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On April 30th the DC metropolitan area loses one of its truly unique businesses when Video Vault in Old Town closes the door on its astonishing collection of movie rental rarities for the last time. Like so many long-running, specialty businesses in the area, Video Vault has finally succumbed to the perfect storm of online competitors and the economic downturn. Add to that Video Vault’s main business being the renting of out-of-print movies on VHS in an age when VCRs are quickly becoming collectors’ items in their own right, and their closing seems almost inevitable.
Like so many of their incredibly rare movies, after April 30th, Video Vault will soon be impossible to find. For the next month however, Video Vault is still open, still renting, and is now selling off their inventory of thousands of ultra-rare movies. If you are a movie fan and have never experienced Video Vault, I highly encourage you to go before the store is gone. Browsing Video Vault is entertainment in itself. They feature specialty sections full of eye-catching oddities, themed displays that are movie-geek mana such as Extreme Asian Horror or the Blind Dead collection, and of course the infamous Cult room; a vault within the Vault that features the titillating and taboo, a wonderful tribute to shock and schlock cinema that is unlike anything DC will ever see again.
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