Walking into Killer Video in downtown Akron is like taking a time machine to a video rental store circa 1996. Only at this video store, nothing is for rent.
Tucked inside the sprawling and foreboding Selle Building, Killer Video is a museum and gallery devoted to all things horror.
It’s chocked full of ghoulish treasures. Movie posters for “Critters” and “The Blob.” Large cardboard standees for “Gremlins 2” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.” A lightbox for “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3.” Plus, issues of Fangoria magazine, vintage Halloween blow molds, old McDonald’s Halloween buckets and an especially creepy Chucky doll.
And then there are the videos: approximately 1,700 VHS tapes spanning the entire horror genre. One wall is devoted to films with “of the dead” in their titles, another to movies about “creepy crawlies.”
The museum — and everything in it — belongs to Jonathon Carmichael. A self-described “100% across the board nerd,” Carmichael, 44, grew up in the video rental era when Blockbuster was king. (Or, in Carmichael’s case, Roadrunner Video in the Portage Lakes area.)
“The ritual of renting movies was like a pillar of our family and my childhood and my young adult [life]. And it was one of those things to where horror was ultimately what I went after,” he said. “It was like the forbidden fruit.”
Carmichael continued, “If you talk to a lot of people about what they love about video rental or what connects them, [it’s] seeing things before you should have.”
“Shared trauma,” said Erika Fritz with a laugh.
Fritz is Carmichael’s partner and the co-owner of Killer Video. The two reconnected when Carmichael moved back to Ohio a couple years ago. Michael Tolva serves as the director of development.
Before starting Killer Video, Carmichael worked as a sales manager in California for Manhattan Beach Studios, the production company behind “Avatar” and “The Mandalorian.”
“When we first reconnected, he said, ‘Oh, I’m a collector,’” Fritz said. “And I was like, ‘Hoarder?’”
When asked when Carmichael started collecting, Tolva was the first to respond. “He still has his umbilical cord,” Tolva said, earning laughs from his friends and business partners.
Killer Video serves up old-school horror nostalgia
The collecting bug did bite Carmichael early, though. Some of the posters in Killer Video are from his childhood rental store, Roadrunner Video. In one case sits Carmichael’s collection of vintage My Pet Monster stuffed animals. Among them is a photo of Carmichael as a kid. He’s covered in chicken pox and surrounded by the same My Pet Monster critters that are now on view.
Killer Video is unapologetically nostalgic. At a time when streaming is king, the museum is a trip down memory lane of the video rental age.
“When you can walk through an exhibit of it, it’s not just the title of the movie that was once your favorite movie when you were a kid. It’s the act of walking the aisles, that physicality of being there,” Tolva said. “It’s an even greater sense of experience.”
The experience seems to be paying off. Since opening in November, Carmichael said the response has been “exceedingly awesome.”
“My biggest hurdle of visitors is the other dedicated collectors. I’ve been nervous about people coming in and being like, ‘This looks like my basement.’ But even the seasoned collectors have truly enjoyed [it],” he said.
The museum is open Friday through Sunday for guided tours. The team has also found success hosting special events including film screenings, monthly horror trivia nights and dead media markets where vendors sell VHS tapes, DVDs, vinyl records, cassettes and more.
“We didn’t know if it would [succeed], but we’ve seen other successful horror-based businesses, and there is a community for it. What it took to give us a better chance is to do it the right way, to take the time to think things through with what we were delivering as a museum,” Carmichael said. “That has been, I think, what has allowed for us to have such a rocket blast of success so far with the exposure and the enjoyment.”
Killer Video
453 S. High St. #102
killer-video.com
Hours:
Friday: 5 – 10 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: Noon to 10 p.m.
Admission: $15
