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Home to one of the largest publicly accessible collections of physical media, Scarecrow Video is a destination point for film fanatics.
Please Help Scarecrow Video
Seattle, WA's Scarecrow Video is one of the largest video stores in the U.S. if not the world. They have over 140,000 titles on DVD, VHS, blu-ray and laserdisc. They are especially noteworthy for the amount of rare and hard-to-find titles they have. About 10 years ago they become a non-profit. In addition to being a brick-and-mortar rental store for physical media, they also do rental-by-mail and they sell a great deal of their movies online too. They even carry my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 on DVD in their store.
When I made my short documentary Video Visions about one of the last video rental superstores in upstate NY, we actually made reference to Scarecrow and addressed the need for physical media outlets like Scarecrow and Video Visions as a gateway to film history. There are hundreds of thousands of movies that are only available on physical media. You would seriously be surprised how few movies released before 1990 are available on Netflix. While streaming may be convenient, physical media provides access to countless movies you can only see on VHS or DVD or a bit torrent ripped from those. In recent years we have lost a lot of longstanding video stores like Family Video, which shut down it's entire chain. Scarecrow is now struggling and needs your help.
I highly encourage you to give what you can to Scarecrow here. I myself just donated!
The link above is the article from Indiewire (reprinted from The Seattle Times).
Video Visions in Goshen, IN is now a Dutch bakery. My friend grew up in Goshen and said he would loiter inside the Video Visions before or after visiting the local movie theater and/or ice cream shop.
Cruising In The Van Productions' 2025 Year In Review
In addition to this blog, I also make films and am the co-founder of Cruising In The Van Productions. Here is the 2025 year in review and there were quite a few highlights for my films Life on the V: The Story of V66, Grandpa's Superman Comic and Video Visions!
The link above is the mailchimp!
Save Video Visions! VHS Library in Chatham, NY
Save Video Visions
I am a former video store clerk going back to the mid-90s. Sometime around 2018 my friends and former Video Horizons alumni Mark and Scott reached out to Video Visions, one of the last brick-and-mortar video rental superstores in Upstate NY. We reached out to the owner Steve Campbell who welcomed us. I was fascinated with this store, not even as a filmmaker but just from a curiosity / human interest standpoint. There are still video rental stores throughout America, but this particular one seemed bigger than some store with a small DVD section and selling other retail as well. We traveled to Chatham, NY from Boston in Spring 2018 to film his store and interview him, as well as my friend Josh Johnson, director of the VHS doc Rewind This!. The store was an old-school video store with over 25,000 titles (that’s across various formats like VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and laser disc). He kept all of their films. Steve looked at the store almost like his retirement project at a certain point: he owned the building, he was the only employee, the overhead was low - but he enjoyed interacting with customers and he looked at it as “his contribution to film”.
the Video Visions storefront
My short documentary Video Visions showed how this wasn’t just a novelty of a still-standing video rental store in the digital age, but that it was a very special place in the community as well as a gateway to film history. There are thousands and thousands of movies not available on streaming that were released on physical media and Steve held on to his library all those years. In October 2019, my film had it’s World Premiere at FilmColmbia film festival in Chatham, NY just a few blocks away from the store. The audience response was tremendous and Steve joined me for the Q&A afterwards. Steve was really proud of it and after the screening there was a little party for the film at his store. He even made our DVD available to rent at his store.
me and Steve Campbell in 2019
I checked in with Steve every so often just to see how he and the store were doing. Due to health issues he closed the store around 2022. He didn’t permanently close it, just didn’t open for business. Sadly, Steve passed away last December. There were a lot of questions about what would happen to the building and the movie collection. Some journalists even reached out to me, to which I didn't know. The building has now been sold to a new owner with no plans to keep the store running.
The link above is the change.org petition that has been started to keep the store going in some way. As a former video store clerk, a physical media enthusiast and someone who did a documentary about this store, I proudly signed this petition and I encourage you to sign as well!
