Okay, so the title is a little misleading. I’m not looking for your VERY FAVORITE VHS memory, but a good one. Let me explain a bit.
For those of us that grew up in the video age, going to the video store was a wonderful and magical time. Most of the time, at least for me, I wasn’t going for a particular title but just to wander the aisles to see what might jump out at me. There were those times when we took a complete chance on a tape just because of the box art, which was pretty easy with some of those Wizard Video or Super Video titles. Sure, sometimes they could be a real dud, but other times, the film would just blow you away. Maybe it was seeing a title on the rack that you’d been hearing/reading about forever but never had come across a copy before, where the excitement to finally get to see this movie, hoping it lives up to your expectations! Then again, sometimes it was all about how cool the box art looked.
That is what I’m looking for. Now is the time for us old timers to sit in our lawn chairs, and in between yelling at the kids to get off our lawns, let’s reminisce about the good old days of video stores!
What was one of your favorite VHS memories?
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Probably the best memory is looking through the racks for a title and seeing so many cool titles/art. they really sparked the imagination. Most of the movies turned out to not be as good as what my mind envisioned but it was so much fun exploring through the boxes. Younger people don’t know how fun that was.
The best memory other than that is picking out “Demons” & “Pieces” to take and watch at my older brother’s (who passed away a few years back) with my best friend at the time. We hit it big time for that double feature and all 3 of us sat up late into the night to watch them. The end of pieces killed us and Demons went on to be a movie we rented time and time again.
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I agree, Chris. That really was the best part…just looking at all those amazing covers. Deadly Spawn, or Return of the Alien Deadly Spawn, always caught my attention because of the monster and gore on the box. Same with Warren’s Prey, or Alien Prey. W-T-F? Good times.
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This is a tough one because their are so many. Two that pop in my head first would be the Gates of Hell and Humanoids from the Deep. Gates, I had not heard of this one yet and the box art sold me. Took it home watched the trailers at the beginning, one being Mongrel and the other being a Sam Elliot western/ comedy if I recall correctly. The movie it self blew me away, I had seen Zombie already but this was a bit different. Humanoids, I had read about many times but could not find it anywhere and then i finally found it at a store closing so I bought it and loved it. One last one would be TCM which is the first movie I had rented when we got a membership. Ill stop there because I could go on for a while.
You know this would me a good item for a book Jon…..
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I agree. Great Friday topic (with way too many to cover) and it would make a great book!
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I can still vividly remember sitting in a class in high school and hearing a couple of guys talking about seeing Humanoids on HBO the previous night, with all the gore and nudity. That had to be around early ’80s… not sure when I finally got to see it, but it was from VHS.
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As with those who’ve already commented, I too have an endless litany of video store tales to tell! Lol! So I’ll keep it to two that are the most important to me.
When my mom would go grocery shopping at Cub Foods, she’d let me hang out in the video department where I’d always beeline straight to the, surprisingly large, horror section! Once there it was as if I was transported to another world as I’d browse through the titles and oooh and aahhh at all of the cool covers. Of course I wasn’t allowed to see most of this stuff because I was “too young” which only served to drive my already wild imagination even farther off the deep end! It was a grim paradise of slasher masks, bloody knives and axes, threatening monsters, aliens, and a severed decayed hand pushing the doorbell. Some of the covers that stuck with me were Demons, Monster Dog, Slaughterhouse Rock, Vamp, and Spookies.
Demons was among the first things that I rented once my parents allowed me to start watching more “hardcore” stuff and thus the floodgates were not only opened but blown completely off their damn hinges! Haha haha! Loved it of course, with the only slightly disappointing thing about it being that the demon, that had haunted me for what seemed like years, leering prominently featured on that glorious cover is only in the movie for what, maybe a minute or two?! I had fantasized that I’d see that thing running around everywhere! Hahahahaha! Monster Dog sucked monster schlong! Just absolutely awful! I think that Vamp went over my head as a kid and still have yet to revisit it. Finally saw Spookies when VS released their fantastic set and it more than delivered!!! I have Slaughterhouse on my “to watch” stack.
