Customer profile
What was the name of your video store?
Video Film Centre
Where was the store located?
SHEERNESS, (United Kingdom)
When did you start shopping at this store?
1981
Describe your video store - what did it look like? What were its distinguishing
features?
The place was a small store, with Betamax movies on the left-hand side as you entered, VHS on the right and a small stand for V-2000 in the middle, rather ironic for the format in question. A traditional hatch at the back was the domain of the owner & the other workers. As this was before the "video nasties" debacle in the UK, there were many obscure, lurid video covers courting your perusal, their blood-drenched artwork reeling you in like a marlon on the end of a piano-wire line. In the front window, there was a small shelf selling pre-viewed titles like Halloween 2 & Blazing Saddles, most of these had severely faded covers thorugh being displayed in the window for so long. Speaking of the window, the owner made it his priority to let the punters know what was coming/had just arrived. He achieved this by way of those awful day-glow transparent letters which used to come in green and orange, having them spell them out in large, 6" lettering. The shop didn't make it out of 1987, and one of the last titles we can remember emblazoned across the window was "Poltergeist II: The Other Side"
What were the employees and/or owners like, and what kinds of interactions
did you have with them? What particularly memorable exchanges or events
do you remember?
The owner was a guy who always liked to push the new titles that were in. He had the kind of demeanor where he would all-but put his hand on your shoulder to close a rental. This store was one of the few places in our area who enforced the certificate system - we remember being refused when we tried to rent a copy of Porky's...
What other services/products did the store offer besides the rental or sale
of videos? Did this change over time?
The store also rented out video game titles - including ones for the obscure Philips G-7000!
What video formats did the store offer (i.e. VHS, Beta, Laserdisc)? Where were
different formats kept in the store?
As we said, Betamax movies on the left-hand side as you entered, VHS on the right and a small stand for V-2000 in the middle. Many rented VHS & Beta, but NOBODY wanted the V-2000, and it they stopped supplying them after a while. There seemed to be some kind of class war that accompanied the format war, as more upmarket folks would have Beta, and the plebians would have VHS. We has VHS, so f**k 'em. V-2000 titles were probably kept only on the off-chance of an alien crash-landing on earth and needing something to watch while his ship is in the shop.
In addition to mainstream Hollywood movies, what other kinds of videotapes
(for example children's, exercise, or X-rated) did the store rent/sell? Where were these
videos found in the store, and how often did you rent or purchase them?
They had a good selection of stuff - loads of kids movies (spearheaded by amazingly badly animated versions of the 3 Musketeers and Wombling Free!) and horror/exploitation movies, the cover of Blood Feast was particularly memorable to an impressionable young mind and the awesome cover of Dark Night of the Scarecrow (a movie we tracked down last year after nearly 2 decades of searching!) really had the power fuck up said impressionable young mind They also had the obligatory copy of Jane Fonda's Workout, which was rented for more reasons than the obvious... They had the original video issue of The Day The Earth Stood Still, people who were not familiar with the movie were conned when they put it in their machines, as the pictures they looked at on the back of the cover were colourised - Gort was blue! They also had a large supply of tacky British sex movies. No, not the Carry-Ons, or even the Confessions. We are talking the sweaty-palmed likes of Keep It Up Jack, Emanuelle In Soho, Playbirds, Suburban Wives, & Come Play With Me! Tat heaven! Speaking of funny, no UK video store in the early 80's would be complete without copies of at least one of the first 3 legendary TV specials It'll Be Alright On The Night. For those unfamiliar, this was the original UK format of the show DIck Clark and Ed McMahon ripped off and had a huge hit with, until they ran it into the ground.
Did you tend to rent or buy videos? Why?
We rented because we were kids back then with not much money.
During the period that you shopped at this store, what changes did you see?
Aside from the eventual phasing out of Betamax & V-2000, the most significant change was the introduction of the Video Recordings Act in 1985 - this meant that every movie had to be examined and officially given a certificate. Many of the more lurid movies disappeared almost overnight, taking away the meat-and-potatoes of many-a small video store.
Is this store still open? If not, when did it close?
This store sadly closed in about 1987-88, possibly from a knock-on effect of the VRA and the advent of satellite TV in the UK - it also faced strong-arm competition from a rival store that was only a stone's throw away and had a larger selection of titles. The place is now a computer shop. The lyrics of a certain Joni Mitchell song come to mind...
In your own words, tell the story of your first VCR/video player. Where
and when did you buy it, and why did you decide to make the purchase?
Ah, yes. One day in 1981, our father went out and came back with a rented Philips VCR. This was a really big deal, as very few people in our neighbourhood had one. The first movie in the drive was the (then) brand new VHS release of Jaws 2. As we sat down as a family to watch it, the humour of our father making the 2 divers at the start suddenly swim backwards again and again began to wear off. It was rented from a local freelancer, who had ties to our family, and it was probably rented in the first place because our father was a big movie-goer in his younger days, and not to mention the fact that we would be about the first around our parts to get one. Watching Jaws 2 before any other kids had gave us quite a bit of kudos at school, essaying the ending of the movie and how the shark is eventually dispatched. Cool!!!!
Did you ever rent a VCR or other hardware (a camera, for instance)? If so,
how often and why?
Nope.