Videostar

You remember those big chunky things we used to watch films on? This place has a horde of homeless videos from classic blockbusters to unknowns, all boxed up and ready to go to a new loving home.
With the advent of DVD and Blu ray it seemed the humble VHS had become obsolete, found only at bootsales and charity shops. My housemate still has a video player, complete with a chest bursting with old school 80’s cheesefests and Disney favourites, so Video Star is a welcome addition to bustling Kemp Town.
Most videos are going for £1 so it’s worth rifling through the boxes to grab a bargain. They don’t have Beauty and the Beast on video though, which is rather frustrating as me and my housemate have been hunting it down for the past few months.

VHS videos are completely obsolete. If you haven’t got it on DVD or Blu-​Ray, you can more than likely find them on some sort of file sharing site of an iPlayer type medium.
However, this plucky little video shop seems to have been hanging in there for an unexpected time now. But even my most luddite of friends has now turned a technological corner and started to grasp and watch DVD’s– unfortunately I can’t see Videostar hanging in there for much longer.

I really wonder how these small video stores stay in business these days with online downloads and streaming, not to mention the giant that is Blockbusters, offering free membership, and cheap and longer term rentals. This place gives me the same guilt factor I get when I swan in and out of St James’ Street’s Morrison’s, with my bulging plastic bags filled up with under a tenner, at the loss of the area’s many independent stores. I have a membership at Videostar and try to rent something now and then. But it’s hard when you know for the same price again you could buy the DVD at HMV rather than have it for just a night. On the plus, there’s a good range in here, though I’m unsure if it goes beyond the charts and classics. And if you’re retro enough to own a video player then there’re always old cassettes being sold off cheaply. The main selling factor is the location, this is one branch of three in central Brighton, and strategically there’s no Blockbusters near this one.