There’s no place like Drome
Between the shelves of Atlanta’s last video store.
Written by Eva Erhardt
Illustrated by Elizabeth Efferson
Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It has raised old movie franchises out of the ground and given life to entire genres of TV programs. We carry the feeling close to our hearts and, inevitably, to our wallets. The market knows this. The customers — connoisseurs of their own pasts — navigate flashback-ridden waters with shrewdness, deciding whether every 2020s product that comes their way was close enough to childhood to be worth the penny. And when they find a company that perfectly represents nostalgia and everything it stands for, it’s hard to resist. Introducing Videodrome and its owner and operator, Matthew Booth.
Videodrome is the last video store in Atlanta, harkening back to the days of Blockbuster, with DVD lined shelves and vintage movie posters covering the walls. “We often hear something like ‘This is like a Blockbuster!’ when people new to the store come through the door,” says Booth. “That’s fine, because it’s a lot of people’s main reference point for a video store. But, after walking around a bit and checking out our store, the conversation usually moves to something like ‘This place is great, it has so much more cool stuff than Blockbuster.’” And they’d be right. Videodrome, although similar to its counterparts from decades before, is a completely different beast. Looking back, most video stores that we grew up with were pretty corporate, offering the basic selection of beloved classics box-office hits. Videodrome is different, with a wider DVD selection. Each shelf offers a different genre of movies that often can’t even be found on streaming. It recalls the early days of the store, which was birthed out of a simple need for more independent DVDs.
Booth, who had grown up around video stores since high school, took a part time job at Moovies in 1996 after graduating college with slim job opportunities. After getting a position at the Little Five Points location, Booth found that while he really liked the job, the area and its customers, he still felt that something was missing. “The store was very corporate and didn’t really satisfy the diverse interests of the neighborhood, so another employee, Jeff Sutton, and I decided to investigate opening a more alternative video store.”
From that idea came Videodrome, a little shop in Poncey-Highlands, named after the 1983 sci-fi film directed by David Cronenberg. “We got lucky that a framing store that was located in our current location had recently closed. We met with the landlord and he gave us a chance.” says Booth. “We put our VHS collections together, opened wholesale accounts with a bunch of media distributors, and drove all over the city hunting for VHS. We put together about 10,000 titles that we felt were unique and represented our type of customer.”
The new store aimed to offer a variety of independent movies to its guests and alternatives to those who were tired of the Terminators and ETs that other video stores offered. “We started with a small but unique collection of VHS titles that featured genres like Italian horror, Hong Kong action, anime, French New Wave, American Independent, documentaries, slasher, cult, samurai and films by director,” says Booth. “Our store was pretty niche, we rarely even carried big Hollywood titles.”
The late 90s was the golden age of video stores, with renting numbers being at an all-time high. “This was the peak of video rental,” says Booth. “There were three corporate video stores and two independents within a three-mile radius.” The New York Times reports at this time there were over 30,000 video rental stores across the U.S. Add that to the 45,000 outlets that also rented tapes and DVDs and you have a complete domination of media consumption in the country. For a long time, if you wanted entertainment without going out, rented movies were your only option. Easy, inexpensive and entirely accessible, it didn’t seem like anything could topple the empire.
Enter Netflix. In 1997, they quietly launched into the video scene, offering mail to order DVDs. The process was simple. With a few clicks on your computer, you’d have the video of your choice delivered to your doorstep, much like what Amazon was newly capitalizing on with book shopping. And the best part? No late fees. It was a fresh, new idea that thrived in popularity alongside the Internet.
It was only a few years until video stores started feeling the ripples of streaming services and other contributing factors. Numbers started dropping and the world watched as the friendly neighborhood video store faded into obscurity.
Videodrome isn’t just the last remaining video store in Atlanta. It was one of the last in the entire country. According to USA Today, 86% of the video stores that were open in 2007 are now shuttered and closed for good. What wasn’t killed by the rise of streaming was murdered by the pandemic, with once-thriving chains like Family Video in the Midwest shutting down completely. Kate Hagen, an independent journalist writing for The Blacklist Blog, made a spreadsheet earlier this year, listing out all of the independent video stores left in the world. Looking at the small Google sheets form, there are only 96 remaining, with the straggler locations ranging from far-away destinations such as Manila, Philippines to small towns like Seaside, Oregon. Ninety-six globally is a sore number compared to the near 30,000 we once had in the United States alone. With COVID-19 still looming overhead, it’s a tough time to be a video store, but somehow, Videodrome is making it work. “There have been a lot of ups and downs during the pandemic. We’ve never worked harder.” says Booth, when asked about COVID’s effects. “I’m proud of our staff for the way we’ve adapted to the constantly changing environment. At the beginning of the pandemic, we had to cancel events, close the interior of our store for eight months, switch to an email/phone ordering system for rentals and move as many of our retail items as possible to an online store. We applied for a ton of grants and COVID-related government programs and received enough help to keep us stable. Our customers continued to support us, and we can’t thank them enough.”
If you’re looking to check out Videodrome and the nostalgia it stands for, visit their store at 617 North Highland Avenue Northeast, Atlanta, GA 30306. Also make sure to check out their website, www.videodromeatl.com, for updates on regular movie screenings, merchandise and more.