Remembering Steve Campbell 1951-2024
Here on this blog, I share my thoughts on pop culture and frequently I post my remembrance of celebrities and public figures who passed away. I rarely posted about people in my personal life who died, but today I thought I'd post a remembrance of someone who was the subject of a film I made and also someone who contributed to film.
me and Steve Campbell in 2019
On Dec. 24, 2024, Steve Campbell died at 73. He was the owner of the Video Visions store in Chatham, NY, which he opened in 1984. Sometime around 2017 or 2018, I had been hearing a lot about his store from friends in a few different circles. It was a still-standing video rental superstore in Upstate NY. I was fascinated with this store, not even as a filmmaker but just from a curiosity / human interest standpoint. There are still video rental stores throughout America, but this particular one seemed bigger than some store with a small DVD section and selling other retail as well. At around this same time, my friends Mark and Scott reached out to me about working on a film project. This was about seven months after the unexpected death of my dear friend and producing partner Matt, who had worked at Video Horizons with me, Mark and Scott in the 90s / 00s. The idea of making a documentary about Video Visions wasn't just going to be a passion project for all of us who used to work at a video store together, but also a way to honor our friend who was a part of that same store.
the Video Visions storefront
I reached out to Steve, introduced myself and pitched the project to him. He was fully on-board. We traveled to Chatham, NY from Boston in Spring 2018 to film his store and interview him, as well as my friend Josh Johnson, director of the VHS doc Rewind This!. The store was an old-school video store with over 25,000 titles (that's across various formats like VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and laser disc). He kept all of their films. Steve looked at the store almost like his retirement project at a certain point: he owned the building, he was the only employee, the overhead was low - but he enjoyed interacting with customers and he looked at it as "his contribution to film". Later in 2018, we returned to film some more at the store and Steve was always supportive and welcoming.
sign at the counter of Video Visions when our doc premiered
My short documentary Video Visions showed how this wasn't just a novelty of a still-standing video rental store in the digital age, but that it was a very special place in the community as well as a gateway to film history. There are thousands and thousands of movies not available on streaming that were released on physical media and Steve held on to his library all those years. In October 2019, my film had it's World Premiere at FilmColmbia film festival in Chatham, NY just a few blocks away from the store. The audience response was tremendous and Steve joined me for the Q&A afterwards. Steve was really proud of it and after the screening there was a little party for the film at his store. He even made our DVD available to rent at his store.
the DVD available to rent at Video Visions in 2021
I checked in with Steve every so often just to see how he and the store were doing. Sadly, due to health issues he closed the store around 2022. He didn't permanently close it, just didn't open for business. There was some brief talk on social media when some cinephiles walked by the store and gleamed at it from the outside wishing they could go in. Last time Steve and I emailed was last year when he seemed uncertain about the future of the store, but kept the option open to possibly re-open in some capacity.
one of several aisles at Video Visions
As a physical media enthusiast, I have the utmost respect and admiration for Steve keeping his store open for as long as he did. At a time when so many video stores were closing and so many retailers were no longer carrying physical media, here was someone who wanted his robust movie collection available to the public and truly enjoyed talking to his patrons. From the customers I talked to and attendees at the film festival, this store was truly a special place for the community. On a personal level, I appreciate that he trusted me to make a film about his store. He even told me that our documentary was one of the highlights in the store's 38 year history!
I send my best to Steve's family, friends and the Video Visions customers. I certainly hope the store and/or the collection can also live on in some way.
Here is the obit.
Here is my short documentary Video Visions:
The Flopcast #466
Big thanks to my pals Kevin Eldridge and Kornflake who host The Flopcast podcast! I was actually a guest on episode 166 in July 2015! They talk about pop culture and all kinds of fun topics in a really funny way. Kevin was actually a Microproducer donor for my V66 documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 and they have mentioned the doc many times.
On the newest episode, they did a V66-themed episode to celebrate episode 466. In addition to talking about V66, they mentioned my V66 doc, gave me a shout out and also mentioned my short doc Video Visions! Big thanks Flopcast!
Check out the newest episode at the link above.
