Langley student creates a sidewalk Blockbuster

A Langley high school student has over 200 movies for you to borrow, but you might need to dust off the old VCR.

Matthew Reed, a grade 12 student, created a free sidewalk Blockbuster-style, movie share project for school. He’s been busy buying, collecting, and receiving donations of old school movies like “The Mask” with Canadian Actor Jim Carrey to fill up his movie rental box.

The little blue box can be found outside his house in Langley, where neighbours are invited to join in on the fun.

“You can take a movie, you can leave a movie, you can take as many videos as you like, and you can leave as many as you like,” said Reed.

Reed says there are no more Blockbuster stores left in Canada as they’ve been replaced by online streaming services, but when he was growing up, he frequented a Blockbuster in Walnut Grove.

Reed says that his version of Blockbuster is similar to the free neighbourhood libraries where books are shared, adding that community movie sharing boxes are common in the USA, but not so much here in Canada.

“I was the first one to make this in the B.C. area,” he said.

Only two other free Blockbusters exist in the country, both of which are in Alberta.

Reed started collecting VHS tapes just three years ago, and he already has over 300 movies in his collection, he’s even managed to find a working VCR.

“I collect movies, that’s one of my hobbies. I go to different thrift stores like every week, every month, and I usually purchase like a bunch of videos,” he said.

For his Blockbuster project, Reed has even gone as far as creating membership cards, but he it’s still free to rent the movies.

Luckily for renters, there aren’t any late fees. To learn more about where and how you can find Reed’s Blockbuster, and even get involved in the project, you can head to FREEBLOCKBUSTER.org.