I had a blast sitting down to talk with the guys from The Last Video Store. Their love of cinema, particularly B-Movies shone through – both in our conversation, but also in the film itself. It’s a wild ride, full of characters the team has brought to life over the course of the past decade. If you’re a fan of slashers, Mockbusters, or genre films, this one is for you. Read on to find out where all these wild ideas come from.
Promo Clip
Description (Courtesy of CUFF)
In this love letter to the era of the video store, we follow Nyla who accidentally uncovers a “cursed” VHS tape from Albertan-born filmmakers Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford (aka House of Heathens).
A magical VHS tape holds the power to connect the real world to a dimension where movie fantasy exists as reality. Nyla and the video store owner (played by Kevin Martin, owner of Edmonton’s cult video store, The Lobby) unwittingly awaken a long-dormant curse that unleashes a series of classic cinematic villains plucked from the bowels of the B-movies themselves. A true celebration B-movie glory, THE LAST VIDEO STORE is a charming homage to videostores, slashers, and film nerds. With a story honouring Canuxploitation and showcasing Alberta talent, this is a crowd-pleaser with loads of gore, and character parodies offering a blast of nostalgic fun.
Director Bios
Cody Kennedy is a filmmaker and cinematic artist in the video game industry located in Vancouver. A steady diet of the 1980s and 1990s b-movies and a healthy dose of cinema from all corners of the globe serves as an inspiration to create his fantastic genre films with his creative partner Tim Rutherford. His short films have been selected to screen at SXSW, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, and other international film festivals.
Passionate about movies for as long as he can remember, Tim Rutherford has a unique approach to storytelling, inspired by Canadian greats like David Cronenberg and independent legends of the direct-to-video era. Nightmarish and captivating practical effects molded his approach to films, and Tim began experimenting with latex and sculpture in his teens. His short films have been selected to screen at SXSW, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, and other international film festivals.
Actor Bio
The grumpy clerk in THE LAST VIDEO STORE is played by Kevin Martin, who’s also the real life video store’s owner. To this day, Martin owns and operates The Lobby DVD Shop in Edmonton, and his story is the genesis of this film. He is also the co-founder of the DEDfest Film Festival, which led to the initial meetings between Martin and directors Kennedy and Rutherford, as these tandem directors got their start submitting short films to the festival.
A Conversation with the Team From THE LAST VIDEO STORE
On the Genesis of The Last Video Store
Adam Manery
This feature has been in the making for a long time. You have the “Straight to Video” series, with some characters that make appearances here, plus you also have a short film of the same name from 2013. How did the three of you start this journey?
Tim Rutherford
It definitely starts with Kevin heading DEDfest in Edmonton, which is a local film festival that was doing horror and genre films. They had a contest, and Cody and I were entering as often as we could. With those first few that we did, we really made a connection with Kevin.
From there, we went into his video store to shoot a short for their presentation with Michael Biehn; they were bringing him in as a guest. So that’s where we connected with Kevin and his video store and started shooting in that space. We realized the untapped potential, especially for the Edmonton audience, DEDFEST in particular, who had fallen in love with Kevin already.
That’s also where we connected with our producer, Greg Jeffs, who came on board at that point and really liked what we were doing together. He started to encourage that more and more, which, of course, led to The Last Video Store short in 2013.
Cody Kennedy
Here’s a fun little nugget about the first short film we made in the video store. The actor who plays Viper in the movie (Josh Lenner) absolutely loves Michael Biehn, so he wanted to do an impression of Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese (from The Terminator), basically just falling on the floor naked inside the video store.
That was the genesis of this first short of just making an intro to this montage. Shout out to Michael Biehn. But after that, people were like, “Are you guys doing more?”
Kevin Martin
A decade later, Josh is one of my good friends, but yeah, the first time I met him was him crashing naked on my video store, pulling a VHS tape out of his ass. I’m ten years older than the rest of these guys, so at that point, I’m like, “These kids are crazy, man.”
But that first short went well with our crowd and with Michael Biehn and his wife. We were doing monthly screenings at the time, so everyone asked when we were doing the “next one.” Like… what do you mean, “Next one?”
I thought this was a one-and-done thing. For the first little bit, I convinced him and Cody to do a parody of whatever movie we’re showing for the next few months. So we would do a parody of Army of Darkness, Battle Royale, or Poltergeist in my video store, with me playing myself, incorporating those movies.
But then, of course, it got to the point where we were showing new movies that you can’t parody. So we thought we should do something original about the video store. So, it kicked off from there.
