MILFORD – The Blockbuster video rental store in west Milford is closing, an apparent victim of the rapidly changing ways Americans get their movies.

The sign outside the Jones Road store, near the Market Basket supermarket, says it is the only Blockbuster store that is closing.

But news stories this year say the chain faces bankruptcy, which clouds the future of the other Blockbuster stores in New Hampshire, including those operating in Nashua and Hudson. The store on Spit Brook Road in Nashua closed six months ago.

In September, Blockbuster announced plans to shut down as many as 20 percent of its stores before 2011, focusing instead on building up its DVD rental kiosk and On Demand services.

Corporate spokesman Craig Bloom said store closings are part of the Dallas-based chain’s “restructuring and recapitalization plans” but did not comment on when the Milford store will close or provide any other information about individual stores.

When the Blockbuster in Milford closes, there will still be one video rental store left in town, Movie Scene at Lorden Plaza.

Part of a New Hampshire chain that also has stores in Derry, Londonderry, Salem and Portsmouth, Movie Scene is owned by Lee Gentile and her husband, Brian.

They closed their Lee store in February and are downsizing their Derry store, she said, but have no plans to close any more.

“Now we are positioned pretty well to keep the rest going,” she said. There is still a good demand for rental entertainment, she said, and Blockbuster’s troubles and the demise of the Movie Gallery video rental chain “lit a fire in customers. Sometimes people don’t realize what they are going to miss until it’s gone.”

There has also been a surge in small independent companies purchasing and opening stores under their own name, she said.

Gentile admitted that it is difficult competing with services like Redbox, with its self-service kiosks, and Netflix, the rent-by-mail company.

But Movie Scene, which was Video Update until about six years ago, has scored a deal to receive movies 28 days ahead of those two services, she said, something it needed to survive.

Comcast On Demand, which brings video to computers and TVs, has the same deal, she said, “but they charge more than we do.”

Milford also has its Milford Drive-In Theater, one of the few drive-in movie theaters left in New England, that celebrated its 50th season in 2008.

Bill Parker, the town’s community development director, said he does not know yet if there are plans for another business to move into the Blockbuster space.

A corporate press release says “Blockbuster Inc., founded in 1985 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is a leading global provider of in-home movie and game entertainment with over 7,000 stores throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.”

The company reported worldwide revenues of more than $5 billion in 2008.

Cinema Scope Video, a small independent store in the Edgewood Plaza on Nashua Street, closed several years ago.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at kcleveland@cabinet.com or 673-3100, ext. 21.

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