Castor Creely

The Last Video Store is a 2023 Canadian comedy horror film directed by Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford, and starring Kevin Martin, Yaayaa Adams, Matthew Kennedy, Josh Lenner and Leland Tilden.

A man sits on his couch watching a collection of B-grade movies on VHS, when a mysterious glowing black tape appears. Putting it in his VCR, the film’s text crawl talks about the video format wars and the rise and fall of video rental stores, before cutting to a promo for the last remaining store, Blaster Video. It advertises free rentals for new customers, as well as a free refrigerator magnet and a clearance sale of action film Fury of the Viper before fading to black.

Sometime later, Nyla enters the Blaster Video to return the tapes, meeting the store’s eccentric film buff owner Kevin, who deduces that the tapes belonged to her father. He offers to waive the late fees and rewind fees, while offering his synopsis and critique of the films: Beaverlake Massacre 4, a Friday the 13th style slasher; Preystalker , a sci-fi monster film like Predator; and Warpgate, a cheesy adventure movie. Nyla also has the possessed black tape, and when they play it, it locks them in and releases characters from the other films into the store.

The 1990s style CGI alien from Preystalker appears first, stabbing Kevin with a psychedelic, venom-laced stinger and menacing them, until it finally slips on a broken doorknob and despawns. Kevin tells Nyla that the black tape is the legendary cursed ‘Videonomicon’ that her father has apparently discovered. Soon after, “teenage” hockey player Taggert (played by an actor in his 30s) from Beaverlake Massacre appears and is attacked from behind by the movie’s hockey-masked killer, Castor. Kevin and Nyla lock themselves in the storage closet as Castor smashes Taggert through the door and decapitates him.