My childhood in VHS rentals

[Gorn Captain]

Just started making a kind of "video rental store" display in my toy room. Going to that store, hoping a copy of Beastmaster was in, that kind of feeling.

So my question is: what would you add to the display, in the 1970-1985 range?
Don't just pick the obvious ones, what spells "70-80s VHS excitement" to you?
SF, Fantasy and Horror come first, of course.

I'm making a list, and then the hunt is on...

[cjefferys]

The "big box" horror releases from companies like Wizard Video. Oversized boxes with great cover art, can't beat that!

I stumbled upon this site that had a warehouse find of original boxes and they are selling them with new VHS pre-records inside. Not cheap at $45-50 a pop, but the site gives you an idea of what the boxes looked like. These are the video store boxes I'm most nostalgic for. Great idea for a display in your room by the way, I might steal that someday!

http://wizardvideocollection.com/

[Iron Mego]

I rented these titles multiple times back in the day: The Thing, Escape from New York, Halloween 3, Phantasm, Blade Runner.

[Werewolf]

All those F.H.E. cartoon releases like Thundercats, Transformers and GI JOE. Terrific box art.

[EMCE Hammer]

Gotta have The Last Starfighter in there.

[Bravestarr]

I rented these titles multiple times back in the day: The Thing, Escape from New York, Halloween 3, Phantasm, Blade Runner.

Yes sir same here also Mad Max ,Road Warrior and alot of italian knockoff s like Warrior of the lost world 1983,

[WannabeMego]

Gotta have some Troma Videos: https://www.troma.com/video-list/

[WannabeMego]

Heavy Metal the Movie

[Mikey]

Zombie's iconic VHS box has to be included



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[WannabeMego]

Creepshow the Movie

[Blue Meanie]

Having run/managed a Video Rental store back in the late 80's and early 90's there are a few staple you have to have:

Horror/thrillers:

Nightmare on Elm Street
Child's Play
Phantasm
Texas Chainsaw (Even though I think it's one of the dumbest movies ever made)
Halloween

Sci-Fi:

Star Wars
Alien
Outland
Blade Runner
Fifth Element

It all depends on what you are going for...if you going to display, "Big Boxed" VHS might be a little out of price range as they can get really expensive. If you are going to collect then by all means try and find some of the "Big Box" VHS tapes. The artwork on those look so much nicer than when they reduce them to slip boxes.

If you get a list together let me know. It's sort of one of the things I do...Out Of Print VHS. Also have posters from when I ran the shop

Only problem is that you will need a multi regional player. I think you are PAL or Secam and the majority of VHS that I have is NTSC.

[cjefferys]

Heavy Metal the Movie

Funny thing is that this didn't even get an official VHS release until the mid 1990's, shortly before the dawn of DVDs, due to issues with music licensing. Great film though, I was so happy to upgrade my old VHS bootleg when I finally did buy the official release.

[PNGwynne]

We didn't rent too much, I just watched stuff over and over on HBO.

[palitoy]

Heh, for a long time all my rentals were based if I could get away with a movie full of nudity. It was the 80s, so almost everything had it.

I've seen some terrible movies.

[Blue Meanie]

I watched this one over and over again because I was in lust with Sybil Danning