Rental Store - Peters Video Center

This label for a shop in St. Helena or Calistoga, California was stuck to my VHS copy of the epically bad Zombie vs Ninja.

Rental Store - Video Station

Long ago, in a city far, far away in Wisconsin, Video Station carried a VHS copy of that spectacular film 9 1/2 Ninjas.

Rental Store - Southampton Video

Southamton Video was a shop somewhere in the States that once carried my VHS tape of Gumby for President. Where was Southampton?

Rental Store - The Video Palace

This label, from one or the other of the Alexandria or Manassas, Virginia Video Palace storefronts, was securely adhered to the side of my Murder Weapon VHS tape...

Rental Store - Sigma Video

Retrospectively speaking, Sigma Video carried a copy of the Canadian boxing action flick Half the Action which is where I found this label.

Rental Store - Video Time II

Not that long ago, Hampstead, New Hampshire video shop Video Time II carried a copy of the low-budget gorror flick Death Row Diner.

Rental Store - Family Video

This Family Video label was slathered on the side of my chopped-box copy of Boxcar Blues.

Rental Store - Hillcrest Video

As you can see, these gorgeous full color labels from Hillcrest video in beautiful Palos Hills, Illinois are on my copy of the surefire crowd pleaser Lunch Wagon, AKA # 232.

Love the grey-flap tapes...

Rental Store - Video Vertigo

Video Vertigo was a fairly recent, and fairly short lived store in Seattle that once carried the 1989 VHS version of the 1988 film Pumpkinhead.

Rental Store - West Side Video

Rental Store - Towne Video

Rental Store - Casablanca Video

This little sticker is all that remains to tell us where The Final Terror was once available for rent... Where Casablanca might have once been located is anybody's guess. Mine, well I'm thinking probably Seattle area since that's where I picked it up...

Rental Store - Encore Entertainment

This Encore Entertainment label was on my copy of the zombie buddy-cop comedy Dead Heat. The Renton, Washington store was around long enough to have to convert from manual cataloging to digital. The UPC was covering this old-school label.

Rental Store - Stars Family Video & Nord TV

Both of these stickers were on my copy of Helter Skelter. Based on the area code, Stars Family Video and Entertainment appears to have been somewhere in the greater north and east parts of Connecticut.

Nord TV & Video Outlet of course, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Weird because I found it in a used shop in Seattle.

Rental Store - Video Show Room

Rental Store - Video Update, Texas

I found this Video Update label on my copy of the vintage indie flick The Alien Factor, but something wasn't clicking. Hadn't I seen a Video Update label on another tape, and hadn't I posted it? Yes I had, HERE. That label was on a copy of Miami Horror from a Mukilteo, Washington store.

As it turns out, Video Update was one of the many franchise chains acquired in the 90's and early 00's by the Movie Gallery corporation which also purchased the late Hollywood Video name and the Movie Scene name. Movie Gallery went out of business as a brick and mortar in 2010 but continues to operate as an entertainment news aggregate site.

Rental Store - Video Superstore

Video Superstore in Seattle suburb Shoreline Washington probably once held a Christian section, because this label was on my cassette copy of the finest in video incarceration prostheletization, 1976's Set Free.

Rental Store - Movie Mania

This delightful little silver sticker was pasted on the side of my not so delightful videocassette copy of Rebel High. Perhaps someone who rented it from Movie Mania out in suburban Seattle can tell me how it ends since they ruined the tape and then gave it to a used shop!

Rental Store - Data Communications/Chief's Video

This label on my copy of the Martin Kove 'Nam Vet revenge flick Steele Justice (review forthcoming) comes from Data Communications, in  Berrien Springs or Niles, two small villages in the southwest corner of Michigan.

But wait! This tag was also on the cassette, held on with scotch tape, and it's the same phone number as Data Communications! Hark, a clue!

Rental Store - Video X Tron

I did just a tiny bit of research on this one and turned up a fair amount of history. Video X Tron was a small chain based out of Boca Raton, Florida. They had about 10 stores in the area. In 1990, as Blockbuster was violently expanding like a Capitalist Christian Cancer, they acquired Video X Tron and performed their censorial abortion. Adult titles were quickly purged and family friendly minimum-wage clones began spitting on your microwave popcorn.

I found this label on my copy of the James Hong directed, low budget teen sex comedy Teen Lust back in April. The box and tape were slathered in Blockbuster stickers, but I could tell that there was something more interesting underneath. With the help of a little bit of lighter fluid I found these X Tron labels. Odd that the statutory rape comedy Teen Lust passed the Blockbuster morality test, but not consensual adult sex? Oh well, Christian duplicity is nothing new.