Well, you ain't coming too deep. I think I'm dying here, man.
The. Haunted mansions and floors, the
Creek they lead us to the places from which we dare not be.
Journey through fear in the realm of the night.
In every word they speak, A haunting night was right.
Welcome to the horror show The Deep Blood Podcast.
The nightmares come out of life. Ready to take that boat?
Tune into the chilling delight on the airwaves of the night.
Let the darkness go. Let the darkness go.
Oh yeah, it's that time again for another weekly episode of
the Deep Cut Podcast with your hosts Rotten, Roger DeMarco.
And today I'm doing something a little bit different.
I am bringing in a champion of physical media, the defender of
schlock and an all around Canadian badass, Mr. Kevin
Martin. Air.
I feel it, baby. I'm all all ready, hey?
I love it Sir, I I have been wanting to sit down and talk
with you since I saw the last video store, so I can't believe
you're here. Well, I can't believe you
reached out to me. Thanks man.
It was funny because I'm like, has he seen the movie or does he
just know I'm one of the, the the few, you know, defenders of
video store culture and have have a video source which would
be fascinating enough to talk about obviously as well.
Yes, Sir. Combination of the both I
suppose and I'll take it. You know, when I saw the movie,
which it caused me to deep dive into who you were because I, I
had no idea. You know, you live all the way
over there in Canada, so I had no idea that you were like a
real deal, you know, champion of cinema.
And once I started looking into you, I was like, I think we may
have been, you know, separated at birth because we're very,
very similar. It's crazy.
Yeah, it's, well, it's funny because like, you know, some
people have kids to leave their legacy and other people just
make a silly little movie about what their life was about.
So kid, deal with then I can't afford it.
So hell, let's make a micro budget movie instead about
videos for life. And yeah, it's it's crazy
because most people have seen the movie that have reached out
to me from other parts of the world, whether they like the
movie or like, yeah, the movie was great.
But then they're they're more blown away.
Like, wait a minute, you actually have a video store?
Are you at this point? Are you just kind of playing
yourself? But I'm like that's it's about
an 80% exaggerated version of me, but it it's me to a certain
degree. So yeah, it's, it's been pretty
cool just to get the discussion about video stores and and
physical media back in the in the limelight, I suppose.
Way I liken it, whenever I recommend this movie to people,
which I do constantly, is because I always push Holliston
on people. I don't know if you're a fan of
the TV show Holliston. Yeah, like I did a podcast with
Joe Lynch actually had us on the show there a couple months ago.
So there you go. Yeah, I, I dug Holliston.
I remember the first time I watched it, though.
I have both seasons in the store.
But I was like, damn it, what's up with that horrible laugh
track? You know, I always laugh tracks.
I'm like, oh, no, I get it. You know, there.
It's a throwback. That was well, Holliston is is
The Big Bang Theory for horror movie fans.
And it, it doesn't because I feel like Big Bang Theory kind
of mocks or downplays nerd culture a little bit.
It's, it's a little kind of a little bit of a slap in the
face. But they started dialing it in,
you know, deeper as the seasons went.
But Holliston to me is like so many deep cuts.
So many deep cuts and with yeah, I I was never a fan of The Big
Bang Theory. I don't understand how it lasted
13 seasons. And.
Well, it's like you said, I almost found it was like a
menstrual show for nerds, you know?
It was like, we're not like that.
I mean, we're cool, man. Yeah.
It's a little condescending and Holliston is not, but yeah,
you'd like it with Holliston. They definitely play like
shittier versions of themselves. And it's not not to say you play
a shitty version of yourself, but you know what I mean?
You kind of lean into the like lone dude running the video
store and. Living in a store, yeah, that's
that's the big question I get asked.
Do I actually live in the real video store?
No, no, luckily I don't. So if it came to it, I consider
it just to keep the. So before I get into like all
these other questions, I got to ask you this because we we watch
the special features and we were blown away at the set
construction, the building of the faux video store, right?
So how close to your real video store layout is the faux video
store? Very close actually.
Dimensions are almost identical both if both stores are basement
stores if you will. My store is a basement store.
The couch in the corner where the TV is that that's basically
the same life the the the desk made out of VHS tapes.
That's all true. Like I said, the only difference
is my bathroom does not have a bath in it and it's not nearly
that grimy. You got to play up the grime,
you know? Play up the grime.
And then the biggest replacement is for the fake movie we had to
make like 4000 fake VHS tapes where the the fake store is just
VHS. Obviously the real store, it's
for K Blu-ray DVD and VHS. So it's a little bit of yeah,
yeah. The real store is way more
cluttered with, with memorabilia and and stuff like that.
I've had the real store for I just had my 20th anniversary
over the summer and it's turning into a museum because people in
my city, they've donated like trinkets and collectibles to the
store. It's like paying tribute to the
video store and I'll never say no that goes by something new
shows up. My store is littered with Jaws
memorabilia because they don't was just my favorite movie of
all time. But but yeah, dimension wise,
pretty close. All the short films leading up
to the movie, those were actually shot in my real video
store. I met my directors as customers
in my video store and. Is that how you met Steve
Kostanski as well? OK, so with Steve, aside from
having the video store which has made no money in 20 years, but
what it has given me the luxury to do, We started a Film
Festival here in our city, was called Dead Fest and we ran it
for 13 years. We'd take over to local cinema
for a week in October. We would bring in cult cool
movies and retro ones and if we could afford it, we'd fly in
after as a guest. So I met Steve Costanski when we
we flew him in for Father's Day in 2000.
So Steve, Matt, Adam, Connor, we met all those guys and then we
kept they kept coming back. So he kept showing Man Borg and
then the editor. And then we shot a web series in
2015 that almost feels like a follow up to the movie.
Like if you can find the web series it is on YouTube, it's
called straight to Video AB Movie Odyssey.
The web series actually opens up with me attempting to burn down
my score because I've lost everything.
But first I'm going to play a magical be a beta tape of all
things and I get sucked into the TV instead of stuff coming out
of the TV. So episodes me bouncing from 1B
movie to another like quantum leafers.
I got to use my movie magic, and that's the first time we
actually got introduced to Beaver Lake massacre action
Jackson. We just and the praise stalker.
We just brought that all back for the movie and like, well,
what worked and how can we do this movie, you know, in 80
minutes? I love that.
It's it's a funny story. We were so I live in Edmonton,
AB, which is Western Canada, but because we couldn't shoot it in
in my real store for reasons and the well lighting crews, they
were all out in Toronto, which is Eastern Canada, of course.
So we shot the movie about 45 minutes outside of Toronto and
Hamilton. And while we were shooting the
movie, they were also shooting in a violent nature at the same
time. And so the the dummy in the last
video store after Matt gets capitated is laying there.
