Video store sells movies so bad they’re good
TAMPA — There is a place where the video store never died. Where movie posters plaster the walls and a giant novelty VHS tape hangs above the checkout counter. Where, on a recent afternoon, the owner placed an order for more inventory via an honest-to-goodness telephone.
“I’m sorry, I just have to get his order in today,” said Mike Sandlin, owner of Grindhouse Video. He turned his attention back to the vendor on the line. “‘Puppetmaster,’ right, I need two of those …”
There are racks for the “staff picks” and a small, adults-only room, obscured by a beaded curtain. There are nearly 2,000 square feet of shelves lined with DVDs and Blu-ray Discs.
There’s an entire room of VHS tapes.
Who would buy those? Almost on cue, a man in a beanie walked into the room and began plucking tapes like “Elvira: Mistress of the Dark” and “The Mummy.” Sandlin shrugged and pointed at the guy.
“A friend of mine told me about this place. I come here as often as I can,” said Hunter Barnett, 32. “With Halloween coming up I’m trying to get as much horror, monster, anything themed like that, that I can.”
Grindhouse Video is not familyfriendly Blockbuster reborn. It has been open for five years in an unremarkable strip mall on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The store does have a wide selection of used, mainstream movies in all genres — “The Peanuts Movie” sits next to “Pineapple Express.”
But the soul of the place is horror, mostly the obscure stuff and cult classics hardcore fans seek. Need a copy of “Dude Bro Party Massacre III,” “Cannibal Claus” or “Blood Diner”? You’re covered.
Same if you want an “Omen” Tshirt, a “Chucky” poster or an autograph from the director of “Human Centipede II.”
The store carries other genres of exploitation flicks and B-movies, too. It’s the kind of stuff that’s so bad it’s good, marked by bizarre plot points, sex and sensational violence, movies once shown nonstop at the “grindhouse” theaters from which it takes its name.
The niche has brought Grindhouse customers from all over the world, Sandlin said, even though until recently he had only invested $250 in advertising.
The rapper Slug from the hiphop duo Atmosphere has been in the store to buy movies for his tour bus and gave Sandlin VIP passes to his show. Sandlin said one couple traveled from Australia to Orlando for Disney World. When they heard about his store, they made a detour across the state to visit Grindhouse.
“I’ve had people from Japan, Europe, literally coming to Tampa because of the store,” he said. “It’s becoming a bit of a destination because there’s nothing like it.”
Grindhouse Video is among a handful of stores in North America
that stock new releases by Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow Video, Shout Factory and other companies giving new and out-of-print films high-quality DVD and Bluray releases, sometimes limited to a few hundred copies.
Many have never been available on a disc, and they’re unlikely to ever show up on Netflix or Amazon Prime. The store even keeps a well-stocked rack of rare horror movies filmed in Tampa.
Sandlin buys so many movies from those distributors that they’ve come to know him. That helps him get priority on more limited releases.
Detroit’s Chris George, who runs the website the Movie Sleuth and seeks out video stores around the United States, visited Grindhouse while vacationing in Clearwater Beach. He called it a “magical unicorn” for the breadth and volume of its inventory.
“There are maybe three or four stores like it in the country,” he said. “Nobody has what he has.”
Sandlin, 45, got a taste for cult films as a teen during the ’80s rental boom. He’d rent the same movies again and again, stuff like “Microwave Massacre” and “Frankenhooker.”
“It was all about the box art,” he said. “Some of the worst movies had the best art because they had to sell it. So you would just rent stuff based off the artwork, and then you start liking all these really bad movies.”
And while Sandlin does sell movies online, it’s the brick-andmortar shop that brings in the majority of his income. He’s as surprised as anyone.
“I did like $2,000 in sales on Saturday,” he said. “I make a living selling really terrible movies.”