They trickle in by twos and threes, spiritual seekers to a temple long thought gone: the video store. Some of these acolytes are sentimental for the days of Blockbuster and famedNew Yorkinstitutions like Kim’s Video. Others are so young that Blu-ray Discs, DVDs and VHS tapes represent novelty, not nostalgia.
Either way they’re here, at a small, freshly painted storefront in Brooklyn, to buy movies that you hold in your hand, store on a shelf and watch whenever you’d like – the powerful but fickle newer gods of Netflix, Hulu and Prime be damned.
Just in time for Easter, the physical video store has risen again. This month, Night Owl Video in Williamsburg became New York City’s first new physical video store in a long time. The store’s provocative slogan is: “Death to streamers! Physical media forever!”
“I’ve lamented for years that this type of place doesn’t exist,” Aaron Hamel, who co-founded Night Owl with his friend Jess Mills, said. “I used to love going to Kim’s [Video] andVideologyand all that. I’m still very nostalgic, and I think there’s value to a place where you can browse the shelves for movies.”
Kim’s rental inventoryre-openedin 2022 as an attraction in Alamo Drafthouse’s lower Manhattan cinema. Some Barnes and Noble locations in New York also sell Blu-ray Discs and DVDs. To Hamel and Mills’ knowledge, however, Night Owl is the only freestanding video boutique in New York.
Part of the appeal of reviving the video store, Mills said, is the community. She and Hamel met while working at the indie film label Troma.
“I love seeing someone pick up a title and another customer say, ‘Hey, that’s a really good one,’” she said. “It inspires people to watch something that they might not have. These streaming platforms are feeding you an algorithm of what to watch; they’re not giving you real suggestions. But if you get 20 movie lovers in a room, that knowledge just blossoms.”
That pitch may find a receptive audience in Williamsburg. Night Owl’s location on Grand Street is right next to a board games store and not far from comic book and record shops and other geek meccas.
“That’s so cool!” a young woman said as she entered Night Owl on a recent Thursday afternoon. As she entered, a young man departed without buying anything, but murmured “Good to know, good to know,” to his companion.
Despite its reputation as a city of cinephiles, New York has not been immune to the economic trends that have shuttered video stores across theUnited States,Britainand other countries. Streaming and video-on-demand services have steadily undermined physical media for years, and last year US sales of physical video discs fell below $1bn for the first time since 2014,accordingto industry data andreportingby Variety. Increasingly few Americans even own a dedicated DVD/Blu-ray player, though some video-game consoles play film discs.
Yet physical media has had amodest renaissancein recent years. Somemovie buffshave found their way back to physical formats such as Blu-ray – the DVD’s higher-definition successor – and 4K Blu-ray, an even higher-definition format considered the “final format” of home theater.
Physical media is unlikely to ever regain the heights it had in the heyday of VHS and DVD, but enthusiasts hope it may achieve the kind of surprisesecond lifethat vinyl records have since the late 2000s. In 2022, more vinyl records were sold than CDs,accordingto a music industry trade group.
Hamel used to run a record label. “I feel like physical-media movies are where vinyl was maybe 15 or 20 years ago,” he said. Although the landscape is tough, new video stores – or in some cases non-profit video libraries – have opened in recent years inNew Orleans,Calgary,Baltimore, andWorcester, Massachusetts, and boutique retailers such asAtomic Movie Store,Orbit DVD,DiabolikDVDandGrindhouse Videoseem to have no shortage of online business.
Five or six patrons perused Night Owl’s selection of Blu-rays, 4K Blu-rays, DVDs, VHS tapes, and Laserdiscs as several linked televisions around the store screened Ed Wood, the 1994 Tim Burton picture, from a Laserdisc player. A life-sized Halloween skeleton sat in an armchair near the door.
Night Owl sells new and used movies from cinephilic Blu-ray labels such asCriterion,Radiance,Severin,Vinegar Syndrome,Kino Lorber,88 FilmsandUmbrella, as well as film-related books, posters and vinyl soundtracks. Currently, the shop only sells videos, though Hamel and Mills may offer renting in the future.
Buying collectible physical films at retail prices isn’t cheap – most new Blu-rays at Night Owl cost $20 to $40 – but customers seemed willing to entertain physical media’s value proposition. Around 550 people attended Night Owl’s soft launch, Mills estimated: “It just warms my little goth heart.” She and Hamel have had to re-order stock because of brisk sales.
Bailey Blake, 22, Ava Sharahy, 23, and Leah Calixto, 22, came to Night Owl from the Bronx and Washington Heights after hearing about the store on Instagram. The three were recent college graduates who had studied film at Sarah Lawrence.
“I don’t have a lot of physical DVDs or anything like that,” Sharahy said. “This is gonna be my first foray into it. I don’t want to have to pay so much for so many streaming services when I could justownsomething, you know?”
Sharahy bought a John Waters film that included an interactive scratch-and-sniff feature. Blake bought the vinyl soundtrack to The Color of Money. Calixto was looking at Blood In Blood Out, a Chicano crime epic she loved from childhood.
Part of the draw of physical media for movie fans, the three friends said, was thedifficultyof finding manybeloved or important filmson streaming.
Mills echoed that argument, and added that streaming platforms have also become more and more expensive, contain intrusive ads, and aggressively promote their own original content rather than curate cinematic “gems”.
Hamel jumped in. “When you’re buying digital you’re not buying the film,” he said. “You’re buying a license to watch the film, which theycan revokeat any time. But when you buy something on Blu-ray, you have it forever.”