Well, I, we had that dummy laying there for a couple days
on set and the boys coming. Hey, you guys done with the,
the, the the dummy yet? Like, why?
Like, well, Chad, shoot this movie up in the woods that we
eat that same dummy. So there is a it's funny that
that dummy was used both in a violent nature and the last
video store. I thought that was.
I love that sidebar. I love that movie.
That movie is so fucking amazing.
I I don't know why. Like, I don't know why no one
had thought of that, You know what I mean?
Like just follow the killer. Yeah, I mean, for me, like that
movie is so divisive. Talking to my customers in the
video store, some, some guys love it.
I've sold the shit out of it many a times, but I get to feel
that don't like it too, because they're like ah cab.
I mean the kills are cool, but then it's just 20 minute nature
walks in between. I'm like, yeah, I said, you know
what? The game of the, the the movie
reminded me straight up was the 510th video game where you're
and you're like, OK, where are the kids?
Where are the kids? God, I'm just walking around.
It's taking forever. And then you get that 30 seconds
of gratification when you fight, when you find one of the kids,
like, fuck yeah, man, I'm going to kill the shit out of them.
And you do. And it's like, OK, back to
walking. We go again until we can
hopefully find the next kid. That's who he was.
And and if you enjoy it, great. But it's it's not for everybody.
But yeah, we're getting a sequel, so.
I, I am all for it. I, I think, you know, when
someone comes along and takes something that we've seen a
billion times and they just, they just tweak the formula just
enough, you know, because it is like you said, the dialogue and
everything is, is straight and afterthought.
It's, it's cheese. It's it's in the distance, you
know, because we're just following this killer.
But the way that it feels is, is just so refreshing compared to
like if it had just been a standard slasher film.
So it's like we've seen this a billion times, but we've never
seen it from this angle. And that's literally the selling
point is like this angle is nice.
So you know what I mean. And I know, I know it threw a
lot of people off. There was no like musical score.
There's there's nothing, right. I mean, just to add to what they
were going for. So again, it was they took a
chance and it it you know, it it there, there's a huge audience
for it. It was a success.
And yeah, bring on Part 2. Let's see if they can make any
crazier kills. That's going to be a tough.
So is there plans for a last video store Part 2?
Like is that I know you said you did the web series thing, but
like, is there a plan for a, you know, continuation of the story?
I, I'd love to. I mean, it's so, it's so meta
for me because I knew people of my generation or video store
that remember video stores would, would get something out
of it, you know, because the video store is a very universal
theme, right? You know, it doesn't matter what
part of the world you're from. I mean, everybody had a video
store. So I mean, if if I don't know if
somebody would give us foolishly a little bit more money to to do
a follow up. I mean, the idea of like me and
cast are bouncing from movie to movie together.
Like the ending was obviously a cheesy tribute to the 95 Mortal
Kombat at the very end. You know, it never worked out.
We were hoping that at the last minute we could have convinced
Steve to give us permission to use Psycho Morman at the very
end. But like, now we'll just do our
own thing kind of thing because stuff that would have been kind
of funny to tie the universe because there is a we've known,
like I said, I mean, with the cameos in our movie with with,
you know, that's Adam Brooks as the bad guy in the The Fury of
the Viper movie. And of course, Matt Kennedy is
as Dougie Taggarts from Beaver Lake Massacre.
Yeah. Astron 6 guys, yeah.
Yeah, they're all in there, right.
And then you might have missed it, but it really
unintentionally just made the most can exploitation movie ever
because at the beginning, the movie that, yeah, Vanessa is
watching on the television before I make my entrance,
that's our buddies from Turbo Kid and Summer of 84, of course,
that made that. And then Lowell Dean, the
director of Wolf Cop and Dark Match.
He is the commentator at the Beaver Lake Massacre movie.
He is the because Lowell was shooting dark match with Chris
Jericho in my city in Edmonton here and I dragged him into the
video store. He put a green screen but I'm
like well cameo, let's go now and oh it was it's cool That and
our good buddy Jeremy Gardner, the one American and we've known
Jeremy for years from the Battery and a lot of the Joe
Vigo's movies. He's been to Edmonton like 4
times. This is like his adoptive
Canadian city when he comes to Canada.
He just loves their donors and we Chuck darts and drank beer.
But yeah, Jeremy is one of the the he's the soldier and pray
stalker. Yeah, he's he's the head.
He's the captain in it. So hell yeah.
Yeah. Thanks everyone in that movie.
Dude, that's awesome. I mean well, and you know, you
got to like bring in all your buddies, you know what I mean,
'cause then then it's, it's fun for everybody and it doesn't
feel like work, 'cause just feels like hanging out with
crew, you know? Yeah, I know.
And, and when we did all the like, the short films were just
a ragtag group of four or five of us In my real store, you hold
the lights, you do this, you build this.
It was a team effort. This was a bit different for me
because I fly out there and aside from my 2 directors, Tim
and Cody, who are my buddies, and Josh who played Jackson,
we've all been friends for over a decade.
Everybody else, the lighting guys, the the camera guys make
them as they don't know who I am.
They're hired. They're they're from, they live
out east. So my first day on the set and
we shot the movie in order is literally when I'm walking and
introducing myself to Vanessa and he, I was like, holy shit,
there's like 10 people behind the camera staring at me holding
booms and running the rigs and everything.
And I'm like, oh wow, they think I'm a real actor.
Like I had the worst imposter syndrome ever, right?
So, but it was a 15 day shoot and I wanted to get to know all
the grips and everybody. I was, you know, smoking with
the sound guys outside and I haven't, but I, I didn't want
that. And but once they, they realize
like, oh, you actually have a video store where you're from?
Like, yeah, man, that's why we're doing this super passion
project for us. And so the guys, I didn't know
us, they got invested in the project too.
Like they worked overtime the last day of filming principal
photography. We filmed 23 hours that day
because we knew it was, it was like, this is it.
We got to pack our shit up and go back home.
And then we did all the reshoots out in Vancouver where Tim and
Cody live. So yeah, that.
Is a rough that's rough man 23 hours.
We we, we knew like scheduling wise we like we had 15 days plus
after 10 of the 1st 15 after that COVID kicked in and we all
got down. Vanessa got COVID and one of my
directors of COVID and it was up to the guys who were like paying
the money to get this thing made.
Judging by the footage. Should we shut this whole thing
down or do we pay an extra week of Airbnb's in the city where
nobody lives in to front to this cast and crew of 25 people?
Luckily they were happy with what we had shot so far.
So they forked a little bit more money.
