Internet Killed the Video Store

When the last video store in town closed this past spring it was far from unexpected, and further, I barely even used it anymore, yet still, it was hard to swallow. I've loved movies my entire life, and from the time I was three up until I finally caved and got a Netflix subscription last summer, the video store was the primary vehicle through which I would acquire and watch movies. Yes Netflix has an incomprehensibly larger selection, yes Redbox is much cheaper, and yes On-Demand and Pay-Per-View provide instantaneous and convenient delivery, but there's something wonderful about the curiosity, the immense sense of possibility present when browsing in the video store that none of these other media can match. That's why I held out from Netflix for so long, despite the fact that it was cheaper and the only way I knew of to watch a lot of the more obscure movies on my viewing list. Video stores were tangible, inhabitable shrines to cinema. I loved wandering around, literally surrounded by thousands of films, all within my power to watch in a moment's notice. Even if I had a movie picked out coming in, I would find myself meandering for countless minutes, often to the displeasure of my parents, reminiscing about old favorites I saw and basking in the endless choices I would have upon my next visit.

Aside from these more sentimental reasons, there is still a gap in the home video market that stores could serve to fill as well. A Netflix disc takes two days to come from the time you send in your previous movie, and Red Box, Pay-Per-View, and Netflix Instant View only provide new releases and a random smattering of older films. So who but stores can fill in that hole of providing movies to friends, families, or even individuals, who want to go rent some old favorite or never-seen classic on a whim? I'd venture a significant portion of not just my own, but of video store rentals in general fall under this category of spontaneity. Sure there may come a time when the majority of movies are available to stream instantly to a consumer's computer or TV, but it's not here yet, and may not be for a while, and in the mean time, there's a large market of people and purchases being lost. And even if and when that time does come, there's still something about the experience of actually going to a rental store that would be forever lost under such a structure. Take this story for instance:

It was Spring Break '07, and for one night myself, Haynes, Owen, Kevin, and I believe Trent, were all back in town. Haynes had just arrived while the rest of us were already hanging at my house. On his way over he told us he would pick up some fun movies from Hollywood. Upon entering the store, he closed his eyes, pointed his hands in random directions and pulled the two movies he was pointing to off the shelf. The selections were priceless: American Mormon, an (often unintentionally, but sometimes intentionally) humorous documentary about mainstream culture's perceptions of the Latter Day Saints, and Bat Thumb, a parody of Bat Man performed entirely by people's painted thumbs. Both were under 45 minutes and provided us a hilarious and interactive comic wellspring for the evening. It was a mini-reunion I shant soon forget, and the crux of it was made possible by the local video store (and some creativity on Haynes' part). How else would we come across such titles? There's no randomize button on Netflix, and scarcely anything but new releases in the Red Box.

For all of these reasons, I was very pleasantly surprised when I just learned that a new rental store was opening in town. I was hanging out with a friend when we just happened to drive by and see the "Grand Opening" banners, and my pal immediately swerved into the parking lot so we could check it out. It was Saturday night and the place was packed. I can only hope that this was truly representative of the business they could hope to see in the future, the neglected segment of the market I envisioned in action, and not simply temporary excitement over their opening, but only time will tell. If anyone can succeed though, it may be them, they have some good ideas in place to shake up the status quo Hollywood had left in its wake. All children's and exercise videos are straight up free, new releases are half of what they were in the recently closed stores, and classics go for a $1, which is refunded if you say you didn't like it. I may sound like an advertisement, but I assure you my only wish is seeing some kind of video store open in town, no matter what shape or form that may come in. I realize this is likely only a temporary reprieve, that eventually the end of the video store will come, but inevitable or not, I'll be glad to have one around for as long as possible.