The viewers can often be worse than the movies

Ever find yourself wandering around video stores, unable to find anything to watch?

God knows I do. In fact, I've been known to spend half an hour cruising the aisles, only to end up leaving empty-handed.

It's infuriating, and it's even harder when you're looking with someone else's tastes in mind.

In other words, whether or not my wife will be joining me will largely dictate whether I rent The Bourne Supremacy for the fifth time or The Jane Austen Book Club for the first.

I do find video stores fascinating, though. If you want to get an idea of the community you're living in, a video store is a good place to start.

With the exception of the Exclusive Brethren, just about everyone ends up in them at one time or another (for Brethren-watching, I recommend the airport). In fact, I can't think of an activity that gets more Nelsonians from all walks of life rubbing shoulders together more often than searching for DVDs.

You get everyone from pearl-wearing, Peugeot-driving festival film devotees to tattooed, hairy dudes in white gumboots looking for anything featuring men with guns on the cover.

The ones that worry me, however, are those Nelsonians who go in for what's now known as "gorenography" puerile trash featuring people being terrified, tortured, dismembered and murdered.

It's unbelievable how much of that stuff is around, and most of it goes straight to video.

I often despair at the way films like Hostel and Saw end up on screen at the State Cinema, but it's worse at video stores.

At least at the cinema, there is usually only one of them on at a time, and after a couple of weeks, they're gone. Down at your local video outlet, there are dozens of them, and they're practically there forever.

It wouldn't bother me so much if they weren't so in your face. Take a stroll around your video store's new releases, recent releases and recommended sections, and there are images of gore and horror all over the show.

The other day, our three-year-old pointed to one featuring a decapitated head on a set of scales and asked, "What's that, Daddy?". Luckily, he then said, "Is that a monkey's head?".

To which I replied, "That's right, it's funny monkey's head. Hey, look there's a dinosaur!". I mean, seriously, what sort of family-friendly business puts images like that out there where little ones can see them?

Mind you, it's not just the visuals that can be offensive. Spend long enough in one of those places and chances are you'll hear some disturbing stuff, too.

Earlier this century, I was looking for something to watch when the woman next to me said to her boyfriend, "I've never seen Schindler's List".

He replied, "It's mostly crap, but there is this one scene where this concentration camp commander gets out of bed, goes on to this balcony and just starts shooting Jews. It's awesome".

A couple of years later, I was in the same store when I heard a bloke say, "What about Jakob the Liar? It's got Robin Williams in it." His mate said, "Nah, it's about a Jew. Mind you, it's about a Jew in a concentration camp, and if you're going to watch a film about a Jew, it might as well be about one in a concentration camp".

They both laughed.

Anti-Semitism is revolting anywhere, but there is something particularly mindless about it in a place like Nelson. It's a bit like living in Botswana and hating Eskimos. Yet for all the unpleasantness that can come with spending too much time with complete strangers, inevitably meaningful encounters also come your way.

Like the time I was standing in line at the counter and noticed the woman in front of me studying the cover of a copy of Out of the Blue, the acclaimed film about the 1990 Aramoana massacre.

Her expression suggested she was having second thoughts about her choice.

Doing my bit for the New Zealand film industry, I said, "In case you're wondering, that's actually a very good film. It's really sensitively done".

The woman looked at me and said, "I've heard it's good. I've been putting it off, but I think I'm ready to watch it. I lost three friends that day."

- © Fairfax NZ News