I mean, it was super micro budget movie.
We pitched it at the world the film market in in Montreal at
the Fantasia Film Festival. A lot of the guys that were fans
of our shorts and we've done a lot of shorts and they're
they're again, they're all out there online.
I think they're on my store website too.
They they love the shorts, but they just couldn't wrap their
heads around how can you make a feature 89 minute movie in one
location and make it entertaining, right.
That was the challenge and I think my directors, they took
that personally and they said we can make it entertaining.
This isn't clerks. This is something different, you
know? Yeah, it was it was it was a
hectic. Even though the world premiere
in Austin, TX a a fantastic best, the movie still wasn't
done. It was like percent done and it
was it was it was tough sitting in that world premiere.
So I'm like missing. Like Foley and stuff like that.
Yeah, Foley, so the sound mixing was a bit off still.
So but you're you're on a deadline, right?
And a guy who ran a film vessel for years and going to to big
film vessels to book movies, you'd be you'd be you probably
wouldn't be surprised how many movies you would see that are
not complete like but they have to you know, there's a deadline
and we're always comes up and apologizing.
Hey guys, you know, some of the effects aren't all there and
blah blah blah, but. Real missing, you know, Yeah.
Yeah, missing real. Yeah, exactly.
Oh, man. But yeah, so going back to like
what you said about, you know, trying to make something
exciting in one location, this is a shameless plug for myself.
I don't know if you know that we filmed a really micro budget
cheesy slasher film in our own house, so yeah.
What's it called? It's called Tape Head, The
return of Jacob Cobb. I've heard of this release.
Yeah, we released it on Blu-ray. Yeah, I need to send you a copy.
Dude. That was a a weird challenge
that we had because we set a goal and originally we we were
like for 20 grand we could make something pretty gnarly and we
didn't hit the 20 grand. I think we were in between like
7 and $8000. And originally the plan was
like, go to Airbnb's and shoot in, you know, shoot different
locations. But then when we only had like
$7500, I was like, hey, babe, what do you think about us
shooting it in our own house? And, you know, that way if
anything gets damaged, it's, you know, on us.
So, you know, you just have a slasher kill everyone in one
central location. Kind of all off Friday the 13th
for what was my inspiration. And it's a cheesy, you know, not
great movie, but it was like my first, you know, first feature.
So yeah. Yeah.
But you know, when you have a location like the video store,
dude, you have so many unique things that you can do.
And I mean, you've you feel that time.
There's no lulls in that movie. Yeah, I mean, and of course, you
know, I think my directors, they definitely went like with the
Edgar Wright style of like smash cuts and and a lot of you know,
and of course you can cheat because you have the fake movies
within the movie too. And my favorite thing was, well,
I love the music in it. That was my friend Brandon
Boucher, who was our camera guy for all the shorts, but he
couldn't film the movie because of reasons.
She was super bummed out. But then we ran out of money for
the music score. And then luckily, his second
talent was music. This is his first attempt at
ever doing a score, and he hammered out like 70 tracks in
two months. We could probably pay him.
There's a vinyl release of it, too.
It's beautiful. The the record is like Prince
purple Rain purple. It's very.
That's amazing. Yeah.
And the other big thing I love was the the lighting.
Like, I love when, like, Pray Stalker was green and Beaver,
like Massacre was, you know, blue And.
And then obviously Gary was like orangey fiery red and.
It's not, the movie's not an anthology, but it kind of feels
like an anthology, you know, it's like 3 different stories
that just kind of get smashed together and.
I I also, I also really like my wife and I talk about this all
the time. Like if if you're in charge and
you're making an indie, but an indie movie with a low budget,
the The Cardinal Sin is just white, sterile, boring lighting.
You know what I mean? You go back to the Italian
slashers and, and, and the jello stuff and everything like that.
So blue equals night time green is like gross, you know, red.
And so I love when a movie is not afraid to be like this.
Doesn't have to be motivated lighting, you know what I mean?
It doesn't need to be motivated. It's just colorful for the sake
of color. The weird thing is we had to
rewrite on the spot so much stuff like like the the actual
filming script is quite different than how the movie
turned out. I know the ending was completely
different. We reshot the ending in in in
Vancouver, actually the the corner of the the video store
where the television was when we tore the set down, we had to
ship that one corner across the country for reshoots.
So yeah, the original ending, it was very different.
Did the magnet idea was the last minute like fuck dude, like
let's just go with the magnets. It's the most obvious simple
answer. You know that out inglorious
Basterds with the with the, the film, the how it's flammable and
stuff. And like, let's just quickly
explain the audience how this work or even the whole idea of
like where did the curse tape come from?
Why is it curse? And I said we, we made-up that
scene where I just explain it to her in like 2 minutes on set
like it's a cursed ape to put it in bad things happen.
What can I say? You know, as simple as that.
You don't need a back story. Like this is a horror movie
genre audience, you know, like just, they don't need the, the,
the, the long wind of it or the legend of, of how this tape
make. Maybe they'll cap the sequel,
who knows, but probably not I. Mean ambiguity is is just fine.
You know we did. We literally did the same thing
with tape head. His rewinder is cursed.
Why? Because.
Because just because. Yeah.
And it, it works.
People want to know. People ask me all the time.
I get messages all the time. Why?
I, I don't know, I guess you'll have to wait until we do another
one if that ever happens, you know, but it is what it is.
All right. So this is, this is off the
beaten track because I want people to get to know you as a
human, not as just a, an actor and, and, and a video store guy.
So I, I kind of, I wanted to know what is something that you
watch on YouTube, a guilty pleasure that the average person
wouldn't know that you watch? On YouTube, a guilty pleasure
and I do have a lot of sitting time at the store between
customers and even though there's a movie playing in the
background, well, I'm a huge sports guy.
But like guilty pleasure shit, it, it rotates like I, I swear
to, I sometimes my algorithm's all screwed up.
I'm like, why? Why am I watching the best of
America's Got Talent Oregon? What, what are those?
What do they call those things? Where like, it's like a crowd in
an airport or whatever and they just bust out the song and shit,
they're all in on it like. A flash mob type of deal.
I was watching the there was a great one.
I think it was over in Europe. They did they did Bohemian
Rhapsody and it was like the whole Town Center.
It was just like, fuck me, man. That was unreal.
Gets me all all, all all. Missed you you.
Know like. Because the, you know, the video
I get all my customers tell me this all the time because the
store is a basement store and when you walk in, it is a flash
blooded nostalgia. It's like an escape to a
different era. And you know, it goes without
saying. The world's kind of what's the
word I'm looking for fucked up right now.
A lot of craziness is going on, right?
