New NYC video store reviving nostalgic experience for movie buffs ‘tired’ of streaming — including new films on VHS and DVD
Streaming didn’t kill the video star.
Dust off your VCRs, ’90s kids — a new NYC video store is reviving a brick-and-mortar movie scene pushed to the brink of extinction by streaming platforms.
Opened last week in Williamsburg, Night Owl Video is now the only full-service video store in NYC. They offer around 1,500 unique titles, from 1980 goresploitation flick “Cannibal Holocaust” to new releases like the Oscar-winning “Anora,” spanning VHS, DVD and other mediums from the halcyon days of physical media.
Both new and secondhand copies of movies are available for purchase, with prices ranging from $5 to over $100 for the rarer VHS tapes, and they plan on doing rentals in the future.
“We’re trying to stock every kind of format, every kind of genre, every kind of movie, so that the store can appeal to everyone,” co-owner Aaron Hamel, 35, told The Post.
Hamel founded Night Owl alongside Jess Mills, 39, a fellow cinephile he met while the pair worked at NYC’s legendary B-movie studio Troma Entertainment, with the goal of filling Gotham’s ever-widening video-store void.
The film buff said the concept harks back to “family movie nights” growing up in Detroit, when visiting the video store was an event and not a mindless scroll-fest.
Nostalgic New Yorkers are feeling these analog withdrawals — during Night Owl’s soft opening on April 5, 550 people showed up over five hours.
This fervor is perhaps not surprising, given the city’s video institutions have been “Netflix and killed” over the past decade due to price, convenience and other perks afforded by virtual video vendors.
“What really inspired us to open it was we loved Kim’s Video and Videology when they were around and stores like that in New York,” Hamel said. of the beloved downtown institution.
Alas, Kim’s, which also doubled as a Gen X clubhouse in its St. Marks Place heyday, shuttered in 2014, one year after NYC’s last corporate-owned Blockbuster moved out.
“When [Kim’s] closed, we just sort of got tired of waiting around for somebody else to open” a video store, said Hamel. “So we decided to take it upon ourselves.”
However, Night Owl isn’t just a love letter to movie merchants past.
Patrons noted that the hawker features titles unavailable on streaming platforms.
“On Netflix, you’re never going to find anything that you’re searching for,” Brooklynite Dwayne Mendez, 43, told The Post while holding a copy of “Trick or Treat,” a supernatural 1986 slasher film featuring Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne.
“I own [this] DVD, and if you search it on streamers, they don’t exist.”
Hamel added that certain titles — including classic television, kids shows and commercials — never even made it to DVD.
The Brooklynite said that he’s procured some “really interesting” secondhand vids from collectors. Upon walking in, visitors are greeted by a glass display housing a $100 Japanese laser disc of late director David Lynch’s 1977 film “Eraserhead,” which Hamel said is “hard to come by in that condition.”
For film geeks, they also carry titles from new distribution companies like Vinegar Syndrome, which was founded in 2012 and specializes in preserving “rare and cult” films from the 1960s to the ’80s. To date, they’ve helped restore and preserve over 500 feature films.
Customer Liza Jackson, 20, stressed the importance of “keeping the actual physical media alive” in the streaming age, when titles come and go with the wind.
“It’s fun collecting things, and you don’t have to worry about it being taken off of Hulu or anything,” the Hell’s Kitchen filmmaker told The Post.
Like a gold hoarder hedging against crypto, the movie buff even keeps an “end-of-the-world” DVD stash so she’ll be entertained during an apocalypse.
Perhaps the biggest casualty of streaming that Night Owl strives to revive is the “community” aspect of film perusal.
“We really want to bring back the idea of not letting an algorithm pick movies for you,” said Mills.
“Come to a place where you can browse the shelves, talk to the other film lovers and get tips from other people rather than relying on big businesses who are pushing their own content.”
Keeping with neighborhood video store tradition, the entertainment monger features memorabilia galore, from posters to clothing and even copies of horror film mag Fangoria, including a “Hellraiser” issue signed by the film’s stars Doug Bradley and Ashley Laurence.
And Hamel said they plan to sell home video systems and DVD players to help accommodate offline cinephiles — especially new ones — who understandably might not have the right equipment.
But is Night Owl a trailblazer, or the last vestige of a bygone era?
Hamel, for one, believes that they’re capturing a zeitgeist, arguing, “The physical media industry for films is going in the same direction that vinyl was 15 to 20 years ago. I think you’re seeing a rabid collector fan base.”
Kim’s Video notably saw a “Pet Sematary”-esque resurrection in 2022, when the Alamo Drafthouse in lower Manhattan began hawking their long-dormant collection under the name Kim’s Video Underground.
Witnessing Night Owl’s Gen Z clientele gives Hamel hope for the future.
“That generation grew up in a completely digital world,” the film sommelier said. “Tangible media is interesting to them, and also, at a certain point, you just get tired of looking at a screen.”
