while I have hundreds, I don't REALLY collect tapes anymore, but I do collect some.
Slowly I am trying to 1) remember and 2) get a tape for- the first dozen or so Tapes I rented as a kid.
We first got a VCR in 1984, I was 11.
It was a gift from our "rich" grandparents.
My parents could never have afforded one.
I remember the first tape I ever borrowed was MEGAFORCE.
(I have that coming in the mail).
The rest is vague but every so often one springs to mind. it might not be 100% accurate as the first dozen, buit perhaps the first that made enough of an impact for me to remember, even remember the feeling of watching it, telling my friends about it etc etc.
The first Video library we joined, MOONLIGHT VIDEO, at the time charged $200 to JOIN! this was a shit load of cash, and was 90% Beta tapes.
There was another library in town, where you didnt pay a joining fee, except you bought ONE TAPE, Tapes then cost about $100 each.
You took the tape home, and anytime you wanted to you could exchange the tape for another (and I think pay $1 or something).
When that store closed down, everyone who was a member just had to keep the tape they had at that time. But it was a shitty library and we never joined.
Anyways, these four I remember renting very early and remember very well:
Funny, I ended up making friends with the director of two of the movies 20+ years later.
My grandparents were at our house when I played Bronx Warriors 2, and as we only saw them once a year or so, it must have been the 2nd tape I borrowed.
My grandmother was very "posh" and the look on her face at the language was hilarious.
And I remember there was a trailer for SHOCKING ASIA before it and she whispered a comment to my mother about one ladies breasts.
XTRO, after watching it on a saturday morning, I RAN to my best friends house and told him about it, he ran back with me and we both watched it.
I rented it at least a dozen times over the next year or 2.
Redeemer: I guess this was my first film where each kill is different, which of course is stock standard, especially in the 80's. What and how will he/she do it next?
Corpse Grinders: the first Ted V Mikels film I saw, I had never heard of him, but as soon as I saw this I knew i was hooked. Managed to find THE WORM EATERS later, hidden in COMEDY section, which i NEVER looked in, but must have been in a strange mood.
I went to the cinema every weekend as a kid, but Video libraries were more important to me after age 11, as I could see films that I would never see in the cinema, and the cover art grabbed me.
Anyway as with all my and most peoples collecting, its about nostalgia.
The search continues for a few more tapers, just a small shelf of early memories of a great time in my movie watching life.
