Quite a bit has modified since movie lovers “saved” Scarecrow Video. This time final yr, Seattle’s flagship video retailer — dwelling to the world’s largest assortment of bodily media accessible to the general public — was doomed to close its doorways. Now, the Lynchian landmark has over one million {dollars} in donations and new govt management. They’re shifting the main focus from heroic Hail Mary funds to long-term sustainability, and never a second too quickly.
“If certainly Scarecrow shuttered and went out of enterprise, I’d really feel responsible without end,” mentioned govt director Jonathan Marlow. “I’d really feel horrible about that. And it’s the form of horrible that I wouldn’t recover from, you recognize what I imply? It will be just like the loss of life of an in depth pal.”
Financial sturdiness is a fancy objective your entire leisure trade is struggling to achieve, however Scarecrow’s small group of roughly 20 staffers and volunteers sums it up tidily with the moniker “S.O.S.” The slogan, seen across the retailer and throughout the Washington metropolis, is itself recycled. Final yr’s Save Our Scarecrow marketing campaign was about rallying individuals who love popular culture. This yr’s Maintain Our Scarecrow is about serving that “relentlessly native” neighborhood amid a worldwide media motion.
“You possibly can solely get saved as soon as,” mentioned director of improvement Tyler Mesman. “Individuals speak about neighborhood areas disappearing on a regular basis, but it surely’s superb to see simply how busy we’re on two-for-one Wednesdays. We’ve obtained extra folks behind us than ever earlier than. Now, the main focus is on what we do with all that enthusiasm and visibility and assist.”
Positioned in Seattle’s College District, Scarecrow Video navigated a minor disaster final week when a part of the constructing’s exterior crumbled. The injury to the facade seems principally beauty, however the risk to the priceless VHS tapes, DVDs, Blu-rays, and extra media locked inside was sufficient to shut the store for a number of days. Wealthy Grendzinski, certainly one of Scarecrow’s longest-tenured workers, responded with the drama the gathering deserves when he obtained a name from the fireplace division saying, “a wall had collapsed.”
“I considered battle motion pictures with bombed out buildings,” Grendzinski mentioned. “Once I obtained there, I used to be really relieved it was simply the brickwork and every little thing appeared high-quality, structurally.”
Scarecrow Video is a extremely valued useful resource. Dwelling to greater than 150,000 motion pictures and TV reveals, the gathering started in 1988, and the shop grew to become a nonprofit in 2014. Boasting well-known clientele from Roger Ebert to Quentin Tarantino, it was later deemed a cultural museum. Scarecrow’s rarest titles require a big deposit to take a look at. But when renters have $1,500 to place down, then they’ll borrow nearly unseen episodes of “Playhouse 90,” that includes Paul Newman and donated personally by director John Frankenheimer (“The Manchurian Candidate”). As a measure of its scope, shifting the gathering from the final handle to its present location took months of planning. Again then, it was a number of thousand titles lighter.
“We had been glad we had been in a position to reopen shortly,” Mesman mentioned of the current incident. “Our first buyer on Saturday clapped once they got here within the door.”
Earlier than becoming a member of Scarecrow management, Mesman was a patron who began looking out by way of the cabinets together with his husband after the pandemic. He stepped up through the authentic S.O.S. effort, when his expertise as an organizer for the 2016 Hillary Clinton marketing campaign dovetailed with the shop’s dire must rally public assist. Even then, Mesman knew that conserving the lights on was only the start of a fancy new chapter for the native establishment.
“S.O.S. faucets into this sense all through Seattle that our particular locations are disappearing, and that our metropolis is changing into sanitized in a approach,” mentioned Mesman. Rezoned for increased housing density lower than a decade in the past, the U District is among the many fastest-growing neighborhoods in a metropolis squeezed by the tech revolution. Scarecrow Video’s present lease extends by way of 2026.
“If we’re constructing long-term assist, then we will’t be in a cycle of growth and bust,” mentioned Mesman. “It’s what we do with that funding and the way we use it to unfold our message in new ways in which issues. That innovation, making relationships, is why Jonathan Marlow is such a great match for govt director.”
“You possibly can’t simply make these items accessible,” mentioned Marlow. “It’s a must to make folks care.”