I'm in the store. It's like, thank you, you know,
can we just nerd out and talk about movies?
I actually have a sign in my store and I'm, I'm very serious
about it. You walk in, it's AVHS tape and
on it, it says no politics, no religion, only movie nerd talk
aloud. And and once people come in and
because I know a lot of my customers, right, like, and I'll
know what their backgrounds are. So I might have like the most
left wing progressive person in my store next to the most right
wing, you know, conservative person, but they don't know that
about each other. All they're arguing about is
which sleepaway camp movie is the best one, which is awe.
That's what you need to be arguing about.
By the way, Part 2, how can you not love Bruce and Sister as the
killer? It's awesome.
I do love me some part three. I, I, I put them on kind of
equal footing even though 3 was the afterthought, right?
Like they filmed them back-to-back.
So three had, yeah, the leftover budget got three to the finish
line. And you, you know, what's what's
funny about that those two sequels is not only is it Bruce
Springsteen's sister, of course, but the final girls are the, you
know, are the siblings of Emilio and Charlie and Melanie Griffith
for the third one. So like, interesting.
Yeah, and she was in Renee. Renee Estevez, right?
She was in Intruder. That's right.
Yeah. Yeah, Intruder.
One of the greatest slasher movies in a supermarket.
One of the only slasher movies in a supermarket.
But you know. Some of the best gore ever so.
Oh, good. So good.
And, you know, see the Ramey brothers and Bruce's cameo at
the end. Yeah.
I also love that the DVD boasts starring Bruce Campbell and he
shows up for like 42 seconds. It's like what What was the
deal? Were they shooting the two
around the same time and they just were all buddies and they
happened to be all it was in Michigan, right?
That's. Where?
Because that's where they're all from, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And that was Scott Spiegel
directed Intruder, right? Yeah, and, and did Tapper have
something to do with that? I can't remember.
I'd have to. It's been a hot minute, but.
Yeah, nobody has it's you know what, it just so you know, it's
still a popular seller and renter at the video store that
that Synapse release is really nice.
So it it always flows in. It's funny that your video store
is in a basement because kayfabe wise, you know, I'm in a I'm in
a cabin in, in Broward, Illinois.
I'm I'm deep in the woods in a cabin, but about 30 feet to the
left. I built a video store in my
basement. Oh nice.
Yeah. So originally started, it was
just a room that had my collection in it.
And then the beginning of our YouTube channel, I was like,
what if we built 3B video as a nod to Joe Bob Briggs, The
blood, boobs and beasts, you know?
And so we built a faux video store and that's where
everything started. And then it progressed into
making a movie and then making a podcast and, you know, building
a cabin in the woods. But yeah, basement video stores,
man. How it all starts man at all
Well, and you know for for the 1st 15 to 20 years of my store,
what made it even more weird was above my store.
Out of all the businesses, it was a daycare.
So upstairs, weird movies downstairs.
The kids were the scariest thing in the building.
Don't get me wrong, but it because he'd walk down the
stairs at my at my store and that's where the parents kept
the strollers. So you're already weirded out
when you're walking down. You're like, OK, I see a bunch
of baby strollers. That's kind of bizarre.
And then you're seeing all the the horror movie monk stuff all
over the place. And but I don't know, the
parents love the store. They grab movies up there, pick
up their kids so. Does your video store have the
red velvet curtain with the adults only section?
There is a red velvet curtain but sadly that that just leads
to the room where the rented movies are as and and I was
always a bigger fan of the saloon doors.
I remember I I worked at like AI was going to say a normal video
store in the 90s but I worked at AVL store.
I worked the graveyard shift too where the the porn section was
so popular it literally was half of the store.
Like it, like it, it just was. This is like 199596 and it was
massive. I mean, do we have a section in
my real store with that? Yes, but I actually have a
adorable curtain on it, you know, because vinegar syndrome.
I mean there to me, if it played in the theater, it was shot on
film, you know, on 42nd St. It had a script and a budget.
It's not just a porno. It is a piece of cinema history
with the had a budget. And man, though some of those
old school flicks are getting better releases in the
mainstream Hollywood stuff, they're getting 4 KS.
They come with books and posters and loaded so.
Sex World. Dude, sex world of Oh, they're
they're some hilarious ones. I thought I was I was thinking I
was talking to my girlfriend. I'm like, we really need to get
a section of just all the the the movie parody pornos, you
know, especially the horny ones, like what repenetrator and
Edward penis hands, the greater massacre and evil head.
Dude, evil head. That evil head, the budget on
that looked pretty impressive because, you know, yeah, it's
it's, it's, it's, it's, it's an industry all on its own.
Yeah, the the budget for the Friday the 13th porn parody
seemed to be pretty high too. That was a weird one.
My Co host was like, I don't know if you've ever seen this
because I'm a big Jason guy. So he's like, I don't know if
you've ever seen this, but you need to borrow this.
And I'm like, that's kind of weird that you like out of
nowhere we're like take this and then like I'm sending him
Snapchats. Like watching it analytically,
like that's a pretty good, you know, that's a pretty good kill
scene or whatever. You know, like what?
It it's, yeah, it is great. My only disappointment with some
of the newer ones is they're not doing clever titles anymore.
Now it's just Friday the 13th. A porn parody.
Yeah. You know, I'm like, come on, put
put some more thought into the titles.
It's like or. Like, this ain't Ghostbusters
and you're like. Well, exactly.
You know, because vinegar syndrome does such a good job.
I mean, it's crazy to think that five years ago Venter Syndrome
was only synonymously known for I guess 10 years ago we're
putting out adult pills. But now they picked up all the B
movies that maybe Scream Factory and Arrow are like, no, no, no,
these are below us. And then vinegar swoops in and
well, we'll take the invisible Maniac and we'll give it a 4K
release and give you a 2 hour documentary to go with it.
Their side project, which is Quality X now, which still deals
with the, as we lovingly call them, the woohoo movies.
But I got one in a couple weeks ago.
It was called the The Fireworks Woman.
And I'm like, and I'm like looking at the cover, I'm like,
why do I recognize the dude in the cover?
And I flip it over. It's 1975, directed by Wes
Craven. It was a Wes Craven movie that I
did not know existed. And he made it after he did The
Last House on the Left. Apparently he couldn't get a gig
after that for a few years. So he took the money and said
yes to making this porno. And my girlfriend's like, we
need to watch this. Like, yeah.
Because I want to see if you can tell, aside from the obvious sex
stuff, that this was shot by a director.
And, man, the writing's great and ignited that He got his good
buddy David Hess Krug from last House for the movie.
Too. Nice.
And what in the movie? A lot not having sex, though.
