Another large store finds itself struggling after being in business for more than three decades.
“It’s pretty much month-to-month at this point in terms of the revenue. It’s gone down precipitously in the last year,” says Mark McNevin, general manager of Potomac Video Center, a Washington, D.C. store that carries 50,000 titles.
As these stores die, an important community institution is dying as well, say the workers at these stores, who tend to be cinephiles themselves. Though anachronistic, one of the modern independent video store’s key virtues is in stocking VHS movies, says McNevin, who also teaches screenwriting at American University and freelances on movie crews. He explains that many films originally released on videotape were never transferred to DVD, sending customers to his store looking for cult films that they can’t find elsewhere.
Of course, part of independent stores’ unique offerings have often been found in the euphemistic “back room.” Blockbuster initially set itself apart in the industry eschewing the X-rated offerings and marketing itself as mainstream, says one expert. However, independent video stores’ very uniqueness – racy movies aside – is what is helping them to survive now as Blockbuster shutters its stores.