While I’m working on issue 2 of Van Damage Goes to Hollywood I thought it might be fun to take a stroll down millennial memory lane and talk about the VHS tapes that made an impact on me growing up. But before we can get into the specific movies that melted my young mind, I want to talk about the video stores that populated my hometown…It’ll be fun, I promise*
I love the theatrical experience, but if I’m being honest(and you know I wouldn’t lie to my beloved substack subscribers), home video is probably the main contributing factor to my budding cinephilia. I was born in 1985, so by the time I was self-aware video stores had spread through every town in America like wildfire. It’s hard to communicate to those who may not remember how many video stores there were in the late 80s and early 90s. They were the vape shops of their time and they started popping up in every strip mall, regular mall, convenience store, and gas station in America. I lived in the small but growing town of Hollister California, which had about 20,000 people. In our little town, we had 5 video stores and there was room for a 6th when Blockbuster opened sometime around ’96.
Jesse’s Video
Jesse’s Donuts was a small donut shop on the far side of town. They started by slinging donuts and eventually opened a video store right next door. Eventually, they opened “Jesse’s Family Fun Center” which was a two-story gas station/Pizzeria/Arcade/Donut Shop/Video store. It was like an even shittier chuck-e-cheese.
Larry’s Liqueur
The local liquor store got in on the VHS boom with a corner of the shop dedicated to video rentals. They seemed to specialize in public domain cartoons and kid’s movies. Eventually, that video rental corner became a comic shop before returning to its origins as just another section of the liquor store.
Brady’s Video
Brady’s was one of my go-to video stores as a kid. It was only about a mile from my house and they had the largest selection of video games until Blockbuster muscled their way into our crowded small town market.
Hollister Video
Honestly, we never went to Hollister video very much. They had a pretty extensive selection but their late fees were brutal.
Bob’s Video
Bob was a local hippie, cinephile, and film critic for the local paper. His video store was a tiny room packed with awesome movies. Bob loved foreign films and exploitation movies so if you wanted to see anything out of the ordinary Bob’s Video was the only game in town.
Blockbuster
Blockbuster moved into our small town around ’96 and proceeded to put every other video store out of business. I know a lot of people carry nostalgia for Blockbuster, but fuck those censorship-loving corporate shit faces... I’m glad they’re dead.
That’s all for now. Next week I’ll be talking about a specific movie that I experienced for the first time on VHS and how I got my grubby mitts on it. Stay safe out there friends.
*not an actual promise