I mean, he plays like a devil God type of character.
He's sort of like a top hat as art.
And yeah, he never spoke of it like in the actual film, like it
says directed by Wes Craven on the case, but on the film itself
it's a fake name. But yeah, I mean, he got paid
and then you know, boom, a few months later he got the Hills,
The Hills Have Eyes gig and the rest is history is.
That right around the time because he did that weird
invitation to hell. Yeah, I think after The Hills
Have Eyes wasn't all. They're pretty close because he
did an invitation to hell and then he also had the Summer of
Beer with Linda Blair. Yeah.
Yeah, I wish I liked that one a little more.
I I I I'm not a great big fan of that one, but.
Yeah, but you know, it's it's like you have to you have to see
them all right. I mean, so now I'm like, well,
I've seen all the Wes Craven Movies Now, I think.
But I'm still convinced now for pound out of all the great
directors that era, like it took me years to accept it.
But hands down the the the the one who had banger after banger
that cannot be topped is John Carpenter.
Like it's, it's not even close. Yeah, and it's funny because
Carpenter doesn't, like, necessarily care for some of his
stuff or like critics weren't kind to it.
And it's all awesome. It's all awesome.
It it is and it's weird because we people forget that like,
well, you, you won't, but most of his stuff did not do well in
theaters. Like it bombed.
And again, man, we can go all over the place this
conversation, but this is how cult movies are built up because
people discover them at the video stores in the 80s or late
night cable and that they get talked about and, and they get
passed forward and passed to buddies and they're traded
without with the streaming world we live in now, I feel the whole
identity of a cult movie, which means it takes a while to find
the audience, but eventually it'll it'll get a fan base.
I'm scared that that's going to go away now because there's just
there's so much content out there that's being piled on,
piled on, piled that something that was new two or three months
ago on the streaming site and it's only exclusively on the
streaming site. It's going to be forgotten about
unless you're literally searching for it.
It's not pop. And we're at a video store.
You walk in, you're like, oh, I remember that cover.
And you know, I'll, I'll proudly display these movies and push
them and push them hard. I think like that, that's a big,
also a big problem is attention span.
You know, when you're scrolling and you're just looking at
you're looking at covers, but you're not really looking at
covers. You know, you're just going bop,
bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.
And and then it takes you an hour to pick something.
You give it 10 minutes and then you're like, Nah or whatever.
But with the video store, it was like a hunt.
You know, you're going, going in and you're just up and down that
same aisle. You might go up and down that
same aisle for an hour and pick something up.
And, and if it's got the embossed cover like, you know,
like Deadpit or something, you know, you like just rubbing your
finger across it like, Oh my God, like, and you read that
synopsis and, and you're like, do I want this one?
You carry it around for a little bit and then you, you know, and
then we end up with like a stack of 6.
And you rented them, you spent the $3.17 or whatever per rental
and you got them for three days. Like there was no, I'm going to
watch 5 minutes of it and take it out.
Like I'm committed. I'm right.
You know, you ride it out and, and then it's like, like for me,
it's, it's committed to memory. It's committed to every activity
that happened that day, what friends I was with, whatever,
you know, So like it lives on forever.
I can be like, remember one of the first time I saw sidekicks,
you know, we, we went and practiced karate in the garage
or whatever, you know, like. Like you literally took the
words of a melt because that that's how we compare the
difference between streaming and and and physical media.
You know, you're right. If you're not into something on
streaming in 5 minutes now I'll get back to it.
You know what odds there you'll never get back to it.
I always tell you like go, go look at your continue watching
list and even ask yourself, you ever even starting half of these
movies? But at the video store, you
know, if a couple's coming in, there's a couple buddies,
they're grabbing movies, like 3 movies and you have them for a
week. At my store, you could have
picked the shittiest 3 movies of all time, but you will watch all
three of them. Because if nothing else, you get
to return to me and we can bitch about it and talk about it
together, which is, and that's also the cool thing.
There's that human connection, whether it's going to a movie
store or a record shop or a bookstore.
You want to talk with like minded people.
You know, the coolest kick out of his.
You know, I'm sitting behind my desk and some like 3 regulars
are in my store, but they don't know each other.
But the store is small enough they might overhear one guy
mentioned a movie and then he might chime in.
And next thing you know, these three perfect strangers are
nerding out about the same thing for the next 20 minutes.
And it's, it's super cathartic and it's, it's a, it's a very
communal thing. And, you know, we, we're living
in a world now where the more, you know, it's almost like that
fucking that movie Wally, where it shows the two heavyset people
and the food's coming to them and everything is coming.
You don't have to go out anymore.
And I don't think that's a healthy way to, to do it, man.
We're losing our, our social skills.
So that's just me, of course, But I mean, I, I see it and of
course, obviously I hear from a lot of my customers how happy
they are that, wow, you're still open.
Thank God you know. And it, and it builds a a
friendship, you know, like with me and my Co host.
I'll just, I mean it's, it's I'll use the convention circuit
as as the example, but could very well as easily been that I
met him at a video store, but we were at a convention, a horror
convention and we happened to both be in line and we're from
like 3 1/2 hours apart from one another.
And this dude is my best friend as of like for like 11 years
now. But you know, we're standing in
line and his wife is an extrovert and I'm not really an
extrovert. And she just chimes in and is
like where you guys from and starts talking to us by the end
of that weekend, like me and him were like, this is my favorite
movie. This is, you know, we're buying
each other stocking hats and like going and meeting
celebrities together and like, like, dude, I got you this pen.
I got you like. And then it's like exchanging
numbers and then like we'll get together next month.
Like I'll travel, you travel like you know, and then you have
like, but when it's like online and it's, you know, a comment on
a trailer or whatever, the chances of you connecting with
someone and making a lifelong friendship, it's almost
impossible. Let's be honest, if it's online
or you have a better chance of getting into some useless
argument with somebody than, you know, which, you know, that's
the difference. No, you're right though, and
it's very good. I mean, yeah.
I mean, I wouldn't have met my directors if it wasn't in the
video store, right? Or fest and, and every time we
were able to bring in guests to our film fest when they found
out I had a video store because the movie theater we use was
right down the street. So like wait, wait, you have a
video store maybe wanted to come check out my video store.
So we had Henry Rollins as a guest of ours.
When he did he never died. He was in my store for like 2
hours just just zoning in and I was like this fucking problems
dude. Like this is like idol worship
right here. It was like having your cool
grumpy uncle in your store. Our first Test was Michael Bean,
obviously corporal exterminator, all that solid do.
Danielle Harris was a guest of ours.
