Shocktober 2023 #5: The Last Video Store (2023) (NorthwestFearFest premiere in Edmonton)
(9/10): As the closing film of the NorthwestFearFest, The Last Video Store is a film that, being a film collector in the City of Edmonton, Alberta, I am going to try and remain as unbiased as possible as its a film that means a great deal to film fans in the city and even film fans in general if they have heard of and have been following The Lobby, which remains Edmontons last standing fully dedicated video store and stars the stores owner in the lead role.
With all that being said there could be some MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
I'll cut the crap, I just straight up adored the hell out of this movie, it hits that sweet spot for film nerds that miss the old days when independently owned video stores were all over and every rental was an adventure.
It follows Nyla who is a young girl who is returning her father's rented tapes that were overdue to Blaster Video, owned by the quirky, nerdy and knowledgeable store manager, Kevin.
Nyla returns a handful of tapes including Preystalker and Beaverlake Massacre 4 among others, but Kevin finds one tape rather peculiar, it looks like no other tape he has ever seen in his shop.
Now that he has a chance at a customer, Kevin attempts to persuade Nyla to redeem his first time customer gets a free rental deal, however she isn't buying into it. Determined to make her understand the video store culture and also to inform her that nobody rewound her dad's tapes before returning them, Kevin pops the tapes in his 5 VHS tape player, he shows her some of the movies and what makes them so good but she simply won't budge.
Kevin is of course determined to keep a potential customer around so he keeps going on about his movies, then he gets to decide whether or not he really wants to play the strange tape, he pops in the player as when it comes to movies he's always looking for new that he hasn't seen before and then he hits play.
The screen becomes dark, surreal and distorted and then he becomes worried so he attempts to shut off the player yet it electricutes him and begins to go haywire and with this malfunction they awaken, Kevin puts on Preystalker and then something happens, the creature disappears from the movie and then that's when he turns around to realize that it has entered their world.
This tape is cursed and upon playing it, it releases beings from within the movies it interacts with and now, stuck in a B-Movie Limbo with only the store left of what is the real world, Kevin and Nyla must use their knowledge of movies and teamwork to fight their way through this nightmare brought about by this Videonomicon.
As a love letter to the era of Video Stores, this film is for a niche audience but it carries something that everyone is interested in and I find that it does it immensely better than any Hollywood film I've seen that has attempted the same thing.
It's Nostalgic.
The reason I find it works so much better is that it makes up characters, creatures and films that are reminiscent of, but not exactly duplicates of nostalgic properties and then design and portray them with the just the right level of authenticity to create the nostalgic feel, while Hollywood takes the cheap route and just slaps the name of a nostalgic property on something and then banks on the name while a vast majority of the time missing the spirit and heart of it all.
The film strikes a good balance between silly, scary and adventurous.
The film is chopped full, and I mean full of references that it's like a where's Waldo and his fifty eight identical twins.
Preystalker is a Predator and Carnosaur fusion but with the dated yet lovable 90s CG look, done intentionally of course.
Posters for films such as Manborg, which is made by Astron 6 which is another independent film company in Canada, Psycho Goreman, Laserblast, Why Don't You Play in Hell?, among others as well as having the killer in Beaverlake Massacre be the Canadian equivalent of Jason Voorhees and the hero from the Bad action film that gets brought out looks like he's from Strike of the Panther.
It's a low budget project and of course it's got some soso CG but it's not really that bad, especially when some of the bad effects are intentional. Steve Kostanski worked on some of the effects of the film which leads to some pretty good practical gore that includes two decapitations.
The film is also very uncanny, at least for me being as the set was built as a complete replica of The Lobby shop.
I also appreciated how it had a more cosmic horror feel to it as well as the forces within the tape are presented in a very omnipotent manner.
I also loved the neon lighting and the synth wave score, which both capture the nostalgic eighties feel that the film is going for.
Is it perfect, no, but it's entertaining, funny and has the heart of The Lobby and its proprietor that makes it so much more meaningful and thoughtful than it appears to be.
If you're a fan of Video Store Culture, put this bad boy on your radar, it's beginning to start to get screenings in more locations around the world as well as keep your eyes out for the physical release next year hopefully.
