Video Store Memories
Renting Videos
Here are two of my old membership cards for video rental stores that are no longer in business.
The very first place I rented VHS videos from was my local convenience store in a small town. It wasn't one of those large chain convenience stores. It was just a tiny mom and pop shop. It didn't even have membership cards. If you wanted to rent a video, the cashier handed you an index card to sign with your phone number, which had every other renters name and phone number. I don't recall having to provide any kind of ID.
VHS = VH$
You wanted to make sure you didn't lose the videos you rented because back then each VHS copy costed $80.00. Eventually prices would come down to the point where people would consider purchasing their own copies of movies they knew they were going to watch over and over.
Here's a used copy of The Pit I bought from Eye On Video for $5, when that store was clearing out its VHS inventory to make room for DVDs on their shelves.
VCR Machines Were Enormous
At the time you could also rent VCR machines, which we did because my family didn't have one at the time. They were large, heavy and bulky. We would usually rent one for weekends until we could afford to buy a VCR of our own. When we finally did buy one, fortunately the machines were much smaller and lighter.
By Akinom (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
I miss all the old VHS stores, Blockbusters etc, as a film fan there was definitely something nice about the experience, great post! Followed :)
I never had a blockbuster close enough until much later. While they always had several copies of the latest popular titles, I preferred more obscure movies, most of which I couldn't find at Blockbuster. Now with the internet, you can find almost anything but part of the excitement was the treasure hunt; finding that elusive title you had been searching for months.
People laughed when I told them we rented a VCR for my birthday party in 1985. I think the Pit has a blu ray now. I love the art of old VHS boxes, I watched so many bad horror movies, so many!
That's a pretty cool birthday party.
Yes, Kino Lorber released a beautiful Blu-ray edition of the The Pit last year. I would really like to get it.
Bad horror movies always had the best VHS art. That's one of the reasons I miss video stores.