The municipality of Saint-Lin–Laurentides, in Lanaudière, has all the appearances of small communities typical of Quebec. In the center, the large stone church stands next to a Desjardins caisse, with a few houses with an ancestral character here and there. In this immutable decor, a surprising vision, which we thought had disappeared forever, emerges: a Videotron Superclub.
Inside, the comforting smell of buttered popcorn greets the visitor. In the aisles, where there are hundreds of DVDs and which are separated into traditional comedy, action, drama or TV series sections, posters advertise three new movies for $13.99, or three movies for seven days at $6.99. The place, which clings to a fading era, attracts a few pilgrims.
Serge Brissette and Johanne Therrien, who came from Joliette, wanted to see the place with their own eyes. “I said to him: yes, it still exists. I sent him a photo yesterday, and then we said we’d go for a walk, ”says the woman in her sixties, who searches among the dozens of DVDs on sale. “There is a nostalgic side. »
The place is reminiscent of the ritual of strolling through the aisles looking at covers and reading film summaries, then choosing a few and listening to them with family or friends. Only two Videotron stores offering movie rentals are still in operation in Quebec, the second being in Mont-Laurier.
“We are fighting among ourselves to be the last one open,” jokes the owner in Saint-Lin–Laurentides, Chantal Lortie, who has owned the building for more than 20 years. Previously a cinema with several hundred seats, the remains of which are still present in the basement, the place has always been associated with films by the local population.
“It’s gonna sound funny [ce que je vais dire], but there were church porches, and then there were video clubs, she says. I’ve seen dozens of customers walk in here, bump into a friend, chat, and not even have time to rent a movie. People on Friday nights, talking between two aisles, I’ve seen that countless times. »
The one who is also a municipal councilor has sometimes done things big with her husband. At the launch of the fourth part of the saga Twilight, about ten years ago, she rented a grand piano and hired the services of a pianist, who had learned the songs from the film. “There were 350 people in the store,” she recalls. To highlight the arrival of video games Call of Duty: Infinite Warfarethe couple commandeered vehicles in the colors of the army, veterans and a squadron of cadets, and organized several spectacular stagings inside and outside the store.
“What makes me the saddest are the generations that will not experience this,” laments Chantal Lortie. Going to rent a movie was a social event. »
Porn sections
With the video stores inevitably came the discrete sections of adult films, which the owners tried to hide from the gaze of the youngest. On rue Ontario, between rue Berri and rue Saint-Hubert, the former DVDO was particularly known for its gigantic section of pornographic films, which had its own counter with attendants and its independent exit in the building.
“The bosses were rigid about who could work there. They were not particularly comfortable with the idea of girls working in this section, because they did not trust the customers, recalls Ariane Brisson, 35, who worked in the ordinary section there several years ago, when she was studying at CEGEP. A girl worked there, but she had a looks really punk and rough. »
“As a relaxed job, the video club scored high,” she adds, laughing. Employees picked out movies that played on in-store TV screens and listened to them with distracted ears, serving customers. The address of the latter was registered in the computers, and Ariane Brisson remembers a rumor which circulated then concerning the owner of the DVDO, who was exasperated when the customers did not return the rented films. “According to this rumor, he landed directly at people’s homes to tell them that they had our films,” she says.
The one who now has two children misses the ritual of in-store movie rentals and the bond that developed between employees and customers. “For my daughters, a video store is something a bit abstract,” she says.
The good old videotape
Over the past few decades, DVDs have replaced videocassettes. Online broadcasting platforms then took over. Some irreducible braves, like Jonathan Fillion, still prefer to listen to films on cassettes.
“I’ve always loved cinema, it brings back memories,” says the 45-year-old man who manages the Facebook page “Le shack à Johnny”, which brings together enthusiasts. It has an impressive collection of more than 10,000 video cassettes, as well as about fifteen video recorders.
“In the past, convenience stores, like my uncle’s, had VHS for rent,” he recalls. “I knew the period when, when we arrived at the video store, all the copies of the film that we wanted to see had been rented and we had to put ourselves on a waiting list,” he adds with a laugh.
In Facebook groups that The duty consulted, thousands of enthusiasts sell and buy precious videocassettes. These usually cost between $2 and $5, but some go for $25 or $100, and sometimes even exceed $300. “VHS that are not available on DVD and that are dubbed in French cost more, and also VHS of horror films from the 1970s and 1980s,” explains Jonathan Fillion.
There were no filters in video stores. You could discover his cinephilia out of nothing.
Mathieu Lavigne, another 35-year-old cinephile who owns several hundred VHS, in addition to listening to films on other media, has always liked to manipulate covers by looking, for example, for the most gory or the loudest.
“There were no filters in video stores,” he says. You could discover his cinephilia out of nothing. There are movies that will never be on Netflix, he adds. “The video store let you rent whatever you wanted whenever you wanted,” he says. Unlike a distribution platform that will tell you, for example, that from December 31, it loses a distribution agreement. »