On Kevin Playing a Version of Himself
AM
I love that. That’s such a unique story. So, Kevin, you’ve essentially been playing a version of yourself for over a decade. How close is Kevin in the film to Kevin in real life?
KM
It is me, but it’s a little ramped up. The character, Kevin, is slightly more grumpy than I am in real life. But his enthusiasm for cinema is pretty much bang on. In the movie, when I’m going off about a movie, that’s like me going off to my customers at the real video store.
TR
That’s a genuine experience that we wrote into the movie. From the customer’s perspective, it’s very accurate. If you get Kevin talking about movies, you’ll have a hard time getting him to stop. So we wanted that experience in the movie. But when you’re having a quiet drink later and reflecting on life, that is also an accurate experience of becoming Kevin’s friend and getting through that veil.
No, he does not live in the video store, so there are exaggerations, but Josh Roach and I drew on our real experiences with Kevin when we were writing it.
Of course, with many of those rants we wrote, we would be like, “You get the gist, Kevin,” and then he would go off. For example, “Battle Bear” was a movie he essentially improved years earlier when we first attempted to make a feature film in 2014. It was just like a riff session, but then we all started wishing Battle Bear existed. So when we got to that part in this script, Kevin would go off.
And Cody, with his incredible skills in VFX, was able to put the clips together. Kevin’s genuine ability to go off on a movie was something you can’t necessarily capture on a script page. You just have to be lucky enough to be on set with him.
AM
Kevin, you’re so good in this. You’ve had a decade of practice, so maybe that contributed, but it really is such an outstanding performance. Have you thought about pursuing acting further outside of this character?
KM
Every time I don’t, Tim and Cody push me to think about it. I don’t know exactly how opportunities will arise after this movie, but if any doors open, it would be a blast, obviously. And selfishly, I’m hoping the movie does well for the guys and they get offered another project and more money. If these two keep working, they’ll find a role for me somewhere in the movie.
Tim and Cody both know I want to be the old grumpy bartender who tells the kids, “Don’t you go out in those woods cause bad things will happen.” And they’re going to go out anyway. Or the crazy old man in every franchise who no one listens to.
I just finished another local gig for some friends here in Edmonton. They wanted me in their no-budget movie, and they said they had a role for me, so I asked who I’d be playing.
“You’re playing an MC at a sleazy male strip joint.”
“Perfect, I’ll do it. Just give me the mic.”
So we’ll see what happens. I joke about how some people have kids to leave their legacy. Some people make a movie about their livelihood at the video store.
So, there it is. It’s done. Video stores are immortalized in this silly movie we made.
TR
As far as the Internet is concerned, you run the last video store. So whether or not it’s a clerically accurate statement, I don’t know, but the Internet thinks you do.
On the Collaborative Process
AM
Listening to the three of you talk, it’s clearly a very collaborative process. You also mentioned Josh Roach, who co-wrote the script with you, Tim. How does that collaboration play out? You have multiple writers, you’re also directing with Cody, and then you have Kevin too.
TR
It’s very complicated. Cody and I have known each other for 24-plus years at this point, so we have a shared idea about the “end” and then approach it from our own perspectives.
We have different opinions about achieving the same goal, but we can work through that because we’ve known each other for so long. We instinctually work off of one another. When we got to that script process, we had difficulty getting it to the proper format, so we brought in Josh, who’s written a few features before.
He helped not just mediate but also mitigate our chaotic ideas into a more acceptable format. Once the three of us could get that down on paper, we could have Kevin read it and give us his feedback. We’d use his natural skill to play this character and reincorporate some of that into the script.
I have a lot of big and crazy ideas, and Cody is a natural editor. So he’s always thinking about the outer picture. Cody would be thinking about the finality of the story, and I get all these crazy ideas, and then we squeeze them together.
It goes back and forth. That balance has helped us tell a unique story that neither of us could tell alone.
AM
Collaboration is wonderful when it works, right? Cody, as Tim mentioned, you edited and did some VFX on this project. What’s your process as a director but also knowing that you have these other roles?
CK
Some of that definitely is incorporated. As Tim said, I think about the VFX when we’re translating from script to blocking a scene or figuring out how to shoot a sequence.
Okay, this might work. Or, we might need to shoot it this way to ensure we have the room for this or that. Two of us did the VFX. Our friend, Matt, did most of the heavy lifting – the 3D characters and the animation for that, where I did the fake TV clip backgrounds – that sort of thing.
