Are the classics less accessible today?
 

Do you think the lack of video rental places has made it more difficult for new people to find the good 'ol classics that we all generally know and love. Whether they be good-good or cheesy-good? It just doesn't seem like the video streaming services really have the same kinds of movies horror-wise. Like pretty much any rental place's horror section would have: House, Puppet Master, and....well, I"m drawing a blank, but...you know what I mean, right?

On the contrary. Finding the classics are more accessible and easier than ever with the advancement of technology. Namely the internet. A homeless man could watch Puppet Master on YouTube if he wanted to. Older movies and especially ones less known are simple to find online if you know where to look, and I've watched most of the ones I've seen this way.

Shroud -- I think it depends how narrow you want to make this question/answer... Narrowly speaking, "does less video stores make it harder for people to discover classics?" that question answers itself: 'yes'. Less folks go to the library to find these classics as well. But in the bigger picture of today versus 10-30 years ago, with the Internet, accessing the horror classics is extremely easy and inexpensive. I don't know that anyone feels restricted to one streaming service's offerings.

But also, in the US, it appears each younger generation is less informed, and less interested, in history, including horror classics. A lack of interest in the horror classics is likely more consequential than shrinking rental stores.

I think my point was more that the rental places had some staples and...if the video rental place only has maybe 50 or 100 movies in the horror section, you were bound to watch it eventually.

On the internet, you are spoilt for choice and it seems more likely that those movies would get passed over by those not already familiar with them.

The internet is making the classics more accessible to watch but also the wide variety of horror diminishes them. Now Frankenstein and the Exorcist are placed on par with films like Unfriended, who one horror.com user said was the best horror movie ever made.

It seems that your question has more than a little bit to do with nostalgia for the ritual of going to the video store, and grabbing a flick based on the box art and the ( sometimes hilariously innarcurate ) summaries on the back.

Nowadays, that process is all but gone, thanks to the internet searches, trailers full of spoilers all over the place, compiled lists of classic/obscure movies, streaming services, and YT reviewers ( which I’m guilty of ), so it’s less impactful and more like there’s a thousand different roadmaps on “ what to watch “. There’s definitely a bit of a disconnect.

It used to be a crapshoot. Sometimes you struck gold with a TCM or Suspiria, and other times you went home with a Nail Gun Massacre or Savage Weekend, and hated yourself. Classics used to be spread by word of mouth from one fan to another, and that does still happen, it’s just in such a grand and easily accessible scale that the thrill of the hunt is lost, and that was a big part of what made finding/discovering the classics so great.

So no, I don’t think it’s less accessible ( rather it’s MORE accessible than ever ), but it’s certainly a far different experience now and I feel that there are some elements that people are totally missing out on, which is sad, but that’s life.

There certainly was some value to the video store's horror section, and seeing the box art. And many stores still have a classic's section (though not many specify horror classics). It certainly narrowed your choices... but like Oro said, what the store happened to have may not have been the best classics.

In my case I can tell you I didn't learn what the horror classics were from the video store. But maybe others did. I got it from a very wide assortment of sources slowly over time, TV, TV reviews, newpaper film reviews, TV film reviews, word of mouth, etc. And circa 2017, I think people looking have even more and specific sources to determine and see the classics.

What I mean is that, looking around this forum, I see that most of us have seen relatively the same movies. Not altogether, but there are some that most if not all of us have seen. Yes, some of us may have seen them on TV or something. But they still may have been also found (even if later on) at the video store. I"m not talking nostalgia here or the thrill of the hunt.

It's just that, that particular thing from our past allowed us to share certain (movie related) experiences. Yes, sometimes the rental place just let us re-watch things we had already seen. Yes, sometimes we were told about a good movie from a friend....and then found it at the rental place. And sometimes we picked movies that looked good near as we could tell from the box/description. There were some movies, though, that were probably in most places and that is probably why (or one of the reasons why) we were able to share those experiences.

I just don't see streaming as something that will end in much exposure to the movies that are such common-knowledge to us.

TV has shown some improvement, though, since it went digital and they needed to fill in all that dead-air. Now we've got channels like Comet and since Svengoolie went national, there's the younger generation's Elvira, showing them the old black-and-white horrors.

Hit up yer local library.