A new video store is opening in Williamsburg, like an 'uncanny valley Blockbuster'

New Yorkers who long for the days of browsing video stores to find their next watches are in luck: Night Owl Video, an ode to movies and the people who love them enough to collect them, opens at 288 Grand St. in Williamsburg on April 11.

Owners Aaron Hamel, 35, and Jess Mills, 39, moved to New York in 2012 for its independent film scene. As teenagers living on opposite sides of the world — Mills in Sydney, Australia and Hamel in the Detroit metropolitan area — they fell in love with movies by shopping at their local Blockbusters. Now, they hope to bring the video store experience back to Brooklyn, filling the shoes of erstwhile institutions like Videology and Kim’s Video.

Physical media is Night Owl's bread and butter. Initially, Hamel and Mills plan to just sell movies (everything from VHS to the current 4K UHD titles), though they hope to one day offer rentals, too. They’ll also be selling movie memorabilia, posters, vinyl soundtracks, pins, shirts and hats.

“ We want it to be an experience to come into the store and browse the shelves like you did back in the day,” Mills said. “ The idea of being able to find something new purely on the cover art or because of a blurb is much more exciting than finding a listing on Amazon.”

They’ve partnered with New York-based candle studio Mise en Scènt and the company Cinephile, which makes children’s books with titles including “A is for Auteur” and “My First Giallo Horror.” Next to a magazine stand sporting issues of Fangoria and Gorezone is a rack of vintage movie posters that Hamel picked up on a recent trip to Japan.

If you’re wondering how such a store could possibly survive in a world ruled by streamers, Hamel has ideas. For one, streaming is ephemeral and, in his words, “Physical media is forever.” He also saw the rise of analog firsthand when he co-founded Ship to Shore, a record label that released video game music on vinyl. He’s using some of his earnings from selling that company to open Night Owl Video.

“ I think that these Blu-rays and 4Ks, these new editions, are sort of where vinyl records were 15 years ago,” Hamel said. “There's no question it's a niche market, but that niche is passionate, rabid and is growing all the time.”

The store's large stock of VHS tapes — priced starting at $5 each and partially sourced from Hamel’s private collection — will certainly appeal to film geeks of a certain age and Y2K-core youngsters, but Mills and Hamel are under no illusion that the average New Yorker still owns a VCR.

“The store is inspired by nostalgia, but it is far from our main ethos,” Mills said. “Our store is meant to celebrate movies in all their forms, no matter the format.”

Mills and Hamel know how to stretch a dollar, too. They met working for the New York-based B movie company Troma Entertainment and brought that scrappy work ethic to Night Owl, sourcing their furniture from Facebook Marketplace and hand-painting the entire store purple and yellow to evoke what Mills describes as “an uncanny valley Blockbuster.” Old TV sets throughout the store play gems from their collection, like “C.H.U.D. II” and a compilation of old “I Want My MTV” bumpers.

Certainly, expert clerk recommendations are among the things missing from the modern streaming experience, and Mills and Hamel — for now the store’s sole staffers — are up to the task. When asked about notable titles in their collection, Hamel immediately launched into a rapturous explanation of “New York Ninja,” a lost film from 1984 that the home video distributor Vinegar Syndrome completed and released almost 40 years later, in 2021. Hamel describes it as “something of a miracle.”

“I think that the creation of any movie, large or small, is a huge undertaking,” Hamel said. “I really have a lot of respect for anybody who takes a movie from conception to completion, and I think that physical media is a way to enshrine that work.”