My mind is always working that way. A good example is the “Preystalker” sequence. On page, it was quite insane. When we had to shoot it, we only had two days, and I didn’t think we could do it. A lot of what was on page we didn’t have in the film.
The three of us were on set, trying to figure it out at the end of a long shoot. How was it going to work? Then Tim said, “There’s a gumball machine in the corner. This is what we’re going to do.”
We mapped out this new sequence and shot it on my iPhone, trying to figure out the moves that we had to pull out of thin air, which was a reduced scope to what was on the page.
So, a lot of it was creative problem-solving. Tim’s good at pulling from thin air, and I just try to help streamline it.
TR
Yeah. Paint the line on the road so we know which direction we’re going.
KM
Another great example is when I explained where the tape comes from. In the original script, there was a long backstory of the cursed tape and “blah blah blah.” The day we filmed it, though, we were still trying to decide what we should say. It’s a situation where you realize that a lot of people are working on this movie, and they’re just standing around. So we need to get everybody off the set, and we’ll figure it out.
In the end, I just say “Yeah, it’s a cursed tape. Bad things happen.” We made that up on the spot. Instead of explaining it, we said “screw it“. It’s just a cursed tape. Put it in, bad things happen, moving on. I thought it worked great.
TR
Right? Even if Kevin knew exactly how it functioned, which he doesn’t, what would he even say about it? To him, it’s just common knowledge. It’s a cursed tape… What is your problem?
On Incorporating Their Shorts and Balancing Comedy with Emotion
AM
And it worked. Sometimes, distilling these grand ideas down is for the best. Something similar could be said about all these mini “B-Movies” you’ve created, which are brought into the feature. It would be challenging to take these fully fleshed-out film ideas and have to pick and choose what to show while still having it resonate with the audience.
CK
I’m glad it resonated with you because it’s always a gamble for us. Tim and I are just joking about things we think are funny, like with “Preystalker”. Then, we have what is basically an inside joke, and we have to make it make sense for the audience.
We like to pay homage to some things, but it’s really important for Cody and me not to reference real movies. I feel like you often end up locked into these preconceived notions about the characters, especially in satirical-style nostalgic comedy movies.
“Preystalker” started many years ago when we did the web series, but it was all built on the behind-the-scenes of Jean Claude Van Damme playing the Predator. That weird costume they had Jean Claude in in the jungle. It’s like, where’s that movie? Where’s that really bad version of something that turned out well?
That snowballed into the Canadian versions of movies. Growing up, Cody and I were always fans of “Mockbusters” – something right from the video store shelves, where you’d get a cover that looks exactly like Aliens, but Zaliens instead—these off-brand, wish.com versions of movies. We wanted to take that idea and really explore it. A lot of the movies we made up are in there.
TR
We’ve spent entire nights talking about a whole series. Matt Kennedy plays Taggart in the film and is a huge slasher fan. A few nights before shooting, when he arrived in Hamilton, we sat around jamming on the entire 10-movie arc of Beaver Lake Massacre. A lot of jokes made it into the film, including a jab at Friday the 13th.
CK
Like Jason X. There will definitely be a Caster in Space – a Part 8.
AM
Clearly, this film is funny. I was laughing out loud as I watched it, and I can only imagine what it’ll be like watching it with an audience. Still, it had a solid heart at its core. How did you balance the satire and humor with the emotional heart of the film?
TR
It was really important for us to make sure that Nyla felt grounded. How would a regular person who’s not into physical media react in this situation? All she wants to do is leave, and behind every door is a problem. But for every joke we tell, we try to have a grounding moment to balance those two.
It leads back to Cody and I’s relationship. One goes up, and the other one tries to level it out. When we’re having a good time or trying to ratchet up the tension, there’s almost an immediate counter. That back and forth felt more realistic than these elevated and fantastic situations allow for, especially in modern filmmaking, where anything is possible.
You can tap into wild imagination, but grounding moments are important, like Nyla talking about her father or Kevin acknowledging that the store was special but isn’t anymore.
To let go and move on was really important to Josh Roach and me. We wanted to have these people feel real instead of just having an SCTV skit. At the end of the day, it was like we wanted to make a funny movie, but we didn’t necessarily want to make a parody.
On the Cast
AM
Mission accomplished. Part of that effectiveness is a result of the cast. You knew almost all the actors before shooting, but Yaayaa Adams, who plays Nyla, was new to you. What was that like?
CK
For Nyla’s character, we did have auditions. Nyla was from Toronto. We were shooting in Hamilton. So we were looking at auditions from that area.
