The Inconveniences of watching rental movies

[Brendan M.]

Renting scratched movies sucks. Especially since I use netflicks and you have to mail it back and wait for another one. This doesn't happen very often though, but its still irritating when you're really focused in on the movie and all of a sudden it skips or stops playing completely. This happened to me over the weekend when I was watching Inside. Great bloody movie. Then right when it started getting exciting before the climax, it just fucking STOPS! The disc didn't even look that bad either. Luckily enough, I popped it into my computer, it froze a tiny bit at the same part and then kept going without a problem, so I was forturnate enough to see the rest. But still, it's a great inconvience to have to get up and turn it off and on again.

But the WORST experience I ever had when renting a movie was when I had a subscription to Blockbuster.com. Besides their deliveries being slower than netflicks, I had rented Story of Rikki once and when I got it, it was the right envelope but some fucking jackass who had rented it before me fucking switched the disc with another movie. A cheap mexican exploitation film called Night of the Bloody Apes with a guy in a monkey costume raping women. I had nothing better to do so I tried watching it but kept falling asleep during it so I stopped bothering.

I report the problem on the web site, ask for another one when I send it back, and besides it taking a long time for them to get it, they fucking send me back the same fucking movie! No joke. They eventually sent me the right one out of the blue one day when I reported the problem again sending it back without asking for another copy, but the wait was just not worth it. I refuse to use blockbuster.com ever again.

[TheJadedGamer]

Netflix can suck my balls. I stayed a month on their three-out program and I literally got to watch only six movies due to the fact it took a week and a half for more films to show up. At least I could have used my Blockbuster ones to exchange for movies in the store and I got more in the mail about two days after I exchanged them.

Am I biased because I work at Blockbuster? No, because I hate the damn place.

And now I must see Night of the Bloody Apes.

[Brendan M.]

Netflix can suck my balls. I stayed a month on their three-out program and I literally got to watch only six movies due to the fact it took a week and a half for more films to show up. At least I could have used my Blockbuster ones to exchange for movies in the store and I got more in the mail about two days after I exchanged them.

Am I biased because I work at Blockbuster? No, because I hate the damn place.

And now I must see Night of the Bloody Apes.

Maybe I lived closer to the netflicks that I have, but I get my movies within literally it seems like two days. The problem you have with netflicks was the problem I had with blockbuster. Plus the store is out of the way for me. The closest movie rental store to me used to be Hollywood video till it went out of business.

[Brendan M.]

And regarding Night of the Bloody Apes, it had one of the cheapest, most laughable gore effect I've ever seen in a movie. The Man-Ape is supposed to tear the hair off the scalp of his victim's head. The way they did this was by putting some blood on the guy's bald spot, and having the gorilla slowly peel the toupee off the top of his head.

And if that doesn't sound bad...

This cheap Mexican horror film is a remake of Cardona's Doctor of Doom (1962), spiced with nudity, medical footage, women wrestling, and cheap gore shots. Female masked wrestler Lucy (who looks like the devil) beats the stuffing out of an opponent - a wrestling lady with a red costume like Catwoman. Lucy finally hurls her opponent from the squared circle and knocks her out cold. Although Lucy's cop boyfriend tries to convince her that it's all part of the show, Lucy can no longer handle the stress of wrestling. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (Dr. Krellman) attempts to cure his son's leukemia by doing the first 'ape-to-human' heart transplant. He decides to put a gorilla's heart into the lad and orders his flunky to "prepare the gorilla!". There is actual footage of a graphic open heart surgery inserted in the ape operation scenes. This of course causes the boy to turn into a big stinky man-ape. He becomes deformed and mutated, as he sprouts excessive facial hair and takes on the characteristics of the organ's donor, who immediately goes on a bloody rampage, tearing clothes off women and faces off men.

[MisterChristian]

DVD has never been a rental-friendly product.

[TheJadedGamer]

Maybe I lived closer to the netflicks that I have, but I get my movies within literally it seems like two days. The problem you have with netflicks was the problem I had with blockbuster. Plus the store is out of the way for me. The closest movie rental store to me used to be Hollywood video till it went out of business.

Well, I guess that might be it. I know I live only one state away from the Kentucky distribution center.

DVD has never been a rental-friendly product.

Quoted for truth.

[Brendan M.]

Another reason I didn't like blockbuster.com was when I'd rent a number of old or rare foreign flicks. The site would say they're available but then they'd never send them.

[TheJadedGamer]

Another reason I didn't like blockbuster.com was when I'd rent a number of old or rare foreign flicks. The site would say they're available but then they'd never send them.

That only happened to me once with Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl.

[bigred760]

I don't use Netflix, I barely rent from Blockbuster. I try to see movies in the theater, and then if I think it's worth seeing again . . . I buy the damn thing. But I'd rather just go to Blockbuster than use Netflix.

[sirdizzy]

Another reason I didn't like blockbuster.com was when I'd rent a number of old or rare foreign flicks. The site would say they're available but then they'd never send them.

