Remembering the Video Stores

     In the late 80’s/early 90’s my family’s source for entertainment was the Grosvenor Park Shopping Centre video rental store TVS on 8^th Street east in Saskatoon.  One of mine and my older sister’s favourite VHS rentals was Little Monsters which often scared the crap out of me as a child.  As I grew into my preteen years my love for renting VHS tapes became far more twisted.  At one point my mother and I rented all 7 Nightmare on Elm Street movies.  Our TVS location later got bought out by Roger’s Video, then VHQ, Movie Gallery, and closed for good.  It’s now a Mr. Mike’s Steakhouse after the tragic fall of video store chains…

This was the 22nd Street location

     We also rented video games from these stores and we once started renting from the Blockbuster Video after my parent’s late rental fees got too high at what was Roger’s Video at that time.  We rented the infamous Virtual Boy from them and after we returned it, they tried claiming that we didn’t return it.  There was a credit dispute between my parents and the local Blockbuster Video after…  Needless to say we never went back there again.  Shortly after we started renting from Family Video which too got bought out by VHQ/Movie Gallery.

     Eventually Movie Gallery followed suit with Blockbuster Video with a no late fees policy, however after the 8^th day your account was charged full price of the rental and if you wanted to still return it, you were still charged a restocking fee.  It was quite the gimmick at the time and I remember that customers made a lawsuit against the policy in which Blockbuster had to pay $630 000 for deceiving them.  Eventually movies got cheaper and rental prices became not much lower than buying movies, especially if they were classics.  But they still made enough business to keep their loyal customers.

     However when internet streaming took over, it was the bitter end for the majority of video rental companies.  There are still some Blockbuster Video's in the states but not very many.  Saskatoon still has an independent store, Turning the Tide which also sells books.

     I still once in a blue moon will rent video games from Hi-tech Game Traders in Saskatoon however, simply because I used to buy all of my video games and many of them I played only once.  Now I only purchase the video games which I enjoy playing, especially if I could see those becoming collectibles.  They have been trying to get rid of their classic DVD section for a while now with a 3 for 7$ dollar price.

     The thing about streaming services like the streaming giant Netflix, is that you don’t get the entire variety of a video store…

     Resulting in people just illegally downloading their favourite movies or shows.  There is also the Android boxes which allow people to illegally stream a high percentage of their favourite movies or TV shows and the people are still getting away with it because who’s going to arrest the majority of the public who do it?  I on the other hand am known for having a DVD/Blu-ray/4k library of over 500 movies and I pretty much have all of my classics.  I’m holding onto my physical copies and while I have given away all of my VHS films, I have still settled for having the best version of each of my classics.  The thousands of dollars I have spent on movies may seem a little bit bonkers to some, but I am convinced that eventually when internet streaming kills physical media altogether that my collection will only go up in value.

      For example I have the entire Canadian series of The Tom Green Show, which I bought for 35 dollars at what was Future Shop at the time but now is priced for 170 dollars used plus shipping on Amazon and no copies on eBay.  One day some of my obscure classics might very well make my collection more valuable than originally purchased recently such as The Peanut Butter Solution Blu-ray release.  Of course future streaming and digital copies will eventually have better picture than my library, but nostalgia is so huge today that physical media will likely be missed once it’s gone regardless of the convenience of streaming.

     I imagine I’ll be getting messages from friends asking if I have a certain movie once illegal downloading becomes hard to do.  The servers are often taken down such as The Pirate Bay and although they eventually go back up again, not as many people are making the seeds of each torrent available for obscure classics.  A lot of the time people get too frustrated on trying to play them on the Android Boxes because the sources get taken down a lot of the time.  While video stores went away, technology is advancing and we may find a day in which renting movies becomes hip again.  We may not see actual stores being reopened, but online stores such as Google Play or iTunes Store may just see an increase in their rentals.  I recently purchased the obscure Robin Williams film Death to Smoochy on HD for my CinemaNow library because there is no current Blu-ray for the film.  My DVD copy was a full-frame copy and we all know how unappealing that is on a big screen TV!

     I’m fine with purchasing digital copies as a last resort for a better picture.  But I will be hanging onto my library because the internet isn’t exactly reliable at all times.  Sometimes servers go down or contracts are no longer being signed and suddenly my UltraViolet library can’t be played on CinemaNow.  This happens especially in Canada, so if any of my friends really are desperate to watch an obscure movie I might have, come on over to Willey’s Movie Library!  In memory of TVS and all of the other video stores not with us…

Sources:

https://thedissolve.com/news/2472-charts-graphs-where-will-the-movie-audience-be-wat/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plus

Local History Room - Saskatoon Public Library