Obviously, Kevin has been there forever. Josh, who plays Viper, has been playing different characters in all the shorts, so we wrote Viper for him. Regarding the cameos, we were trying to put in friends we knew who we thought could be giving us a pretty fun role.
Nostril, the Viper’s arch nemesis on the tape, is another friend of ours who could give us a pretty straight performance that would end up being funny. It’s Adam Brooks, part of this Astron 6 Film Collective. We wanted him to be that fantastic actor stuck with this role.
That’s probably mimicking the real-life situation he was in when he was talking with us. He was like Charles Dance—way too qualified for this movie—but he’s still killing it. He’s just out-acting everybody.
KM
Or Raul Julia in Street Fighter.
CK
Yeah, that’s basically who he was.
TR
So, having Yaayaa come on board was a new process for us, actually having a casting director. That’s also how we met Leland Tilden, who plays Caster for most of the movie. We went through that process, and Yaayaa stood out not only because she was such a great performer, not only vocally but also in terms of expression. Her expressions were just so rich.
She was a perfect companion to Kevin, who also shares that quality. Personality-wise, she was fun and outgoing, but her ability to turn that into the “straight” character made her a perfect counter to Kevin.
Still, for her to come into the group and integrate was challenging for everyone. But she fit into that role well and brought everything to the table. In the end, we’re all much better friends.
She went through that journey of, “I don’t know about this.” And then that turned into, “You know, you’re not bad people.” That journey made it to the screen, which was crucial for the movie’s success.
KM
When we had the Edmonton screening here last fall, Yaayaa came to Edmonton, and we sold out. It was bonkers. While she was here, she got to visit the real video store. She walked down the stairs, and immediately, she was like, “Oh, I get it now.”
On Special Screenings and Physical Releases
AM
That Edmonton showing was at The Metro, right? That must’ve been an amazing experience. And you also had your opening at The Alamo in Texas. What were those two showings like?
KM
We went down to Austin for the world premiere, and to me, the Alamo is a historic theatre. It’s where the big boys play for cult classics and genre. I couldn’t believe that our little video store was in the same theatre as the remake of The Toxic Avenger, with Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon playing the night before. That was surreal. But I remember I said, well, if these people don’t like this movie, that’s fine. I’ll never see them again in my life.
The Edmonton screening, though… that was nuts. We played the movie on a Sunday, so I figured we’d get close to selling out the day of the showing. We ended up selling out on the Wednesday.
We had to turn away friends. The experience was terrifying for me because it was 20 years of my life in one movie theatre. All of Old Strathcona Whyte Ave was in that theatre. Southside Edmonton would be totally out of business if the theatre blew up. Everybody was in that theatre.
It was like the old 50s show, “This is Your Life,” where people come on stage who I hadn’t seen in forever. That’s what that night was – so terrifying.
I got a little bit emotional on stage. That was one of those moments where if you could bottle up that feeling, and when you’re having a bad day, you just open it up and have a sip. It was amazing.
AM
I can only imagine. The Last Video Store supports physical media, so I have to ask—are there any plans for a physical release?
CK
It’s in the works, but we don’t know many details. We’re hoping it’ll give us a chance to make some cool special features because that’s what we grew up on, and that’s how we learned how to make movies.
We want to pump as much as possible into physical release, including the shorts we’ve made before, like “Preystalker”, and some commentary tracks. I don’t know when, but I want to say within 2024.
TR
I couldn’t imagine a world where they didn’t want to sell 5,000 copies in at least Edmonton alone. So we’ll see a limited release for sure. How much we can put out there is yet to be seen. But like Cody said, we’re very, very adamant about being able to fill out those special features. Beyond that, during the movie, a documentary about Kevin was being made by an Edmonton filmmaker as well.
AM
Before I let you go, are there any movies you’re looking forward to catching while you’re at CUFF?
TR
Infested. I’m big into animal attack movies; I love apartment complex movies, especially apartment horror movies. That one looks like a lot of fun.
CK
In a Violent Nature. Chris Nash is an awesome guy. He shot it at the same time we were shooting our movie, and I know he’s got some pretty wild behind-the-scenes stories.
KM
The lineup is bonkers, but unfortunately, my time in Calgary is short. But before our movie plays, there’s the retro screening of Cube. I would love to be able to make it to that. It’s one of those “take pride” that it’s a Canadian genre movie. That movie was way ahead of its time. You want to talk about a single-location shoot? That movie set a precedent.
Tickets are still available to watch The Last Video Store at CUFF
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