4K UHD. Almost 40 years on, it nonetheless stands as my all-time favorite movie. Dotcom1970

‘Buzzing with excitement’

My first video condo retailer used to be on Elliot St in Liverpool town centre. It used to be £30 to turn out to be a member, concept it used to be outrageous then, and nonetheless do to these days, 40 years down the road. The excellent movies have been onerous to acquire, continuously out and in the shop, leaving you to rent the dregs of what used to be left, basically dubbed graphic horror B movies, that will have to had been made at a price of a couple of bucks with a loose doughnut thrown in for excellent measure (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) exempt. But when a kind of elusive movies that you simply had your center set on took place to be at the shelf eg Midnight Express or Blazing Saddles, be mindful simply humming with pleasure, and couldn’t wait to get again house, and insert and press play. Aubrey26

‘I can still smell the musty carpet’

Traipsing alongside to the pokey video retailer with my dad midweek and mustering up the braveness to ascend the dim staircase to the upstairs horror phase the place, by way of the stark illumination of a unmarried lightbulb, my younger eyes widened to the lurid duvet paintings of X-rated nasties in chunky VHS circumstances, which have been all decorated with the sticky thumbprints of 100 other families as in the ones days the shops didn’t have generic condo circumstances for patrons to take house. One of my happiest recollections, and an revel in that during no small section contributed to each my grownup love of the extraordinary horror style and bodily media basically. I will nonetheless scent the musty carpet to these days. Bartel

‘I miss those days terribly’

As a child within the 80s, my mum used to take us to this again boulevard video retailer in Blandford Forum, which used to be mainly somebody’s space with the shop being down within the cellar. I used to lust after the lurid paintings at the clamshell movies within the horror and sci-fi phase with titles corresponding to Hell Comes To Frogtown, The Burning, Basket Case, Island Of Death and many others. My mum as soon as mistakenly rented us the Randy Quaid-starring Parents as a substitute of Parenthood which is an altogether other proposition …

The lady who ran the store took a shine to me and held again (in hindsight, in point of fact beside the point!) promo posters for me as she knew how a lot I liked the artwork. As a tweenager, my bed room wall boasted massive posters of Brain Damage, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome.

I leave out the ones days extraordinarily: doom-scrolling via an unending path of bilge on Amazon Prime simply doesn’t reduce it … TeeDubyaBee

‘Some deep dark adult world that I didn’t have get entry to to’

Growing up I had a video condo store 5 mins from my space referred to as Videotronic. On a Friday night time my siblings and I, together with the children who lived subsequent door, would troop down there to hire one thing like Short Circuit, Labyrinth or The Princess Bride.

One sturdy reminiscence I’ve is the the covers of the horror films – such things as Troll, Shocker, Fright Night, House, Hellraiser – they felt like they represented some deep darkish grownup global that I didn’t have get entry to to and didn’t know if I ever sought after to. I’m certain a few of them aren’t just about as horrifying as the quilt artwork advised to me on the time.

The thing more used to be the Street Fighter cab they’d within the again. I’m speaking in regards to the authentic Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, no longer any of the later revisions. We have been utterly obsessive about it, yet my oldsters have been rather strict with cash and it used to be uncommon pleasure to be given a pound to place into it. Sam_Jenks