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“Well, long story short,” adds Martin, “the guys kept tweaking it and decided to try and submit it to the film festivals.”

They got word it was playing Southby in January. Martin admits with a laugh, “Now I was kind of bummed because I wanted to have it online to actually, you know, promote the video store …”

Initial shooting took only a day, though the filmmakers weren’t pleased with how their original supernatural antagonist looked — just a guy under a sheet. What they replaced it with is phenomenal, a glowing-eyed husk of unspooled videotape with creepy, murderous tendrils.

Kennedy also notes there’s a subtle jab at the trendy use of VHS footage often used as a stylistic choice lately — in their film, where the supernatural menace is only visible through a camera, “there’s a reason for it instead of it just being a tacked-on style.

“We really wanted to do something different.”

From the cult director pouring his soul into his project to the narrative need for VHS footage to an unspoken reminder of how disposable film and media is in 2019 — how when we have near infinite access to content we no longer seem to value it — the film is much deeper than it need be. But this is why it’s so charming, down to the nostalgia of seeing an actual, functioning video rental store.

The film is confirmed for at least five festivals so far, and we’ll be the first to let you know when it screens here.

“Hopefully this will get us one step closer to our goal of the feature film version of The Last Video Store as we just submitted a grant package for Telefilm, which we hopefully will find out about this summer,” says Martin, who’s also co-founder of Edmonton’s annual DEDfest.

In the meantime, he hopes people drop by his shop, ad or no, because you never know what might pop out at you in the dimly-lit basement full of a million independent dreams and nightmares.

“See?” he laughs. “Video stores are super cool!”

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto