‘We’re the last bastion of rental’: the video stores resisting the rise of streaming

Snips’ owner, Dave Wain, is part of a small cast of movie mavericks refusing to let video rental fade to black.

Then there’s 20th Century Flicks in Bristol, which manager Dave Taylor says began as a “slightly piratical enterprise knocking out dubious copies of ET”, and has a focus on queer and arthouse cinema.

For me it’s about tomorrow Dave Wain, Snips owner For the next generation, there’s VideOdyssey, which was opened by journalist and Tarantino enthusiast Andy Johnson in Liverpool in 2018, offering an immersive movie experience, VCR hire and an arcade.

Unlike the UK’s other surviving stores, video rental wasn’t always part of the Snips script – it started out as a womenswear boutique.

After VHS came to the UK in the late 70s, scores of video rental stores cropped up and Blockbuster opened its first British branch, in south London, in 1989.

Gaz bemoans the fact that streaming services don’t feature classics or a truly wide range of films (Netflix UK, for example, has just a third of Snips’ offering).