The Archive Video Store in Aurora Shows “Physical Media Isn’t Dead”

“Coming in here every day, it takes me back in time,” says Theresa Mercado. “I feel like ‘Ahh…there’s a video store!'”

She’s standing in The Archive, a video store that opened in Aurora in October, surrounded by a sun-splashed aura of Jack-O-Lanterns and VHS boxes, masks and monsters, Alf posters and McDonald’s Halloween buckets. Mercado is already well known and much esteemed by Denver film fans as the ghoul boss of the long-running horror film series Scream Screen, and the newly minted shop at 1431 Dayton Street is equally certain to excite Mile High movie nuts.

Tucked away off East Colfax and packed with cinematic goodies, including oodles of VHS tapes and Blu-rays, the Archive is something of a hybrid. The location performs double duty as a retail and resale location for physical…