But one element that has remained constant in the ebb and flow of Atlanta’s film culture is John Robinson.

A fixture for the past 20 years at the city’s last remaining video store, Videodrome in Old Fourth Ward, Robinson, 56, is a familiar face to local film lovers.

“Customers are sometimes visibly disappointed if he’s not behind the counter,” said Videodrome owner Matt Booth.

Credit: Jordan Kady

Credit: Jordan Kady

In truth, “John was a local celebrity way before he worked at Videodrome,” said Booth. “He was a fixture at several iconic Atlanta businesses —Tortillas, Movies Worth Seeing and MJQ. If anything, he gave Videodrome a bit more stature and legitimacy when he started working with us.”

Robinson’s love of film didn’t come easy. He grew up in Dunwoody in an evangelical family that forbid moviegoing.

“That kind of Christianity; it’s like you’re saved, you’re going to heaven, but the guilt,” he said, was crushing. The fear of “stepping out of line” was intense and kept him from doing anything that would court damnation.

“I didn’t have any cultural education at all,” he admitted.

Instead, he got his film fix secondhand by having a friend who had cable recount the plot lines, the music and all the key details of the movies he watched.

Robinson recalled watching the 1980 film “Times Square” in his 20s and thinking, “This all seems so familiar. I know this song. I used to sing this song with my friend.” He realized he was remembering the details of the film his childhood buddy had shared with him.

Robinson went on to attend Georgia State University where he took every film class he could, though a film major wasn’t an option at the time. After a stint at Tortillas restaurant, another gathering spot for the young and hip, he got his dream job at the Morningside video store Movies Worth Seeing where he was schooled in film by other staff members. They turned him on to filmmakers like Ozu and Kurosawa. The store shut down in 2011 after a 25-year run.

With its closure, and that of Blast-Off Video after the death of owner Sam Patton, Videodrome was left carrying on the tradition of the video store as a gathering place for the city’s cineasts, though with a more cult film focus.

Credit: Jordan Kady

Credit: Jordan Kady

More than just a video store, Videodrome is a film clubhouse where people spend hours communing with the staff about a shared obsession with underground, cult, foreign and every other permutation of cinema. Videodrome even has a stable of volunteers who help out just for the pleasure of being around fellow film fans.

Robinson is a vintage hipster whose hair may have gone full salt but whose film love springs eternal. He’s the kind of rabid cinephile whose idea of a celebrity sighting is Robbie Ryan, the cinematographer for “Poor Things” filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, who stopped by Videodrome one day. Like a cinematic doula, Robinson helps customers track down rarities like the 1975 cult film “Manila in the Claws of Light” that Robinson helped a precocious 8-year-old find.

“Working at Videodrome is basically like having a running conversation with each customer as they browse the store and ultimately pick a film or two, and John is one of the best at this,” said Booth.

Robinson is also a DJ who goes by the name Gnosis. And when he isn’t performing or working at the store, he can be found introducing film screenings at the Plaza Theatre and the Tara Theatre where Videodrome hosts regular movie nights dubbed Plazadrome and Taradrome.

This fall Robinson, who lived for a short time in Japan, programmed the “Haunted Japan: From Folk Legend to Urban Legend” series at the Tara, including “Kwaidan,” which screens on Nov 12. In June he collaborated on a wildly successful series of pre-Hollywood Production Code films, which packed houses, attesting to the city’s thirst for eclectic film programming. That program was so popular, Videodrome is planning another series of pre-Code movies, as well as a series of Soviet sci-fi films.

Credit: Janus Films

Credit: Janus Films

Robinson has played a role in Atlanta’s phoenix-like rise as a film town where a new generation of fans raised on Letterbxd and Twitch are forming film viewing clubs across the city like ATL Film Party (@atlfilmparty) and Audio Video Club (@audio_video_club). They’re catching outdoor screenings at 97 Estoria and flocking to special screenings hosted by Atlanta organizations like Wussy magazine and Reel Friends (formerly Wax & Wane) film production company at the Plaza and the Tara.

“A wide swath of Atlanta is now so much more internationally minded and open to exploring unfamiliar cinematic territory. … In the last five years, we started noticing very cinema-literate young people coming in and asking for movies,” said Robinson.

And film culture has risen up to meet this new crop of film lovers who now have a slew of film outlets to feed their obsession.

Unlike the Atlanta film fans of the past, who Robinson says used to go deep into specific genres like dystopian sci-fi or Hong Kong action films, today’s breed of cinephile is more well-rounded and encyclopedic in their film tastes.

“Kids are way more into just, like, everything and have this broader knowledge,” he said.

And like a doting, indulgent uncle deprived of film in his own youth, Robinson is there to help them in their emerging cinemania.

FILM PREVIEW

Taradrome / Plazadrome screenings. “Kwaidan,” 7:30 p.m. Nov 12. “Demon Pond,” 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3. $16. Tara Theatre, 2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE, Atlanta. 470-567-1968, www.taraatlanta.com. “Heavenly Bodies,” 9 p.m. Nov. 21. $16. Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce Ave., Atlanta. 404-410-1939, www.plazaatlanta.com