00:00From the 1980s to the 2010s, video stores were a ubiquitous part of the American retail landscape.
00:13Videos were available to rent nearly everywhere.
00:16In mom and pop stores, chain stores, electronic stores, even supermarkets and gas stations.
00:21During this time, the video store became equally common as a location in hundreds and hundreds of films and television shows.
00:30These fictionalized moments on screen are now the only recorded archive of the lifespan of the video store.
00:36They show video stores as places where anything can happen. Comedy, drama, action, romance, horror or violence.
00:45These depictions evolved over the years, as did our notions of what the video store was,
00:51what function it served in our lives and what this dynamic said about our relationship to renting movies.
01:00Today, video stores on screen exist only in period pieces, reminders of an industry that once seemed stable and now is all but extinct.
01:14This is the story of the video store, told through these time capsules.
01:18The story of what they were, how they flourished, how the filmmakers depicting video stores became complicit in their demise and what happened next.
01:27This is the story of the birth, life, death and afterlife of the video store.
01:39They used to be everywhere, in our lives and on our screens. Now they're gone.
01:46Now they're gone. They exist only in video heaven.
