Video Box

My experience of this video rental store proves how far everyone’s experience is subjective. Before I moved, my local dvd rental place was bloody awful. It was slightly cheaper than Video Box, but although it stocked about the same number of films, I would spend half an hour browsing the shelves there and come away with nothing, because I couldn’t find a single thing I wanted. Imagine my delight when I entered Video Box! Comparably a video mecca, with a large section of foreign films, and at the back of the store, films organised by director! How super geeky and yet educational and cool at the same time. New releases are admittedly expensive, at going on £4 for a night, but if you rent 2 at once it suddenly gets a lot better, costing you £5 for both, and you can keep them for 2 nights. They also do deals on dvd box sets, like you pay a tenner and get the set for a week. Plus the staff are really nice, and they just look exactly how you would imagine dvd rental store staff to look.

There isn’t much you need to know about a video rental shop other than price, range and service. As far as these are concerned I’d say average, could be better and great respectively. For the best deals including ice-​cream and popcorn I’d go to blockbuster down the road but if I wanted passionate and learned advice I’d definitely go to the Video Box in Hove. With a section at the back that’s organised by director it’s a great place to find all those classic and cult films you know you must watch before death. With Blockbusters in almost every city it’s hard for smaller franchises to compete and therefore they tend to stock an awkward balance of films. This means that places such as Video Box might not have as wide a selection as other stores but if you care about films you should appreciate good, friendly service. This is what Video Box of Hove has going for it. Regulars will be recognised and suggestions will be appropriately considered. Top Stuff!

I revisited Video Box today with the intention of renting a film or two. Unfortunately, although as stated in my previous review of this store, the collection of films on offer is excellent, the prices, contrary to what I had believed, were far too high to make actually taking one of them out worth it. The film Fermat’s Room, for example, was available to be rented for one night at the price of £3.90, a quite exorbitant fee considering the film can be bought for just £5.98 on amazon. What this store needs to do is lower the price of its items to something closer to the £2 mark, introduce more deals round the store encouraging individuals to rent more items at a time, and increase the duration of time dvds can be taken out for. Until one, or all of the aforementioned occurs, Video Box is worth avoiding, and I say that as someone who rents approximately 10 movies a week.