Underground died with VHS

Come, sit on Dr. Feathermore's lap while I tell you a tale. Long ago there was a place one could go to and see wonders the likes of which nobody had ever seen. It was called "the video store". On any given day you could just walk into one of these places unannounced and be greeted by a bizarre smell of sweat and mildew and get lost in the warm glowing glow of wall after wall of video cassettes.

I spent countless hours in our local video stores from the moment I was allowed behind the wheel of a horseless carriage all by myself. I grew up in the then-tiny southern town of Waxahachie, Texas. We always had at least 2 video stores in town. On one end of town was the turbo-legendary "Video Station", which was an old gas station turned video store and on the other side of town the creatively named "The Movie Store". They both were awesome in their own way. As far as I know The Video Station stands to this day. I wanted to talk about the video stores of the late 80's to early 90's because they hold a very special place in my heart. They were also a completely unique experience that died with the creation of the internet and DVD [Blockbuster is on life support...and they suck]. I just want to stop and reminisce a little about video stores of old and why they kicked ass.

I started to really get into cult and genre films when I was in high school. Other than word of mouth and Fangoria magazine, there weren't a lot of ways to find out about cult or genre films at all. Enter the video stores. Friday night, everyone is at the video stores to rent the new releases of Hudson Hawk. I was over in the corner reading the back of every horror and kung fu case in the store. I would go home and watch The Sleeping Fist and follow it up with some bizarre Full Moon video [Bad Channels]. Of course, some were bombs but that was half the fun, wondering what the HELL this movie in your hands was going to be like. There was no website to give you a review or clue you in as to what was a waste of your time or not. It didn't matter, you were able to make those decisions on your own. There was a handful of names that come to mind when you think of video stores of that time: New World Video, Vestron, Republic, Trimark, Full Moon, Troma. These were names we were all very familiar with at the time. Most stores would even group the respective companies' films into an area on the shelf. I know one of the video stores I frequented had a Full Moon and Troma section I would head straight for.

That said, I want to talk specifically about what I think made VHS and video stores so fucking awesome:

•Poor image quality.
I say this as a good thing. Dr. Butcher MD or Videodrome just looked better on VHS, in the same way Led Zeppelin sounds better on Vinyl. It's science. There's something romantic about getting your hands on a 6th generation copy of the [then unheard of] Japanese laserdisc director's cut of Army of Darkness with a plain white label and handwritten title and having to squint through parts where the tracking had to adjust so you could tell what the hell was going on. Obscure cult films and weird Hong Kong gems just seemed more "cult" when they were grainy and blurry.

•Discovery.
It was about staring at walls of covers and looking at the back to see what that particular film was about and wondering if it was worth $2.99 to find out. Plus, if it was awesome you could rig your two VCR's together and make a copy of it, unless it had that damn Macrovision on it. It was just way more gratifying to find a movie like The Toxic Avenger on your own while thumbing through all the bizarre films shoved into the "horror" corner of some seedy video store, rather than have it recommended to you by Netflix. Sure, it was more work, but it made finding those handfuls of truly awesome underground films all the sweeter. Not to mention, events like Sci Fi conventions and the like had table after table of vendors peddling the latest bootleg anime and horror films that weren't available on any label in the states. All you had to go on was whatever the crude Xerox copy label said and whether you wanted to drop $15 to find out if Entrails of a Virgin was awesome or not. It's this "hunt" that just doesn't exist in the same way anymore.

•Straight to video.
In the same way porn was revolutionized by moving to video, the world of sci-fi and action films was also revolutionized. Now you could make B-Movies with modest budgets that didn't quite live up to a theater's standards, but could sell enough rental copies to actually turn a profit. The early 90's saw the boom of straight to video gems that created studios like Trimark and Republic pictures as well as Full Moon. This was a phenomenon that still exists today, but in a much more bastardized form. It was at it's most entertaining and purest form during the era of VHS and video stores.

•True underground.
I'm not talking about your normal video stores. Your Blockbuster or Hollywood video, or even the mom and pop operations. I'm talking about those places that only a few of us were ever lucky enough to discover. Dallas, Texas had one such place called Forbidden Video. It was in a seedy part of town, nestled between bars and crime. The storefront was dark and nondescript. Upon entry you were greeted with a glass case full of weird shit, skulls and S&M paraphernalia as well as a healthy selection of books on the occult and other taboo subjects. Overhead, a handful of monitors playing any number of disturbing things, ranging from true crime documentaries to retro driver's ed scare videos. In the rear was the owner's own art gallery. In the front about 20 rows of truly underground and cult cinema. Boasting just about the entire Something Weird library of films as well as independent and import horror. Necromantik, Guinea Pig, Red, Marquis, all mixed with the smell of rotting wood and incense under low light. JB and myself would make the trek from our college town of Denton down to Dallas on frequent occasions and come away with numerous morsels that others wouldn't know about until 10 years or more later when they read about them on some website. Sadly, after the death of VHS, Forbidden also withered and died. They will be truly missed. It was the perfect example of the old underground video store at it's most perfect. I'm sure other cities had comparable places. These stores were the speak easies of the VHS age, something that exists only virtually now in sites like Revok and Cosmic Hex.

I realize the internet, on-demand cable and satellite have given independent and cult films to the masses and at the end of the day that's good for everyone. I just feel there is no replacement for the pre-digital age of renting films and hunting for bizarre and unique cinema by yourself and sharing those finds with just your friends.

I miss the hunt.