She was in my store. And the most interesting 1 was
Bobcat Goldwith. Oh my God, yeah, just corrected
Willow Creek. Now for me being an 80s kid, I'm
like, fuck yeah, dead police Academy, you know, but obviously
not like that. But the funniest thing was his
first movie he directed was Shakes the Clown, right?
I had, at that time it was out of print, but I had a copy of my
store and I told him that. So I ran to my store and I gave
him the copy at the the theater for the looser.
He was like, well, how much you want for it?
I'm like, dude, you made the movie, it's free.
I just thought he thought it was funny that I had to come home to
Edmonton, Canada when I live in Los Angeles to find a copy of my
movie that I cannot find in LA anywhere.
You know which? Cool.
That's wild, dude. Yeah, I might have.
I might have geeked out and I might have attempted to do the
police Academy impression. I probably would have made a
total fool on my ceremony. Drop on the vocal cords for
sure. Yeah, what am I?
Liver over here can. I ask him a question.
All right, Walter, I guess you can ask him a question.
What's the scariest thing you've seen at your store?
OK, well, the video store is located on a very popular strip
here in the city. All the bars, the nightlife is
there too. Like, obviously, I think I told
you what, I'm not at the store. I DJ punk and metal at a couple
of dive bars down the street. Don't get an eclectic amount of
people going down that street. My hours I close relatively
early every day because no need to stay open after 7:00 PM or
8:00 PM because that's when the Shady Shady's come out, you
know, right. I mean, I found a lot of
tweakers in my store that, you know, we got the old
self-defense baseball bat behind the desk.
By the way, the baseball bat they used to get the most random
movie promotional items delivered to my store.
It's a hardcore Henry baseball bat.
They mail me when that movie and it's a legit baseball bat.
It's just engraved with hardcore Henry.
You know, I thought, wow, what a random prop to have.
That is shit. Oh, I well, I mean we almost we
were filming one of our shorts. We also died of carbon monoxide
poisoning. That was pretty crazy all.
Right, Gene Hackman up in here. Oh shit, man.
So the scene was this is that web series I was saying about.
I'm getting sucked in the TV all evil that too at the end.
And we we at first we're just trying an electric leaf blower
to like get that effect and that shit wasn't working.
So my director, the brilliant idea of bringing in the gas
powered leaf blower, which look great and we're all like, it's
like midnight. We're like I'm feeling kind of
light headed and shit and like we all were.
And then there's no windows down there.
It's like all of a sudden one of our our our our our helper, she
gets faint headed like oh fuck, we're all dying right now guys.
We got to get how weird would data be?
The next comes the end. Like 6 people trying to make
shitty web series from poisoning or whatever.
Hereditary up in here. I've had some weird experiences
the the first couple years, especially because all their
video stores are still around. And I didn't want to be the
main. I didn't want to compete against
Blockbuster. So I went as crazy, really
insane. Like August Underground,
Cannibal Holocaust. That's what my score was built
off of, right? By the way, the Holocaust is
still the number one selling movie 20 years later.
I've sold it about 600 times that.
Super badass Special edition is awesome though.
Week, right? You can watch it with or without
the animal shit. I always warn people you don't
have to see that you don't want to and that's fine.
But bring it up because we had a made the news.
I know it was on one of the podcasts of Last Podcast on the
Left years ago. There was a fellow live in
Edmonton named Mark Twitchell and he was a filmmaker that end
up killing some guy, Ella Dexter style, and it made the news.
Anyways, I had some bunch of come in and they were like
berating me that I 'cause this because he happened or a couple
times I guess, you know, allegedly, yeah, though you
know, it was all like the usual Satanic panic shit.
Movies. Movies made him do it, you know.
You know. Yeah, so, but to be honest,
this, this like the store is more of a charming thing because
it's so unique and and and it's such like a, a retro thing now
that how about instead of scare, will the kids freak me out?
Like I, I get freaked out like the kids.
That's why I can never have kids.
But I haven't had like baby photos taken in my store.
Like parents want their children to hang out with Chucky and the
Elm Street house wedding photos in my store.
I've had like music videos shot in my store by bands.
I love that. But yeah, the, the I mean, aside
from almost dying, I had two massive floods this year just
sucked. Like, you know, it's it and also
the the video store. It's also recording studio for
bands at night time too. I love.
That that's so like in the backroom, technically, instead
of a porn backroom, you have a recording studio.
Yeah, yeah, it's a full-fledged recording studio, so bands
always. And it's funny, we get a lot of
bands that come in from out of town.
They've never been there. They just sell the address
they're walking in with their gear and they they're like, is
this boarding studio? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, just
knock on the full cheese zombie poster, I'll let you in.
It's a secret, you know, I love it, but go the just the I I
don't know, man, the the store people asked me to like, aren't
you freaked out by like all the, the the posters and the the
Knick knacks? I was like, no, man, this is
like like home to me, man. These are my friends, you know,
fish Toy Story was real and every day I locked up fucking my
Jasons and Bruce Campbell figures be playing with each
other and then hanging and no kid.
Yeah, it's the the scariest thing about the store is not
having it anymore. You know, so long it's like,
well, this is my lot in life. I'll keep this bad boy going.
You know, I got no retirement plan.
You know, I'll just eventually I'm going to look like, you
know, I joke with my girlfriend. I'm like, look, when I die, I'm
going to look at the grip keeper, my body.
So just, you know, save the bones, put some wires in me, put
some fake eyes, and whoever keeps starting going, just put
me in a glass or whatever and make me say.
Some wax, Yeah, just wax. Figure you stick you in the
corner. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that'd be fine with. It I love it.
I love that you haven't had like truly scary dangerous things
happen other than, you know, the accidental carbon monoxide.
I mean a few crackheads here and there is expected, but the flood
thing bums me because I have a basement video store same
situation you lose. So I don't know if you lost
things, but. Like the movies are fine because
they're not in the ground, but lost a lot of like one of my
yeah, like a lot of stuff got destroyed.
And the building is about 70 years old, right.
And they finally fixed the problem.
It turned out like the the trees outside the roots were growing
into the building and kind of clogging everything up.
So massive rainstorm. It just like they they couldn't
deal with it. And, and it comes with the
territory, though the cool thing is like, and this is really one
of the perks of working in bars at night.
The first flood happened like around midnight and I was
freaking out like it was an inch deep.
And the minute I post about it, there was like fucking 12
buddies there with shop vacs at like 2:00 in the morning.
Everybody just came and like I had a couple that they were
regulars at my store, but they had a child and they brought
their six year old kid with them at 1:00 in the morning to help
out. You know, it warms the heart,
man. It warms the nerdy heart
through. Yeah, like passing the bucket up
the steps, like go, go, go, yeah, go.
