Why Best Buy Shutting Off Physical Media Doesn’t Matter, Especially To Horror Fans [Fright-A-Thon]

Horror movie fans and physical media fans in general shouldn’t worry about Best Buy closing their doors to Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD discs. The news came out yesterday and was confirmed today by Best Buy that sometime in 2024, they would halt the sale of physical discs for everything besides video games. For most fans out there, particularly horror fans, the sale of physical discs at places like Target, Best Buy, and other big box stores shouldn’t matter. The most they were doing for us was putting out standard versions of horror movies in new packaging. If you could get it at Best Buy, you could get it on Amazon, or from a smaller store like OrbitDVD or DiabolikDVD. Both of those places had a much larger selection of titles than Best Buy could.

The reality of the situation is that collecting horror movies on Blu-ray was never about going to Best Buy anyway. Sure, you could go in and grab a copy of a movie from a place like Scream Factory sometimes, but most of the time it was just whatever version that a studio put out of a movie. For collectors, it’s not a dilemma because we want the special editions. We want special features, commentaries, extras, and all the cool things that don’t go into those barebones studio releases.

Anyone saying that the sky is falling or that physical media is dying because of this is just flat-out wrong. For boutique labels (you can read here if you don’t know what that term means), the profits are at an all-time high. Places like Scream Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, Culture Shock, and others are all putting out fantastic releases that horror collectors can enjoy to the fullest.

Is it annoying not to be able to walk into a physical store and grab a movie on the day of release? Sure. However, in the case of Best Buy, the reason to walk in and grab a movie these days was their SteelBooks. Now, they don’t even have that going for them. Paramount had already shifted exclusive SteelBooks to Amazon. Other studios likely would have followed. BestBuy made it hard to get these in-store, and for really in-demand SteelBooks, they were almost impossible. When you cut that out; what’s the difference between Best Buy and any other store? Not a whole lot.

It’s a sign of the times, but it’s also a sign of where physical media is going. Take a look at CDs, Vinyl, or even before the DVD was invented. Streaming is a thing that exists and has captured the casual audience’s attention. Where people would have to go into a Best Buy before to grab a DVD copy of Finding Nemo, now you can just stream it on Disney+. Sure, that sucks that there might not be as many regular releases of movies coming to disc, but the movies that horror fans want, they were already a niche market. A niche market that is now printing money.

We’re getting box sets for The Toxic Avenger, Puppet Master, Empire Films, and more. These are all movies that would never sniff getting a release in Best Buy, most likely. So, if you’re in the market for collecting movies like this, once again, it doesn’t matter. Go out and spend your money at places that cater to your collecting interests. Places that have movies in stock that you care about, with care put into them. At the end of the day, Best Buy had a selection of movies and TV on disc, but none that really mattered for horror fans.

For more on Horror, make sure to check out THS Fright-A-Thon, the Halloween content marathon!

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