Thats because they won't send a movie more than 2 states away. I had this problem with Blockbuster.com, they would only ship out of 3 distribution centers Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver. So even though it said available online they would never send me what I wanted. I had 3 movies to go on finishing the AFI 100 and thats all I wanted, after 2 months of frustration where they would always skip those 3 movies from my queue and send me something else I completely emptied my queue except for those three movies. Guess what they did they sent me nothing, absolutely nothing for a month tell I cancelled my subscription.

I sent them numerous emails and always got back a canned response that to further assist their customers and to make sure that they got movies in a timely manner they would sometimes skip movies in a queue to make sure you got movies within a certain amount of time. I would send back emails saying hey this is all I want I don't bloody care how long it takes to get to me ship me these movies. I always got back the same canned reply though. I eventually sent them an email quoting their emails saying this is what you will say do not say it again and I still got the same reply back.


I am back to netflix and love it, I use the watch it now feature almost as much as I watch movies they send me. I went to the 2 a month because I can use the watch it now feature and it works beautifully.

[The Postmaster General]

DVD has never been a rental-friendly product.


Compared to what? Playing a VHS tape half through and realizing your VCR has just caught the equivalent of an electronic STD because some nimrod touched the tape with goo-fingers half way through The River's Edge?



Eh, the only problem I have with renting movies is with Netflix you have to use two rentals to get the movie and the special features. I live in a major city, so I usually have my movies back within 48 hours. Once I got a movie that was cracked, but that's out of probably 200 rentals.

[Brendan M.]

Thats because they won't send a movie more than 2 states away. I had this problem with Blockbuster.com, they would only ship out of 3 distribution centers Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver. So even though it said available online they would never send me what I wanted. I had 3 movies to go on finishing the AFI 100 and thats all I wanted, after 2 months of frustration where they would always skip those 3 movies from my queue and send me something else I completely emptied my queue except for those three movies. Guess what they did they sent me nothing, absolutely nothing for a month tell I cancelled my subscription.

I sent them numerous emails and always got back a canned response that to further assist their customers and to make sure that they got movies in a timely manner they would sometimes skip movies in a queue to make sure you got movies within a certain amount of time. I would send back emails saying hey this is all I want I don't bloody care how long it takes to get to me ship me these movies. I always got back the same canned reply though. I eventually sent them an email quoting their emails saying this is what you will say do not say it again and I still got the same reply back.


I am back to netflix and love it, I use the watch it now feature almost as much as I watch movies they send me. I went to the 2 a month because I can use the watch it now feature and it works beautifully.

So that's the problem with blockbuster, not enough fucking movies at each place of distribution. Movies I couldn't get off blockbuster, I'm now getting off netflicks.

[HoyleHaw]

FINALLY! I knew I had shit to rant about that other people would understand and relate to!

Admittedly, it's been a while since I got one of those scratched-up DVDs that has trouble playing. If they're bad enough, I request another back. DVDs are kinda shitty anyway in that a VHS you know might not be the best quality or perform to a certain standard, but it won't stop on you, and if it's distorted, that's age. I buy new DVDs that have little glitches in scenes that were there when I got it and they'll be there the next time I see it, too.

Movies in the mail sometimes come snapped in two. That's okay, because a certain amount of risk is involved anyway. Send it back and ask for another. But there's a problem I've encountered a couple of times that should be equal to the broken disk, but gets me more. That's when I get the disk, I guess something magnetic got near it. But anyway, the disk is completely blank. Won't play. And my confusion regarding the mystery behind that makes it all the more frustrating.

No one's going to convince me Blu-Ray is going to fix some of the quirks inherent in DVDs. As for quality, I have no complaints, lest I feel nostalgic for the VHS I grew up on. For the most part DVDs I own work alright, with one minor glitch. The Hi-Def thing reminds me of how frustrating it is when my computer becomes obsolete. Sometimes I hate technology.

Oh, well. I still use CDs because I'm not at risk of losing all my songs if my computer crashes. In a day when the latest in technology is the ability to load every electronic entertainment device into one compact phone, I like to exercise my right to use ten-year-old technology to achieve that same end.

[Brendan M.]

Movies in the mail sometimes come snapped in two. That's okay, because a certain amount of risk is involved anyway. Send it back and ask for another. But there's a problem I've encountered a couple of times that should be equal to the broken disk, but gets me more. That's when I get the disk, I guess something magnetic got near it. But anyway, the disk is completely blank. Won't play. And my confusion regarding the mystery behind that makes it all the more frustrating.

Wow, none of those have ever happened to me. And hopefully never will.

[ERIN_LoJ]

Yeah, it is the worst. Years back I remember renting The Ugly from Netflix, having wanted to see it for awhile. The movie worked fine, but then fucked up and quit playing during THE LAST TEN MINUTES. Yes, the most important part of this movie.

[joeyatog]

I've been using Netflix for 6 or 7 years now and have had almost no issues with them. I've only had one disc that was unplayable out of hundreds. And the turnaround time is about 48 hrs. If I mail it on Monday I will get another on Wednesday. I realize that this is probably because I live so close to the distribution center so I guess I am lucky. There is an inherent risk in renting movies though. There is always a chance the movie will be messed up...it's been like that since the VHS days.