The Alamo Drafthouse has long-devoted itself to preserving the less, let’s say, pretentious side of film history. Now, the company has announced that its latest theater venture, in Raleigh, North Carolina, will serve as a temple to that bulky bastion of glorious trash cinema: the humble VHS.
Inspired by the theater chain’s well-known Video Vortex series, the new location will combine a bar and restaurant with an old-school video store, albeit one with a significant twist: All the rentals from its stock of more than 75,000 titles will be free. The collection—born from the archives of legendary (and now-shuttered) San Francisco video store Le Video—will be available for free to all, to either watch in the store (on giant viewing tables made up to look like VHS tapes themselves) or at home. (And don’t worry if you threw your own cassette player in the garbage five or six moves ago; the company is offering rentals of the equipment, too.)
The date for Video Vortex’s grand opening is still TBA, but if you’re a movie buff in the Raleigh area, you might want to keep an eye out. (It’ll be the place with all the giant VHS tapes of Video Violence or Big Foot all over the place, in case you weren’t able to tell.)