Movies Unlimited.

Ditto what I said about Shady Dave's.


Movies Unlimited (1978-present)

From here and here.

Movies Unlimited catalog

Don't know what caused us to get on the list, but my family got one of these out of the blue.
It was pure Heaven.
Basically, a movie catalog as thick as a phone book, with every single movie that was out on VHS that could ever be had.
This was shortly before DVD, mind.
I call it "paper Amazon".
They're still around, except now they deal solely in DVD.
Also, they've partnered up with TCM.
You see ads on there all the time.
It was hard for me to remember exactly what year we started getting these, but I remember ordering Evil Dead 2 in high school, so it had to be '93 or thereabouts.
We started getting stuff out of this immediately.
And the beauty of the book was, you could use it as a paper IMDB too, the write-ups were good, and you could cross-reference by actor.
Between this, and "Incredibly Strange Film show", I became an adept film geek very quickly.
The former was the match, this was the dynamite.
Now, there's IMDB, and Amazon, but this is how we did it in the old school.
I still wish these came, they're still cool, and you don't have to boot-up a catalog.


A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

From here.

Well, I told my story of peeking at it on HBO. 
Before that, I was only aware of it as a photo of the poster image in the glossy HBO guide pamphlet we used to get, and a very inadequate description that gave my imagination not much to work with. 

Over the next couple years, I caught more of it here and there. 
Never got to see it all the way through on HBO. 
Its run ended, and everything, and everyone, prevented me from seeing it on tape. 
Drove me nuts. 
Don't think it was deliberate, just freaky happenstance. 
Later, in my teens, in a fit of collecting, I caught up to it on tape via Movies Unlimited. 
Ahhh, then I finally saw it non-stop, and I've loved it ever since. 
Talk about a dream deferred. 


Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Also from here.

Got it out of Movies Unlimited. 
No more flea market quests, it was finally the modern era. 


Friday The 13th (1980)

From here.

Course, I would finally collect them all off of Movies Unlimited in anticipation of Freddy vs. Jason.
Who knew I'd be waiting another fuggin' decade?
Sheeit.

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)

From here.

Bought this out of Movies Unlimited.

Showed it to Hyla and Spencer, I raved about it, they weren't impressed.

Sorry, fellas.
D'ope!


Tenchi Muyo franchise (1993-present)

From here, and here.

Okay, this actually started in 1992, but this is when the Tenchi movie, "Tenchi Muyo In Love", came out, then came to cable, on Sci-Fi Channel's "saturday anime", lineup, and thus, when my awareness of the series started.
Then, via the internet, I found out more, and used Movies Unlimited, and websites to gradually aquire the whole series in VHS.
I've since switched over to DVD, of course.
DVD was easier, thank goodness for box sets.

Aaanyway, on to my experience with the movie, it had everything I liked run through a blender.
Lightsabers, time travel, paradoxes, superheroes, punk rock girls, monster battles, explosions, humor, it's like the Japanese peered into my head.
So, naturally, I was an instant fanboy, and needed more.
Ayep, Tenchi fandom, expanding to an all purpose anime fandom, was another layer of alternative geek culture that got me through the 90's.


The Toxic Avenger Part III: 
The Last Temptation Of Toxie. (1989)

From here.

Getting the VHS copy of this back in the day was a bitch.
Even Movies Unlimited wouldn't get the thing.

What I ultimately had to do, was beg the lady at Nicely's video to buy an extra copy for the store, and sell it to me, and I was willing to pay double price for it.

Amazingly, she did it.
I guess my family were good customers at the time...
It came with a poster of the above image.
I still have it kicking around somewhere.

I really have to upgrade all of that to DVD already....


There was no dramatic conclusion as with Shady Dave's.
Things just naturally evolved from Shady Dave's, to Movies Unlimited, to Amazon.

The End...again!