The other most significant memory for me involves a little convenience store called Open Pantry that was within walking distance from my childhood home in St. Francis WI. I used to go to that store all the time as a kid! They had a great magazine section and that was where I first discovered MAD Magazine. Anyway once they started carrying videos they had a single tiny rack back in the corner and it was filled with all kinds of movies, but the one that captured my imagination to the point of obsession was none other than The Evil Dead! I’ll never forget the first time I saw that woman struggling desperately, helplessly, reaching for a salvation that would never come! It mesmerized and haunted me! That legendary King quote: “The most ferociously original horror film…” So cool they had to put it on the back of the tape as well! Reading on the back about the only way to stop them through the act of “bodily dismemberment!” Still get the chills running up my spine just thinking about it as I did back then! And how about the title itself?! The Evil Dead! Fucking hell! I HAD TO SEE THIS FILM!!!! So after what felt like ages of waiting, my buddy and I finally rented the film when I was staying by his house one weekend. His parents we’re gone so it was just us and we turned off all of the lights in the house, made a big tub of popcorn, and had our minds absolutely blown away by what we experienced on that fateful night watching The Evil Dead for the first time!!! Needless to say it remains my all time favorite horror film and ranks very highly over all as well! Lol! The other two significant titles that I rented from OP, as we called it for short, back then were Creepers and Burial Ground. Those two being my unwitting introduction to the Italian Horror subgenre!
I understand that the places that I’ve talked about are not dedicated video stores per se. I wouldn’t venture into those until I was a bit older and allowed more freedom to travel further from home. But the experiences that I had at Cub and OP were where it all started for me and are, without a doubt, similar to those of a more traditional video store.
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I always loved those little small video shops that were always combined with some other kind of business. I remember a dry cleaners that had a wall of rental tapes! I also loved when you drive by a video store that you’d never seen before, and had to stop and check them out, because you never know what they might have. When I worked in Chicago, coming home a different way, and passed by one of them. They had a copy of Simon King of the Witches, which I promptly convinced the owner that he needed to sell it to me!
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That’s awesome! Love that story!
I used to love places like that as well! Two of my favorite places that I used to haunt regularly was Bay Viewers and Bucky’s Super Video.
Bay Viewers was literally an old “hole in the wall” style bar that was turned into a video store which also had a couple of arcade games in it. It was there that I used to drool over the Night of the Demons display with the light up eyes! Never could have imagined that one day I’d eventually own one as well! Lol!
Buck’s, or Busty’s as my buddy and I had affectionately called it, was truly something special! They were one of the first places I’d found that not only rented movies, but would sell used ones as well. They had two rooms separate from the main room that was full of the vids for rent. One was an adult room which even had the classic bead curtain “door” to keep us youngsters out. Oh how we would sit and wonder what wild things were hidden behind that curtain! Lol! But the other room was the real piece de resistance! The room was lined with floor to nearly ceiling shelving and loaded with used video tapes! It was a movie fan’s wet dream! At the time, it felt like you could find anything that you could ever want in there! The only bummer was that the tapes weren’t always cheap. You could get some tapes for $10 and under but most would range from $15-$20. Not that expensive in truth, but for a kid with no consistent income at the time, they may as well have been $100! Lol! Still if you waited long enough they’d come down in price and you’d just have to hope that you were the lucky one to grab it before someone else did! Hahaha! Come to think of it, my VHS copies of Hellbound and Nightbreed may be a couple of my Busty’s purchases that have managed to stay with me after all these years!! It was a truly sad day when that place closed its doors. 😞
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Another great round of Friday Favorites – keep ’em coming, Jon!
I have some fond memories of the VHS era. My interest in horror films began with collecting genre film books (another good Friday Favorites possibility?) and that led to pursuing many of these films I saw in those pages on VHS. I believe the first two horror films I purchased on VHS were Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (Video Gems Big Box) and Horror Rises from the Tomb (Charter Entertainment). I remember both since I still have these videos in my collection. The other category of VHS tapes I have obtained over the years have come from private mail order companies (many of them dubbed/pirated from original source material). The first two I ever ordered (Dracula, Prince of Darkness & Frankenstein Created Woman) came from a company called Cinefear back in 1997. Many of us “older” horror fans recall this time before the modern era of licensed companies “officially” releasing these films on DVD.
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So if you didn’t have my respect already, Todd, the fact that you bought a copy of the Charter release of Horror Rises from the Tomb, you would now!
I’ve always said if it wasn’t for the gray market, smaller companies like Synapse, Vinegar Syndrome and Severin never would have happened.
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I remember seeing the poster art for I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE in my local video store when I was but a wee little AC and oh my such a strange and confusing combination of feelings. Didn’t see the movie for another 10-15 years, and as much as I’ve come to appreciate it for what it is, I will always prefer the poster art to the film itself.
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Kind of the same for me. I seen the video box there but avoided it for many years.
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I Spit On Your Grave and Blood Beach were two covers that always stayed in mind as well from back in my “perusing only” days. I too was apprehensive about seeing Grave so it wasn’t until long after the fact that I finally sat down and watched it.
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I seen this one way too early. Think i was about 15 because I didnt have my license yet. I recall renting it and as soon as I got in the house I popped it in and we got some crazy thunder storm while I was watching it. Luckily the only other person in the house was my sister, my parents would have flipped out at what I was watching. They were open minded but not that much. After seeing it everything else seemed a bit tame.
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