When Marlow took over as prime guardian for the Scarecrow legacy, he drew from his expertise as a jack of many trades with a private gentle spot for the shop. He volunteered at certainly one of its earliest places in his 20s and labored at Amazon when it was a web based bookstore. A musician who discovered his solution to motion pictures by scoring silent movies, Marlow left Seattle to spend the final of the ‘90s in Berlin. He sharpened his programming expertise working for numerous Netflix rivals on the daybreak of the streaming age, and armed together with his data of dwell occasions, Marlow introduced his distinctive vantage level on the digital panorama to the place he holds now.
“In the event you take the entire streaming companies, all the most important companies which are on the market proper now, so Netflix, Prime, Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, every little thing, with all of that, they’ve lower than everything of what we had after we first moved to our present location,” mentioned Marlow. “All of that’s lower than 30,000 titles. We now have 5 instances that quantity.”
Curation is simple whenever you purchase every little thing, however organizing Scarecrow’s huge assortment may be robust. The shop doubles as an archive for movie historical past that numerous Seattle patrons name their “secure house.” In 2025, Marlow and Mesman say it’s additionally a touchstone for actuality.
“I take into consideration this job quite a bit by way of who will get to be the arbiter of fact,” mentioned Mesman. “Our job is to attract consideration to issues folks may not learn about. In contrast to different public media libraries which are being pilfered proper now, which are being censored, which are being torn asunder, nothing goes to go away our assortment. These are movies that deserve a spot within the public, identical to a library. We’re by no means going to evolve to regardless of the cultural headwinds are. We’re going to maintain it right here as a result of it’s a human creation that deserves to be seen.”
Regardless of a largely POC and queer clientele, lots of them youthful, Marlow mentioned Scarecrow Video isn’t a strictly “liberal” retailer. When the nonprofit fell on robust instances, its patrons didn’t “precisely rush out” to backfill ultra-conservative documentaries, Marlow admits. However that’s a difficulty of sensible priorities, not politics — they usually’ll get there. He remembered, as a youthful Scarecrow customer, questioning why the shop carried a Japanese laserdisc model of Disney’s “Track of the South,” not launched within the U.S. as a consequence of its racist content material.
“Isn’t it worse to fake it didn’t exist?” Marlow concluded. That notion informs most of the big-picture choices he makes brooding over Scarecrow’s cabinets. From its earliest days, the gathering has relied on non-public and native funds, successfully sidestepping the restrictions now dealing with numerous organizations utilizing cash from the Nationwide Training Affiliation (NEA) and Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). In the event that they had been a distinct form of nonprofit, Marlow mentioned, he “may be extra frightened” about backlash from the federal authorities. The revenge of the Trump administration has made Marlow’s job more durable, positive, but it surely hasn’t shaken his dedication to championing voices on each side of the film aisle.
“In the correct context, we’d like bullshit documentaries about chemtrails, even when it’s full and utter nonsense,” mentioned Marlow. “We’d like that as a result of there’s a time after we’re going to look again on it and go, ‘What does that say about us? What had been our preoccupations? Why had been we so fascinated with such absolute rubbish?’” On the planet movie division, Scarecrow’s determination to curate a bit for Palestinian filmmakers speaks for itself.
Requested why saving historical past can really feel so punk-rock, Marlow mentioned, “Since you noticed it. Since you had been there. That’s the place the so-called ‘punk’ aesthetic actually comes from.”
“It’s folks doing issues for themselves and never feeling like any individual else has to offer them permission to do it,” he mentioned. “In the event you spend just a few hours in Scarecrow, you’ll see it attracts the ‘different.’ We don’t have large posters for blockbusters. We’re selling the person imaginative and prescient and variety of style. We’re not judgmental, however we will actually embrace that ethos as a complete.”
Mesman continued, “It’s one of many purest home windows into seeing and understanding different folks’s lived experiences in a world that’s actually missing in empathy. Scarecrow is a spot the place you stroll in and it’s your inertia that leads you to the subsequent discovery. We’re going to curate issues in a really human approach the place you’re going to intrinsically uncover issues and make connections which are uniquely difficult to you.”
How audiences see themselves in media is a significant power for its preservation and promotion on-line. When S.O.S. first took off, Scarecrow didn’t simply elevate cash. It additionally spurred a lift in its digital following that social media supervisor Meghann Crafton remains to be attempting to harness as a lifeline for the model. The shop’s Instagram account gained greater than 8,000 followers previously yr — with supporters from world wide sharing how the gathering and its caretakers formed them.
