The Last Video Store – Blood in the Snow 2023

A woman accidentally brings a cursed VHS tape to one of the last remaining video rental stores in The Last Video Store. Owned and operated by Kevin (Kevin Martin), Blaster Video is located in the basement of an alley and is home to over 3000 titles on VHS. Nyla (Yaayaa Adams) arrives at the store to return a pile of videotapes left behind by her father. However, it turns out that also in the collection was a cursed videotape, which when played brings to life characters from campy B-movies, such as the hockey mask-wearing killer Castor Creely (Leland Tilden) from the Canucksploitation film Beaverlake Massacre IV and the beefcake action hero Jackson Viper (Josh Lenner) from Fury of the Viper.

The Last Video Store Synopsis

The Last Video Store is a horror-comedy directed by Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford, based on their 2013 short film of the same name. The feature brings back the short’s star Kevin Martin, who also happens to be the owner of the real retro video store The Lobby in Edmonton. Martin is joined by Yaayaa Adams as Nyla, a young woman who doesn’t share in Kevin’s love of badly-produced VHS b-movies. However, the two have to team up for the fight of their lives after a cursed videotape brings the movies in the store to life.

My Thoughts on The Last Video Store

The Last Video Store is a celebration of the joy of bonding over a movie for 90 minutes in a dark room. Relegated entirely to the single location of the titular video store, the challenge brought to Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford was expanding their ten-minute short into a feature. The end result is relatively successful, which includes cameos from other retro-style filmmakers, such as RKSS (Turbo Kid) and Astron-6’s Matthew Kennedy and Adam Brooks (The Editor). Combine that with practical effects by both Steven Kostanski (PG: Psycho Goreman) and the Butcher Shop’s Josh Carrier and Carlos Henriques (The Chamber of Terror), The Last Video Store ends up being quite an entertaining retro throwback.