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Pick up your remote control and a couple of jabs of your thumb will bring up a host of on-demand movies covering pretty much every genre – from old classics to films which seemed to be showing at the cinema a mere handful of days ago.
In fact, courtesy of the pandemic, plenty of films can be viewed in the comfort of your home while still on the silver screen down the road.
While the youth of today have grown up with such technological advances, many of us will remember the days when if you wanted to watch a film then your only option was a trip to the local video rental shop – more often than not, inside newsagents who dedicated a handful of shelves to the latest releases.
As a youngster, there was nothing as exciting as getting your hands on the well-designed box of a blockbuster which hinted at the rollercoaster of fun it would take you on. Or, indeed, the enthusiasm-crushing box you were actually handed to take home. Instead of the colourful box you got a generic video box, the plastic cover of which would be frayed and ripped, more often than not covered in adverts for local businesses. In short they looked liked they had been thrown over multiple hedges.
But it didn’t matter.
Home you would rush, stick the VHS into the machine and settle down to watch…and pray the tape was in decent condition. Which was by no means a guarantee. Weird waves of colour, excessive ‘snow’ and hit and miss sound were all part of the tape rental experience. It’s just how it was.
The trick was actually getting the film you wanted. It seemed most small stores only took delivery of one – two if you were really lucky – of the biggest new releases. You needed to be in the right place at the right time – or hope the shop in question allowed you to reserve it. By no means a guarantee.
This was, of course, an era where the movie market was very different to it is today.
Films didn’t spend a weekend in the cinema and then become available to rent on your TV set on the Monday (an exaggeration, but you know what I mean).
Movies would leisurely play at picture houses around the country for what felt like months. Then, often a few years later, eventually appear for video rental only.
Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, for example, was originally released in 1980. It wasn’t until 1984 you could actually rent the thing.
If in the early 1980s you actually wanted to own a video – with its colourful case and all – then you were looking at paying north of £60. Yes, that’s not a typo…£60. Splash that sort of cash in 1984 and it was the equivalent today of over £200. You did, however, get the fancy big box. No wonder you got a dodgy case rather than the real thing from the video shop.
So renting a video for a night was the only option.
But then came Blockbuster and everything changed.
Instead of racing down to your local corner shop in the hope you arrived just as the film of your choice was being returned, Blockbuster went large.
Not just content with one or two copies of the biggest films, they had whole shelves of the things. Yes, such were the popularity of some films, often you still arrived too late to secure a copy, but your chances were dramatically improved.
And, get this, instead of just overnight rentals, you could borrow it for the whole weekend…truly revolutionary stuff. Granted, you paid a little more than your local store for the privilege, but at least you could actually get it.
It meant Friday nights always needed to build in some time wandering the aisles and pondering just what to watch. It became part of the weekend ritual. Along with the annoying trip back on the Sunday morning to post the tape back through their letterbox drop off point (another big innovation, I might add).
The shops, decked out in the gaudy colour scheme of blue and yellow, were huge too. Suddenly you could find pretty much any film you’d ever wanted to see. TV programmes too. It was like a prehistoric bricks and mortar Netflix. Just more expensive and requiring about 100% more effort.
But then things started to change.
It must have dawned on some marketing executive somewhere that people wanted a better and more convenient way to watch movies.
In what seems like a rather obvious move, by the early 1990s they started selling videos direct to us viewers. In other words, rather than rent for a couple of quid, for £10-15 you could actually own the thing, with a proper box and cover. Plus, it hadn’t been watched 500 times before you got your mitts on it.
Little wonder, then, that the rental market took a bit of a hammering.
And since then, of course, we moved up to the ‘surely this can’t be bettered’ DVDs…which of course could be. Blu-rays and now 4K would usurp them and make the humble VHS something of a relic.
We now face an agony of delicious choice as to our viewing habits. All on-demand, all without having to step out of our front doors.
There’s no denying it’s infinitely better, but there was a certain charm and excitement heading into Blockbuster, God rest its soul.
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