Continental Video began in 1981 releasing films across on genres, such as westerns (The Shooting with Jack Nicholson), horror (City of the Walking Dead) and drama (The Winds of Jarrah). In fact, much of the Continental catalog had some pretty strange and comical titles, such as,Vampire Hookers, the Muthers, Women of Iron, Best Buns on the Beach, Breakin' it New York Style, and many others. From the obscure, to the mainstream, Continental dabbled in a little bit of everything.

The majority of their videos were released in big box format, in either VHS or Beta. The videos with the more graphic artwork, such as the H.G. Lewis "Blood" trilogy and Alien Prey were released under the "Comet Video" name. They were one of the first to distribute double features, giving the renter or buyer two films for the price of one, such was the case of Scalps being doublebilled with the Slayer. They would also release a fun compilation video (Terror on Tape) that showed clips from their large library of horror releases. Continental also released some slip cases towards its end. The company would close its doors in 1987.