Video World Was My First Movie Sanctuary, and I Miss It Dearly

There’s a chance that about 25 years ago today, I was on my king’s blue mountain bike, pedalling in the scorching Hungarian summer to get to Video World. Video World was my spot, the non-franchise Eastern-European Blockbuster if you like, in my lazy hometown that only had two video rental shops. It was owned and run by an imperious woman in her early 40s called Ili, but since my godmother was one of her main employees, I had access to renting any film I wanted (no charge), given that it was in. That’s right, kids: there was only a single VHS copy of every movie, so if you wanted to see something hot-off-the-griddle like Saw or The Fast and The Furious (I know, we loved flashy hype films), you’d better hope to God it was returned before you popped in.

Despite my highly-treasured “nepotism” at 12, I wasn’t always lucky. But I never moped longer than five seconds because I was too busy taking in the soul-cleansing pleasure of browsing hundreds of films in their (second) God-given form since there wasn’t any other — physical media is a collector’s game now, but back then, it was our only option. Happiness measured in smooth but fragile plastic cases and Mylar-coated magnetic tapes, emitting the sweet and intoxicating smell of excitement and joy, and putting my premature senses into overdrive. Remember when renting a movie felt like a dopamine hit that climaxed when you put it in the VCR at home? Ummm, a new movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks? Give it to me, baby! […] Sorry, the memory just rushed back in.

Video World was room-efficient like most video rental places in the country (as opposed to American chains drowning in excess): two narrow corridors running parallel to each other with a spiral staircase at one end leading to a tiny second story where softcore adult films and obscure TV shows hid from too-juvenile eyes. I didn’t spend much time up there apart from occasionally skimming the X-Files episode selections and peeking at nude chicks posing on conspicuous case covers. The ground floor had four walls filled with empty cases of movies separated by genres, and a smaller section right next to the entrance where all the new releases lived. I often stood there like it was an altar of Hollywood Cinema made for cinephilic acolytes to worship every day; Reading synopses, admiring grainy movie stills, and checking casts to determine what universe I should immerse myself in without having to ask adults for their opinions and recommendations.

See, I was a shy kid who preferred to observe in quiet and listen to others’ film discussions from a safe distance. I didn’t meet a lot of people my age there apart from the occasional teenage duos on Friday/Saturday afternoons. All the employees who worked at Video World were women, and I liked them all for different reasons. One of them was a huge Star Wars fan (and also my fourth-floor neighbour, as it turned out), who later lent me her own original copies of the first trilogy so I could watch them in English with subtitles (most films arrived dubbed in Hungary). Others were into ‘90s rom-coms, which was easy to spot since every time I walked in during their shifts, My Best Friend’s Wedding or Bridget Jones’s Diary was blasting on the TV set up behind the counter. They had different personalities and demeanours, but after a while, I found it easy to strike up a conversation depending on how our tastes collided, and because I was literally in the safest space imaginable for a soft-spoken introvert with a fancy for movies, surrounded by the physical manifestations of the very thing I adored. We had to have that in common, if nothing else.

And of course, there was my godmother, a born talker and close friend to my mom. So while they often blabbered endlessly, I was casually checking out the vilest of horrors from Wishmaster to The Blair Witch Project to The Ring and so on. I felt like a stealthy ninja from the Japanese-American action films I obsessed over at one point (my mom had to sew me a ninja mask that I wore constantly in the house), even though I was too young for them. I mean, Revenge of the Ninja may have seemed pretty harmless on its tape cover, but it was R-rated for a reason — mostly because you got to see the gorgeous Ashley Ferrare’s boobs and one-on-one fights with copious amounts of fake blood (that even made Tarantino grin with joy) spurting everywhere.

In retrospect, the conversations I had there with various adult women (who I learned to differentiate and trust based on their tastes and recommendations) were the kickstarters for developing a penchant for film theory and discussion — and perhaps the reason I was drawn to older people later in life, even if my relationships with women got skewered once I started dating and getting my heart broken.

I’ve never really put this into words, but Video World was my sanctuary and the most fundamental source in my film education. It was the cradle of my cinephilia, the spark that burst into flames as I got older, establishing the core of who I am today. I only spent three or four years there growing up, yet its memory and the way it made me feel live in me so vividly as if it was the most zealous and extraordinary love affair I ever had. Well, ain’t that the truth?

Once my godmother quit (along with many of her colleagues soon after) and DVDs slowly began to push the tapes out of the market in addition to the threatening emergence of something called the internet, things had changed. I was still semi-frequent and renting with a half-price family discount for a while, but the magic was diminishing. Once I began high school and made new friends with internet access and CD burners, the idea of renting films quickly turned obsolete. Bootleg became king in Eastern Europe (it’s how I saw The Grudge) primarily due to new releases (both in theatres and on video) arriving with months of delay. We often saw movies before Hungarian cinemas even started screening them nationwide. VHS, as we knew it, suddenly became the past.

While I’ve never been one to take a stand for physical media over digital — though, I admit, it’s worrying where everything is headed now with streaming services and Sony announcing the end of all disc production for PlayStation games from 2028 — I must say I miss the VHS era sometimes. Maybe because it coincided with my childhood, but maybe because it was purer and more tangible than what we have now. There was something endlessly exhilarating and hopeful about riding my bike home from Video World with two movies sitting at the bottom of my backpack waiting to be discovered. Renting a film used to be a trip, a thing to do either with others or solo. It was a singular experience, a wonderful time in the analog past, which we can never relive again other than reminiscing in a memory about how it felt and what it gave us: priceless fervor and childlike joy.

PS.: Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of Video World — or me in it. It’s been gone now for like 20 years.

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