Renting videotapes

[SCALEBACK]

Believe me, they are but See No Evil's the bigger and thicker of the two as it goes more into the culture and beginnings od the video culture and there're pictures of (now very obscure) films in it (you might find them on IMDB/youtube and is the better of the two)*.

Oh yeah, if you give in the Stretford area of Manchester and in the Vicinity of Chester Road (heading up towards Sale/Stretford Arndale) there's a television repair place that also has ACTUALL 80s videos and the usual obscure titles.

*on the subject of video nasties, there's a sinister demonic influence behind my user name (I use the said character in a few of my works of fiction and he's a bit of a Jason Voorhees/Freddy Krueger/Lovecraftian/Evil Dead/Alien style murderer.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Oh yeah, if you give in the Stretford area of Manchester and in the Vicinity of Chester Road (heading up towards Sale/Stretford Arndale) there's a television repair place that also has ACTUALL 80s videos and the usual obscure titles.

Interesting, I'll have a look next time I'm in Manchester - fair prices? Or ridiculous?

[bensonrad]

[quote="ootini"]

Incidentally I recently watched a few quite good documentaries recently. On called Rewind This, which is quite an america-centric exploration of VHS and the cultural impact the medium made. Its a really entertaining watch and goes into depth with the ridiculous side of the medium, such as some bizarre instructional tapes and home made films. We’ll worth having a look.
quote]

Glad this thread has been revived, funny as I had been telling my daughter about Video tapes and rentals "back in the old days" After reading this I tracked down Rewind This, you are quite right indeed, a good watch, crazy some of the collections people have there, I had to actually to go to youtube and watch Corey Haim, Me, Myself & I afterwards to see what it was, haha....that was sadly a waste of my time though.

[sidney]

Believe me, they are but See No Evil's the bigger and thicker of the two as it goes more into the culture and beginnings od the video culture and there're pictures of (now very obscure) films in it (you might find them on IMDB/youtube and is the better of the two)*.

Oh yeah, if you give in the Stretford area of Manchester and in the Vicinity of Chester Road (heading up towards Sale/Stretford Arndale) there's a television repair place that also has ACTUALL 80s videos and the usual obscure titles.

*on the subject of video nasties, there's a sinister demonic influence behind my user name (I use the said character in a few of my works of fiction and he's a bit of a Jason Voorhees/Freddy Krueger/Lovecraftian/Evil Dead/Alien style murderer.

That store sounds great, maybe a trip to Manchester is on the cards!

[JoeNTMY]

Blockbuster (R.I.P.) and the local Spar were where we rented from.

[SCALEBACK]

http://www.pre-cert.co.uk/search.php?t= ... =UK&id=237
Most of these're obscure now.

[crusto]

Re Blockbuster.

I remember when they sprung up in the early 90's. Around where I live they single handedly destroyed all the local video rental stores, including the one I worked in.

I suppose one could say things have now gone full circle given Blockbuster's demise.

[oldtimer]

Our local Video rental store rented almost anything ,including videotapes music cassettes, laserdiscs ,computer games ,and even some board games as i remember,

[psj3809]

Cant even get rid of videotapes now !

Even charity shops reject them if you try giving them a handful !

[tachi]

We used Viking Video which was in a Victorian building with a proper old ringing, iron lift.
Our first films (I was about 9 ) were Clash of the Titans and Deadly Spawn...lived both of them
I miss video/DVD rentals now Blockbuster has passed away

[flatapex]

oh god i remember video rentals, the newsagents which pretty much was back to back with our house (when i was first growing up) had a few tapes for rentals, that would have been mid-late 80s though, seem to remember that we got a hinari vxl5 vcr and most of what we had was on blank tapes, got that from an electrical shop called focus which i think was big in the 80s. the newsagents has been someones house for years and came up for sale a while back, i thought about buying it

somewhere in the vaults of my brain is possibly that someone came round in a van? there was also another shop on the main road, its either a computer repair shop or a money transfer place, not sure which shop it was.

We moved in 89 and lived on the other side of town, we had a massive shop nearby called ritz that opened a year or so later possibly, before that we rented through the local newsagents, which was massive and had an area the size of a normal shop just for videos, they had a shop previously and then moved the videos into the newsagents, the shop they used to have is now a pizza place and the newsagents (and the food shop next door were knocked into one and became tesco express), about 91 we joined ritz video (remember them?) it was huge and there was always something cool to watch, we (me and my sister) used to get the free magazines as well, pretty sure it was the same magazine as was given away at the cinema too?

Ritz were taken over by blockbusters not long after, still a massive shop, they also rented out games and loads of my favourite games on the md were ones i rented there but couldnt buy from places like future zone, my parents believed second hand games would be broken and therefore i was an adult before i bought a second hand game. hence as an adult i have bought games like super off road (imported from the states) and test drive 2.

when i was about 19 i joined choices as it was next door to where i worked (and a lot easier to get to rather than a bus and a long walk each way for blockbusters), they were bought by blockbusters and then closed down when blockbusters went down, both still sit empty.

[Combo-Breaker]

Video shops always used to have a weird but delightful smell.

Great days. Always fun when you'd find a arcade machine that was a new fighting game etc.

[spuggybridge]

I was only talking with the misses about this yesterday about how it seemed like a big event at the time and we both agreed that you were more likely to watch a film to the end (even if it was rubbish) than you would nowadays what with all the choices on offer. The first film that I think we rented was First Blood.

[oldtimer]

Star trek, (the movie) was the first one i ever rented (on betamax)

[greenberet79]

Glad to see this thread's still going

I never joined Blockbusters - I went in once, tired to sign up, got some terrible customer service and never bothered going back.

With digital and instant service and cheap DVDs kids will never know the simple joys of going the video shop. A combination of my age, slow release schedules and lack of information meant there was always a bit of mystery around it.