Everything to do with nostalgia over Blockbuster is just comical. It was such a shit home movie rental store. The place was the McDonalds of video stores…
The entire appeal of McDonald’s is being predictable. It’s mediocre but you know what you’re getting and it’s appealing to a lot of people. In that way, Blockbuster being McDonald’s is true — but also explains why it’s preferable to streaming in some ways. They had a limited selection but that selection didn’t change and you knew pretty reliably what kind of movies they would be carrying.
I just remember it being really expensive. I think it was $4 to rent? Plus the looming potential late fees. Whatever it was, at the time it seemed like a fortune. So you couldn’t really fuck around and rent “Mansquito 2: Womansquito” just for laughs because it really was a huge ripoff when a movie sucked, or was damaged, or something. Also the popular movies were never in stock. They would put hundreds of empty boxes on the shelves to make it seem like it was there, but the actual tapes were always gone.
I was mad when they got rid of our local Video Zone. That place had the best ridiculous horror movies. Blockbuster had only the most middle of the road bullshit.
This was my experience. There was a local video rental place we used to go to that later sold out to Blockbuster, and everything just got far worse when they did.
My local video rental store (family video) hung on by a thread until the pandemic and finally went out of business. The property now holds an adult video store
Everything to do with nostalgia over Blockbuster is just comical. It was such a shit home movie rental store. The place was the McDonalds of video stores…
The entire appeal of McDonald’s is being predictable. It’s mediocre but you know what you’re getting and it’s appealing to a lot of people. In that way, Blockbuster being McDonald’s is true — but also explains why it’s preferable to streaming in some ways. They had a limited selection but that selection didn’t change and you knew pretty reliably what kind of movies they would be carrying.
I just remember it being really expensive. I think it was $4 to rent? Plus the looming potential late fees. Whatever it was, at the time it seemed like a fortune. So you couldn’t really fuck around and rent “Mansquito 2: Womansquito” just for laughs because it really was a huge ripoff when a movie sucked, or was damaged, or something. Also the popular movies were never in stock. They would put hundreds of empty boxes on the shelves to make it seem like it was there, but the actual tapes were always gone.
To continue your analogy, the place didn’t have the Mansquitos, it was nothing but the tent pole movies.
The mom and pop shops that Blockbuster drove out of business had all the unusual and hard to find stuff.
I was mad when they got rid of our local Video Zone. That place had the best ridiculous horror movies. Blockbuster had only the most middle of the road bullshit.
This was my experience. There was a local video rental place we used to go to that later sold out to Blockbuster, and everything just got far worse when they did.
My local video rental store (family video) hung on by a thread until the pandemic and finally went out of business. The property now holds an adult video store
I loved blockbuster but I was definitely a child who probably didn’t know better
I really hated going there