The Last Video Store — The Last Video Store( Blu Ray)
The Last Video Store is a lovingly crafted, charming, and, at points, oddly heartwarming tribute to the Video shop era. The 2023 film blends ‘n’ blurs elements of fantasy, comedy-drama, and horror- bringing a similar inventive, quirky, and heartfelt vibe you’d find in the films of someone like Don Coscarelli ( Phantasm series, Bubba Ho-Tep). Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and stateside- is a Blu-Ray release of the film, taking in a commentary track, and a good selection of short films/ other extras.
The Last Video Store was co-directed by Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford- each has around six to seven director credits to their name, many of these being collabs like Twas The Night Of The Tree Beast (2012) and ABC’s of Death (2016).
The film plays at just-on-the-feature-length runtime of seventy-eight minutes. It features two main/ lead characters Kevin( Kevin Martin), and Nyla (Yaayaa Adams). Pretty much all of the film's action takes place in the confines of a basement video rental shop.
The plot is also fairly simple/ stripped back- basically, Nyla is going to Kevin’s store Video Blasters to return three VHSs her father rented. Kevin is middle-aged with shoulder-length hair, a soul patch beard, and a generally geeky- but- friendly demeanour. Nyla is initially a standoffish/ unsaw of Kevin/ VHS's African American woman in her twenties.
Nyla hands back the unrewound tapes( this was a big deal back in the VHS days)- with him giving a passionate breakdown of the plot for each. With the tapes is a fourth glowing pink cassette- they put it in the VHS player, and it starts bringing to life characters from the tapes to attack the pair. There’s a giant praying mantis who has psychedelics in his pinches, characters from a Friday The 13th rip-off, and gone out of favour days action hero.
With the film’s rapid and at times highly wacky/ bizarro unfold- we get moments of bloody gore and neon-bright psychedelics. With charming banter between the two characters, and touches of both humour and heartfelt emotion. The whole thing is scored by a decidedly tuneful/ moody retro synth soundtrack- which perfectly fits the film's tone & setting.
As I grew up during the VHS era - I knew I was at least going to enjoy elements of The Last Video Store. Instead, I was well and truly bowled over, loving every minute of the film….and I’m hoping ‘n’ preying they’ll be either a sequel or maybe a pre-sequel!.
Moving onto this recent Blu-Ray release, we get a good selection of extras- both new and arcive. On the new side first up we have from a commentary track film critics Matt Donato & Meagan Navarro- this is a decidedly chatty/laid-back affair. They begin by talking about the local stories of their youth, and we find out the film to hand was largely shot in real Canadian VHS/ DVD/ Blu-ray rental store The Lobby- which is owned/ run by the film's male lead Kevin Martin. They talk about how the film has a lot of in-jokes, movie references, and video lore quotes. They point out posters/ details in the background of the film, and talk about how the picture plays with horror and genre tropes. Later on, they point out elements such as the on-screen tape fuzz, and the film's emotional core. It’s an ok/one-play track- which I did not learn much from, but it was pleasant/ entertaining enough.
Otherwise, on the new side, we get two video essays- The Videonomicon Unleashed( 14.16) with film critic Heather Wixson co-author of In Search of Darkness. Nostalgia Fuel (12.51) by film critic Martyn Pedlar. These are ok, with a few interesting points/observations made- though both do rather land up retelling the plot of the film again, and not much else
Next, we get the following archive extras/ short films by Cody Kennedy & Tim Rutherford- ’Twas the Night of the Tree Beast- from 2012. M is For Magnetic Tape- from 2013. The Last Video Store- from 2013, the original short from which the feature grew. The Video Store Commercial- from 2019. Clips from the first attempted feature version. Behind the Scenes. Trailer. Image Gallery.
The finished release comes with an Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by film critics Anton Bitel and Alexandra West. A reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by John Pearson. A Double-sided fold-out poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by John Pearson.
If you either lived through the VHS/ Video shop era, or enjoy nostalgic horror comedies with real heart The Last Video Store is a must. It’s great to see Arrow giving this a wide UK/ Stateside release- as I can see a lot of folks enjoying what’s on offer here.