“I really feel like bodily media is so vital in a time the place actuality is altering, not all the time for the higher,” mentioned Crafton. “Scarecrow is greater than only a place to return get a film. That is an precise neighborhood, and we would like it to be extra of 1.”
An enamel pin designer whose work is offered within the retailer, Crafton is aware of enjoying into private id is among the quickest methods to make a movie neighborhood develop. There’s been an enormous inflow of consumers asking for Scarecrow’s spin on the Criterion Assortment’s well-known “Closet Picks,” a video sequence by which big-name cinephiles choose their all-time favourite movies.
Defending as a lot style schlock because it does severe cinematic fare, Scarecrow’s catalog is way bigger than that. Effervescent with enthusiasm for a porn part she curated herself, Crafton is set to translate the shop’s irreverent and natural really feel to creating suggestions on the web. Quickly approaching its one hundredth episode, “VIVA! Bodily Media” is Scarecrow’s YouTube discuss present devoted to discussing the shop by way of its eccentric forged of regulars.
“I really feel like I’m seeing lots of people on Letterboxd who’re watching motion pictures as a result of they assume they want to observe them,” mentioned Crafton. “I noticed one one who watched ‘Citizen Kane,’ and their overview of it was, ‘Effectively, now, I’ve seen “Citizen Kane.”’ They don’t have anything else to say about it. That stereotypical pretentious Letterboxd persona isn’t a great factor. It’s making having fun with movie appear holier-than-thou and extra difficult than it must be.”
Evaluating streaming to scrolling by way of a relationship app, Crafton deserted her subscription companies when Scarecrow helped her notice she didn’t should settle. Watching “Mad Fats Diary” on Hulu, Crafton was horrified to find simply how completely different the British dramedy felt with out the U.Okay. music rights. Streaming platforms are sometimes falsely accused of altering or censoring authentic materials due to the varied official variations they provide. But when Daryl Hannah’s digitally rendered butt wig — used to chop down on the already PG-rated nudity in “Splash” for Disney+ — tells us something, that’s not all the time the case.
“Even with all this bleakness, I really feel like there’s a silver lining in remembering why we love this materials, why we love speaking about it, and why we don’t need it to magically change,” mentioned Crafton. Affordability is a significant barrier for brand spanking new bodily media collectors, who usually get caught battling resellers who’re explicitly intent on driving up the value. Rental shops circumvent that problem, discovering bittersweet camaraderie in absence that makes the center develop fonder.
“There are individuals who are available right here each week, and I look ahead to seeing them,” mentioned Crafton. “After they don’t are available, I ponder the place they’re.”
Regardless of carrying many titles in a number of codecs, Scarecrow can’t protect what by no means will get a bodily launch. Consequently, numerous straight-to-streaming originals may nonetheless be misplaced to the form of tax breaks Warner Bros. used to decimate the HBO Max catalogue in 2023. That’s an actual impediment dealing with cinephiles decided to protect every little thing, however considerably of a aid to Scarecrow supervisor Grendzinski.
When he’s not answering 9 a.m. telephone calls from Seattle firefighters in regards to the retailer’s structural integrity, he worries endlessly in regards to the ever-expanding assortment and its measurement. Strolling by way of the aisles, Grendzinski took IndieWire by way of the much-loved Psychotronic Room — a secure haven for the “weirdest of the bizarre” cinema has to supply — and identified what was as soon as the 20-seat microcinema Scarecrow used to promote out. (That was earlier than the Comedy and Drama sections overran it.)
The workers has curated numerous particular applications worthy of group viewings, and Marlow mentioned he desires to convey screenings again. In the meantime, the highest brass remains to be laborious at work pushing Scarecrow’s rent-by-mail service and launching the shop’s return drop packing containers throughout Seattle this summer season. They’re additionally preventing the numbers to worker extra of us full time, aligning themselves with different video rental shops (Marlow shouted out Vidiots in Los Angeles) to create a flourishing community of bodily media defenders. It’s all an indication Scarecrow Video is discovering the elusive sustainability it seeks, even when some cinephiles have the identical fears as earlier than.
“I’ll stroll round city and typically folks will likely be like, ‘Hey, it’s the Scarecrow man!’ That’s all the time good, figuring out folks have your again,” mentioned Grendzinski. “The issue is I nonetheless don’t know the place we’re going to place all of it.”