How to Spot a Bad Movie Rental

It is Friday night and you want to watch something good. He last few movies you have rented didn't have a budget over ten dollars and a sack of door knobs. Why do you keep picking the same F-grade movies?

I'll tell you why, because we want you to. I've been in video retail, that's a nice way of saying crappy underpaying register monkey job, for some time and we (video industry) are totally running a scam.

The rental industry gets you in the store with the big titles then to fill the space we dump a bunch of cheap crap in. Yet the good movie and the bad one are the same price. The catch is the bad movie costs us next to nothing. Often there are deals we get if we buy a certain amount.

If you run a video store this makes perfect sense. If you just want to watch something where you cannot see the boom mike this sucks. You would think someone like the seventeen year old who checked you out would have warned you. Nope our bosses ask us not to do that, usually. Every film is good...in its own sense. I disagree and I am sure you do as well.

So here are some helpful tips designed to make sure you never go home with "Dracula 3000" again.

Tip #1

Look on the side of the box where the company logo is usually at. If you see the letters "mti," quietly pull out your gun and shoot the movie. Nothing this company makes will ever rank above a "Jaws 4."

Lions Gate Home Entertainment is not to be trusted either. They do make good films, those go to theaters. The rest they go straight to video, meaning bad.

Q: Why do stores even bother to carry these films?

A: They cost one to three dollars American each. They rent for much more. So the store only need rent this movie once to get its money back. This means way more money for the store. Although you have wasted a few hours of your life and are short four bucks.

Tip #2

Avoid titles like: "The _________," "Killer _________," "Creature __________." Mad lib titles like these will never be worth taking home. Just say the title in your head a few times and imagine taking this movie home to your girlfriend. She will read the title, and then have to sit through the thing. Thus assuring that you will not be having sex with her.

Tip #3

Ask the clerk, the underpaid whelp behind the register, if he would ever watch a certain film. Granted the movie could still be bad, but at least you know another human being was able to survive through it.

Tip #4

Check the "Used movie section" where the store sells off its previously rented inventory. If you see movies marked down under five dollars ask yourself why. If one titles has like four million copies collecting dust you can be sure no one rented it either. If a section of select titles are "buy two get one free," or "half off" it is easy to guess that they suck-hard.

Tip #5

Identify someone in the movie. Ever hear of Layton Matthews? Nope me either and it is a good bet anything he is a star in will cause cancer. Even the smallest stars will help to move the movie from bad to good. If you can't locate anyone, not even a writer, producer, or director, it's a safe bet you will doge a bullet sitting this one down.

Tip #6

Attractive women on the box are used to distract you from the description and cast. There are better outlets for attractive women, since you are already in a video store check out the back room for that. These women are usually doing something hypersexual and might not even be in the movie.

These tips should make it so that anytime you go home with a bad movie it is personal opinion and not a fact written in stone. After seeing them for years bad movies stick out like a sore thumb to me. It might not be so easy for you because they try the best to blend in. Featuring attractive women on the box is a wonderful sales tactic, but doesn't always make for a good film. When in doubt ask the clerk chances are he has either seen it or would never watch it in a million years. Making six bucks an hour what reason would they have to lie?