I love it. Save it.
See, we got maybe a foot of water and it happened like that
and yeah, a whole like bottom row of DVDs and a lot of VHS and
then a lot of, you know, your, your cardboard standees and
stuff like that. It's like.
Yeah, my cardboard I did lose. I mean, I tried to salvage him.
I had to cut it in half or whatever, you know, but yeah, it
really hurts. I did lose this one really heard
it was a gift. It was a working script from
psycho from 59. My my now girlfriend, she found
it on eBay from some guy in the US who's like or some woman
whose husband worked on psycho and and I don't know what she
made for it, but it was just really surreal.
Like to flip the thing open. There was a few hundred of them,
but this one managed to it had like, you know, the the date
changes on the bottom script revivals.
It was just that's so that cool. That one hurt that one.
My God. That's amazing.
Yeah. Man, that hurts me.
I'm I'm, I'm sad right now. Fellow look, us fellow
cinephiles, we, we feel it. You know, it's you know, you
just, you tell yourself it's just stuff.
It's just stuff. But it's like I can't replace
that but it's all my. Stuff, yeah.
And it's, and it's some of it's super old and.
And holds a place in film history, you know.
Oh. Absolutely.
So it's people come in that are new to the store and they'll
look at all the trinkets like how much for that Bates Motel
son? Like that's not for sale.
It's just decoration. That's the joke is a lot of
stuff where it was given to me by now ex girlfriends.
So I'm like, well, at least something good came out of the
relationship because tough to have a personal life when you
work seven days a week and you have to have most understanding
person in the world. But if you do, you do what you
got to. Do Yeah, this is true.
Well, lucky for you, you got to keep things with, you know,
having an ex-girlfriend. My ex-wife took things, so I had
to rebuild. So Oh well, that that's another
thing. You get to know all your
regulars After 20 years, I've seen regulars meet at my store,
buy their collections here at my store and then get divorced as
this or husband or the wife will come back like cab I need to buy
this this. It's like, don't you already
have it? Lost it in the divorce like son
of a bit. Man, that's tough.
Yeah, 'cause you're kind of like, as the guy who recommends
movies and and meets all these people, you kind of
inadvertently take on a role of like a therapist.
Cause yeah, I, I feel it all the time, you know, like sadly the
couch was killed in the flood. We're getting, I get a new couch
this month. But but yeah, I'm like, you know
what, being a video store guy and, and I have one buddy that
helps me out. That's why I'm not at work
today, thankfully. But it's like being a cab driver
or a bartender, you know, you're there and we shoot the shit and
yeah, you know, it, it and it, like I said, it's amazing how
people have a bad day in their personal life.
They'll come into the store just to chill out for 20 minutes and
look at some movie titles and like then resume their day.
But it gives them a little bit of a battery recharge I guess
can. You you can tell what kind of
day they're having by like what they're renting.
They're like I rented sleeping with the enemy and single white
female and you're like whoa. All right, fatal.
Yeah, first year and algorithms are funny, man.
But no, it's it's absolutely true.
And then like evolution of customers, like, you know, one
of my regulars when they were like 1817, all they wanted was
the goriest shit out, but the nastiest more in Japanese Guinea
pig, whatever. And then, you know, 10 years
later, they're not into the gore anymore.
They still have horror movies. They're more than enough
psychological thrillers. They're like, you know, like,
wow, my, my tastes have changed, have they not?
Yes, they have. I think you know all teenagers.
I don't. I don't know exactly how old you
are, but I'll be 42 in June, so. I'll be 50 this year.
OK, so, you know, when we were growing up, like those types of
movies, the nastiest thing you could ever be recommended, it
was like a rite of passage, you know?
So you're, you know, yeah, like you said, Cannibal Holocaust or
like cannibal Fair ox. Yeah, like that, like people
want those movies they they have to experience them, you know, or
that they think they do anyway, sometimes it backfires.
They watch them like dear Lord, what was I thinking?
Why did why did I rent sallow 120 days or so do?
You want to watch people eat poop?
I don't know. Kids had a good time making that
movie, apparently. A lot of chocolate.
So yeah, sidebars, Speaking of
stuff like that, like my Co host, his wife, she was obsessed
with faces of Death growing up, you know, all the whole series.
And so one year for Christmas, I bought her the set and she
believed because she hadn't seen them since she was a kid, you
know, and she believed they were real.
And she was watching a dub of a dub of a dub.
So they know the lower quality helps.
And I had to break her heart. I'm like, you know, that guy's
not a real mortician like that, that that's an actor.
First giveaway, because that's a really terrible actor.
Yeah, What's his name? It's like something B Gore or
something. Yeah, it was it was something
rigamore. I don't know, but it it was
pretty ridiculous. But I mean, I remember when when
the Blair Witch Project came out the summer 99, you know, and and
people were like that shit was real, man.
I'm like, so you're telling me this big studio just profit up
three people's deaths and released a snuff film for money?
No shake. Shake your head.
I bought, I bought into that, you know for sure.
I was a 14 year old kid when that movie came out and.
So I was we got 99 I loved in our early 20s.
But and yeah, I mean, I remember, I remember seeing in
the theater, we went to the midnight screening and I was
over like 3 roommates at the time.
And I'm like, you know, nothing's happening that's
happening in this last two minutes.
And then we all get back home like 2 in the morning.
Well, that the movie didn't do anything for me.
But on a not not related. Is anybody tired?
You guys want to stay up for a bit?
Why don't we turn on this light over here?
And yeah, I mean, like, so psychologically, it did work,
you know, and and it's one of those movies you had to be there
at the time. I mean, obviously it's been
found footage got just nuts it out of hand over the last two
decades because of that movie. But yeah.
That movie. Also another sidebar ties into
that movie. I I have a teenage daughter and
a teenage son. My teenage daughter is 18, my
teenage son is 16. Probably 3 years ago we all went
camping and I took the projector and speakers and I took Blair
Witch Project. Oh, I think we're going to go
Friday the 13th, but OK. And I we, you know, watched it
in the tent, projected it on the tent in the middle of nowhere.
And my, my daughter was like, this isn't scary.
You know, she was like, so no selling it.
And then by the end of the movie, she was like, we need to
sleep with lights on, you know, like it totally.
I was like, it's not scary. It's not working.
Like, you know, you're, you got a good poker face.
But yeah, it it comes home with you.
It really does. Yeah.
And, and those are the best. Those are the best movies, the
ones that stay with you because somebody always asks me, you
know, obviously I'm going to get asked a lot.
Cab, what's the scariest movie you got in your score?
And I'm like, well, it depends on what kind of person you are.
