The Last Video Shop
A snapshot into another time in small town New Zealand.
Hi,
When I was 16 (pimples, braces, painfully awkward) — I applied for a job at Video Ezy.
It’s difficult to describe how much I wanted this job. Video Ezy was my local video shop in Tauranga, and I’d spend hours of my teenage life stalking through those aisles, looking at the DVD covers trying to decide what new release or 7-day special I’d rent.
I’d rifle through the bin of rolled-up movie posters like they were fine art prints, carefully deciding which ones would decorate my bedroom walls.
And don’t even get me started on the joys of renting a Sega Megadrive II for the weekend, stocked with games like Flashback, Echo the Dolphin, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.
My point is — I was the nerdy movie guy. I needed that job.
And fucking Julia got it. Julia didn’t even know about movies.
I’ve never gotten over it.
I remembered about all this when I was thinking about Blockbuster as a possible topic for Flightless Bird.
Some listeners had gotten in touch, telling me that I needed to visit the home of the last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. Blockbuster fans sent me photos of their own trips to the iconic store.
As I read up on Blockbuster, I realised that Australian brand Video Ezy had taken over Blockbuster in New Zealand — so that technically, all those years ago, I’d really wanted to work at the (old) Blockbuster.
It was around this very time that Joshua Drummond got in touch with me. You know his writing here on Webworm — he’s written about helplessness in the face of climate change, AI, self-improvement, and been featured for doing that beautiful painting of New Zealand’s prime minister.
He pitched me a story about United Video, Video Ezy’s main competitor in New Zealand. The thing is — while the video store I applied to work at back in 1999 was long gone, a United Video story still stands in Josh’s town.
And so, over the last few months, Josh has been working away on a little podcast episode for Webworm — and what it says about the current state of how we consume film.
I did very little, beyond offering a few notes and providing some gear to get it made. I’m very happy to present it to you today.
It’s a snapshot into another time, and a part of New Zealand that’s very dear to my heart. And if you’ve ever rented a video or DVD, it might pluck on a few nostalgic heartstrings.
Enjoy listening — and enjoy some of the photos below to compliment the episode.
Take it away, Josh.
David.
A Word from Josh, who made the episode:
Thanks for listening to that podcast — I hoped you enjoyed it, because I loved making it. I'm also really happy to be able to provide this photo essay, as a kind of behind-the-scenes shoot. Once you're done listening, they should really help expand the world of the Last Video Shop.
- Wilf and a staff member in 2016, before the shop’s last downsize:
- A view of the Morrinsville Mega Cow, as taken by fellow Webwormer and NZ Big Things obsessive Hayden Donnell. You can’t have a story about Morrinsville without mentioning the Mega Cow, it’s against the law:
- A United Video commercial from the 1990s. These played approximately a million times a day during primetime TV slots:
- That anti-piracy jingle, which you can still un-skippably enjoy pretty much every time you watch a DVD over a certain age. The great irony is that the famous jingle was itself possibly stolen, from Dutch musician Melchior Reitveldt:
- Artist Callum Preston’s Video Land exhibition at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne. The videos are all real, from the artist’s own collection. Photo credit: Jackson James Wood:
- This video of the Video Bunker, by podcaster Brian Hogan and his partner, earned five million views and a spot on Jimmy Kimmel during the Covid pandemic:
@thevideobunkerBest wife ever. #thevideobunker #videostore #vhstapes #movietok #renovation
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- The United Video-branded V8 Ford Falcon racing car. Thanks to Google’s increasing uselessness and the decay of news media sites, footage of the car was oddly hard to find, making me think that I’d dreamed it — but it did exist. Photo credit: Lance Hastie:
- Special offers on display at United Video Morrinsville. The prices haven’t changed in nearly two decades:
- The sheer variety of movies available in this one shop is staggering. Lots of them are gloriously weird. Here is an entire section that is mostly sharks and snakes. If you want a fun challenge, try to read these titles aloud without laughing once:
- Even with sharply reduced space from the store’s heyday, there are still many thousands of DVDs available to rent (and buy) - several times more than Netflix’s total streaming catalogue, all in one shop:
- There was a Minions trailer playing on loop when I visited to take these photos. I brought my four-year-old son by at one point and he was absolutely riveted. Now he asks me to pop in just so he can watch the trailers. I’m very proud of him:
- This was the special I took advantage of when I visited. I got There Will Be Blood (good), No Country for Old Men (great), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (dark, hilarious) and a weirdly under-the-radar Matthew McConaughey film called Mud. It was alright! I also got a Dan Radcliffe film called Imperium in which he infiltrates a gang of white supremacists (upsettingly timely). The final film was a Simon Pegg vehicle called Hector and the Search for Happiness which was fun, if trite. It also starred Rosamund Pike and my wife said this made watching the film awkward, as she kept expecting Pike to stab Pegg with a box-cutter:
- The shop genuinely does have a special DVD rental store smell to it. It’s difficult to describe but you’d know it if you smelled it. It’s not bad, just distinctive:
- Me, seriously considering hiring the Jason Statham movie The Beekeeper, mainly because it’s called The Beekeeper. During this visit I bought what must be one of the last remaining pieces of official United Video merchandise, an absolutely spiffing hat. I did not end up watching The Beekeeper but when I do, I’ll be hiring it from United Video Morrinsville:
- What remains of the United Video website, still live at unitedvideo.co.nz. I found the kid’s colouring competition, last updated seven years ago, oddly affecting:
- The last United Video shop, seen from across the street by night. Wilf is working the counter, and you can see two of Morrinsville’s famous-ish painted cows - one to the right, and another in the reflection of the neighbouring store’s window. (Wilf points out that there is one more United Video-branded shop in another small New Zealand town, Masterton, but argues that it doesn’t count as it’s mostly a clothing shop now. I agree with him):
You can subscribe to Josh’s work at his newsletter, the Cynic’s Guide to Self-Improvement, and find him on Bluesky.
