I am of the generation that had VHS and video stores.  I remember feeling like I was born knowing how to program a VCR.    There was nothing better than taking a trip to the video store to browse the aisles and pick out some movies to watch.  Pouring over boxes and boxes with beautiful cover art and colorful descriptions of the movies plot on the back.  Ah, those were the days.

Growing up on Long Island they were everywhere..  My friend Sheryl and I used to ride our bikes to this video store (damned if I remember the name) and rent horror movies. It was across the street from Jack in the Box on Montauk Higway in Patchogue.  We would usually rent  the modern classics at the time like Nightmare on elm street and Friday the 13th, etc.  The slasher genre was where it was at in horror at the time. We loved them and would go sit in her TV room on the day bed and watch them all the time.  I got quite a few cool horror movie posters from that place, my favorite being April Fools day. It hung on my bedroom wall for a long time.  Good times.  We had to get permission from our parents to rent rated “R” movies in those days.

I also had another friend, Lorinda, whose mom loved horror movies and we would go with her to 112 Video  which I just learned today is still open! I have no idea how that is possible in this day of Redbox and Netflix. We would go down and pick out such low budget gems like April Fools Day, and Happy Birthday to Me  We always thought, the lower the budget the better the movie.  LOL.  It was always fun to pop in the tape and watch the movie in the dark.    And one would always have to remember to “be Kind and Rewind” or face a rewind fee.

In 1988 I moved away from my beloved Long Island and landed in West Palm Beach, Florida.  There the local supermarket, Extra, had a video rental department where we would get all our movie rentals from. It was less about horror at this point and more family watching.   I actually met one of my now  ex-boyfriends there in the video department.    It was smallish with not a ton of selection.

But then came West Coast Video It was installed in an out parcel of the same shopping center as Extra. They had a much bigger and more fun selection.  They had a naughty section as well behind “the curtain”  I used to go with my friends all the time to browse and pick out movies and watch them at someones house.  It was amazing fun. I remember waiting sometimes for hours to see if a particular movie i wanted to see “came in” after it was rented by another patron.

There was Blockbuster and Movie Gallery which didn’t have amazing selections and had their walls lined up with dozens of copies of block buster movies of the time.

Alas the mom and pop video store is a thing of the past.  Blockbuster has also gone out of business in the age of Netflix and now Redbox.  I miss the immediate gratification of going and picking out a classic movie you may not have seen or a new movie you want to see.  Netflix has a great selection of DVD’s and blue ray but is not as instant as going to the video store.  I miss those days.