(9/10): As the closing film of the NorthwestFearFest, The Last Video Store is a film that, being a film collector in the City of Edmonton, Alberta, I am going to try and remain as unbiased as possible as its a film that means a great deal to film fans in the city and even film fans in general if they have heard of and have been following The Lobby, which remains Edmontons last standing fully dedicated video store and stars the stores owner in the lead role.
With all that being said there could be some MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
I'll cut the crap, I just straight up adored the hell out of this movie, it hits that sweet spot for film nerds that miss the old days when independently owned video stores were all over and every rental was an adventure.
It follows Nyla who is a young girl who is returning her father's rented tapes that were overdue to Blaster Video, owned by the quirky, nerdy and knowledgeable store manager, Kevin.
Nyla returns a handful of tapes including Preystalker and Beaverlake Massacre 4 among others, but Kevin finds one tape rather peculiar, it looks like no other tape he has ever seen in his shop.
Now that he has a chance at a customer, Kevin attempts to persuade Nyla to redeem his first time customer gets a free rental deal, however she isn't buying into it. Determined to make her understand the video store culture and also to inform her that nobody rewound her dad's tapes before returning them, Kevin pops the tapes in his 5 VHS tape player, he shows her some of the movies and what makes them so good but she simply won't budge.
Kevin is of course determined to keep a potential customer around so he keeps going on about his movies, then he gets to decide whether or not he really wants to play the strange tape, he pops in the player as when it comes to movies he's always looking for new that he hasn't seen before and then he hits play.
The screen becomes dark, surreal and distorted and then he becomes worried so he attempts to shut off the player yet it electricutes him and begins to go haywire and with this malfunction they awaken, Kevin puts on Preystalker and then something happens, the creature disappears from the movie and then that's when he turns around to realize that it has entered their world.
This tape is cursed and upon playing it, it releases beings from within the movies it interacts with and now, stuck in a B-Movie Limbo with only the store left of what is the real world, Kevin and Nyla must use their knowledge of movies and teamwork to fight their way through this nightmare brought about by this Videonomicon.
As a love letter to the era of Video Stores, this film is for a niche audience but it carries something that everyone is interested in and I find that it does it immensely better than any Hollywood film I've seen that has attempted the same thing.
It's Nostalgic.
The reason I find it works so much better is that it makes up characters, creatures and films that are reminiscent of, but not exactly duplicates of nostalgic properties and then design and portray them with the just the right level of authenticity to create the nostalgic feel, while Hollywood takes the cheap route and just slaps the name of a nostalgic property on something and then banks on the name while a vast majority of the time missing the spirit and heart of it all.
The film strikes a good balance between silly, scary and adventurous.
The film is chopped full, and I mean full of references that it's like a where's Waldo and his fifty eight identical twins.
Preystalker is a Predator and Carnosaur fusion but with the dated yet lovable 90s CG look, done intentionally of course.
Posters for films such as Manborg, which is made by Astron 6 which is another independent film company in Canada, Psycho Goreman, Laserblast, Why Don't You Play in Hell?, among others as well as having the killer in Beaverlake Massacre be the Canadian equivalent of Jason Voorhees and the hero from the Bad action film that gets brought out looks like he's from Strike of the Panther.
It's a low budget project and of course it's got some soso CG but it's not really that bad, especially when some of the bad effects are intentional. Steve Kostanski worked on some of the effects of the film which leads to some pretty good practical gore that includes two decapitations.
The film is also very uncanny, at least for me being as the set was built as a complete replica of The Lobby shop.
I also appreciated how it had a more cosmic horror feel to it as well as the forces within the tape are presented in a very omnipotent manner.
I also loved the neon lighting and the synth wave score, which both capture the nostalgic eighties feel that the film is going for.
Is it perfect, no, but it's entertaining, funny and has the heart of The Lobby and its proprietor that makes it so much more meaningful and thoughtful than it appears to be.
If you're a fan of Video Store Culture, put this bad boy on your radar, it's beginning to start to get screenings in more locations around the world as well as keep your eyes out for the physical release next year hopefully.
