The Alamo Drafthouse is going to be launching a video rental store in 2018 and somehow I can’t see anything but gleaming idealism inherent in the idea. Why would I say this? I am after all a product of the late 70’s and grew up in the 80’s and 90’s when VHS was still king. Don’t get me wrong, I think this chain in South Carolina has their heart in the right place, but their head has kind of taken a trip to la la land for the time being. You can say whatever you want about since opinions are cheap and everyone gets to have one, but in this writer’s opinion the store is setting itself up for a massive headache.
Perhaps a Jurassic Park reference will help, with me playing the ever-doubtful Malcolm. In Malcolm-speak, video stores had their shot. Human nature selected them for extinction long ago, wink wink, for extinction. While some stores tend to hold on to their VHS tapes and insist that some movies are better when shown in their original format, a subjective view, others would insist that bringing those same films into the current era and remastering them would grant all the same enjoyment as might have occurred when the films were first released. Well, yes and no.
Back when said films were first released a lot of us didn’t know any better. We believed that this was as good as it could get and that the movies we saw were something great because they were something beyond our experience. And then technology kept getting better and better and those of us that remembered the old days either moved on and accepted it or pined for the old methods of film delivery. this new store, Video Vortex, might be a godsend for those that want to back to the VHS and straight to video experience, but for the store I do believe they’re biting off more than they can chew. Time will tell if I’m wrong but offering to rent VCR’s, as well as the RCA adapters, seems like it’s bound to get messy after a while and offering the same idea that Netflix does by sending movies through the mail almost sounds like a desperate bid to drum up attention for an idea that is already coming close to being past its prime.
Movie stores were the place to be on a rainy day, on date night, or on any occasion that you simply felt the need to walk in and peruse the movie-filled walls for something that might catch your eye. They were havens for those that wanted the full experience of knowing just how bad or how good a film could get by renting the cheapest or the newest thing on the shelves, and they were where true film buffs went to find the lost and forgotten titles that stores no longer sell. I do wish Video Vortex a lot of luck in the coming year, I’m still of the mind to remember the joy of walking into a video store after all. But I do think that it’s an idea that had its time decades ago.
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