If you're if you're scared of spiders here, check out
arachnophobia. You know, last night, for
instance, I worked out I I looked again to make ends beat.
I do what any responsible a 49 year old guy does.
I host punk rock bingo. But when I'm doing bar, I get to
play movies in the background. So I thought, yeah, let's let's
watch 8 legged freaks. I had that playing and one of my
friends, she walks in. It's like, do not tell me there
are spiders on the TV screen right now.
I cannot state Cap. And I'm like, oh, come on,
they're CGI. Look, ape and our cat.
It's going to be fine. You get young Carla Johansson,
look at this. She's a baby of this.
And Dougie, Doug. You know, everybody's different
with what freaks them out. It's funny.
Yeah, I that's a loaded question and I, I hate getting asked that
question because that's kind of the same deal.
You know, you got to be like, well, just.
Somebody what's your favorite movie of all time?
I guess the more I think about it as I get older is well, what
movie have I watched the most of my life that I'll never get
bored of and every time it's on I'll stop everything.
So for me, I guess if you go by those rules, it's jaws hands
down. It's jaws like 50th anniversary
this year we will saw the IMAX glorious like absolutely
glorious. You know, God, I love that
movie. It's, it's the perfect movie.
You know why it's the perfect movie?
It doesn't matter how fake the shark looks.
That's how awesome the movie is, right?
Exactly. If Spielberg ever special
edition that shit like Lucas I would lose my mind.
Like no, you say? You don't change a frame the.
Frame in that movie. It's a, it's, it's a Corman
movie with a Spielberg eye, you know?
Yeah, exactly. In fact, in fact, I remember
Cormoran's famous quote of Josh's coming.
He's like, well, I think we're screwed boys, you know?
Yeah. But I mean, obviously I've done
a lot like get interviewed lost. She went with the after the last
video sort of came out and people will ask like top five
favorite movies. So again.
Depends on the mood man. What mood am I in?
Right? I mean, usually I go with the,
you know, run-of-the-mill Hitchcock's Psycho, Original
Texas Chainsaw 78 Body Snatchers, John Carpenter's
Thing and Return of the Living Death.
I fucking worship Return Living Dead.
That that movie, if you've never seen it in the movie theater, I
I hope you've had the chance to see the theater.
I've seen that a drive in. Oh, nice, nice.
Well, yeah, screen it again. Earlier this year was the 40th
anniversary, of course. And I always tell you all like,
listen man, maternal guys playing in a theater.
Bring a friend that's never seen it.
It's such a party movie. I think I have that soundtrack
on vinyl like 4 times over. Like it's, it's just it that
movie that that's the perfect blend of horror and humor.
And I know because I saw when I was 10 years old, I remember
renting the old Thorn HBOVHS tape.
And then I was a little bit scared, but then it was kind of
funny. And then that's when 10 year old
Kev realized, you know what? I think I like punk rock girls.
Thank you, Lydia, you know, same.
God bless the. First boobs I ever saw.
Linnea Quigley. I was 6.
My dad and his friends were watching the movie and they sent
me upstairs and like, my mom was really big into interior
decorating in like the, you know, 19891990 or whatever.
And she loaded our living room with mirrors.
So I was on the top of the steps and I could see in the mirrors,
I could see the reflection of what they were watching.
And I saw Linnea Quigley doing the dance and I was like, that's
the first naked lady I ever saw. And punk rock chicks, you're
right. She was a childhood crush and my
heart broke. We were at we had these, we had
this convention here called Dead by Collin in Edmonton.
And it was the the spring of 2020.
So you think you know where this is going?
And Anita was climbing and my buddy ran.
The thing goes, Kev, do you want to do the Q&A with Anita
Quigley? Because I know she's like your
first movie crush. And I'm like I said, no at
first. Like fuck that.
Like I know like, I don't care if she's 62.
I'd be all nervous and stuff. Yeah.
And everyone's like, dude, you got to do it.
So upon reflection, I'm like, yeah, I'm not wasting.
So I studied for a week, man. I watched every YouTube video of
her being interviewed and I'm like, oh, yeah, I got this.
And then literally the the weekend of was the was the
weekend the world shut down. Her plane landed here in our
city. Like she couldn't even leave the
airport. She got back on and go back to
the US because everything. Bust out the binoculars and like
look at her from afar. Dude, talk about being denied at
the last minute. It just wasn't meant to be.
Maybe. No stairway.
Deny. Yeah, no, I mean, it's like,
yeah, it's, it's been like I'm still as broke as ever and I
still work all the jobs, keep the story going.
But on the other hand, you know, getting to go to Fantastic Fest
in Austin was unreal, man. It was hot there.
It was like September, it was like like 40°C.
It was humid as hell, but like, you know, our little silly
little micro budget movie playing right next to the Toxic
Avenger with Elijah Wood and Dinklage.
And I'm like, this is weird man. And and I wasn't nervous at all.
I'm like, man, if everybody hates this movie, it's OK.
I'll never see these people in my life again.
But premiere here in my home city at the theater.
The theater fits 525 people. We sold out a week before the
screening. All of my customers were there
out the every I worked with at the bars was there.
And I'm like. Holy shit, this is like, this is
your life or something, you know?
And I'm like, if these guys hate the movie, I'm never going to
hear the end of it. And that weird the movie, It was
a 7:00 PM screening here on a Sunday.
I opened my store at noon. By about 3:00, I'm like, fuck
this, I'm too nervous. So I went to the bar I work at
and I started hitting the shots. I was just boom, boom, boom.
And to make matters weirder, for the last 10 years, there's a
documentary being made about me and my video store.
So the film crews from follow me around, they went, they follow
me to Houston. They follow me when we were
shooting the movie. They weren't going to follow
when I went last year for a Film Festival there.
Luckily they couldn't, but they got this all in film.
And I'm I'm on the crowds all pumped.
And I'm like blubbering already, you know, I'm all emotional,
just a absolute wreck. But hey, that's some good
things. Dude, you know, life is rad.
It really is. I always say when like whenever
we do little like conventions or whatever, and you know, we take
our little micro budget movie and and a lot of kids, you know,
like kids come up and want to like look at the monster mask
and stuff like that. And I always say like, you know,
just be a good person, chase your dreams and, and love life,
you know, and. And be good, be good to people
you know. It's not a hard formula to
follow. It really is.
It's funny you mention kids. I was going to bring this up
earlier. I figured the people that grew
up on video store culture, we're going to get something out of
our movie. In fact, the earlier views, like
the movies got a lot of heart, which I thought, oh, that's just
a nice way of saying you tried guys, but you gave it all.
But no, well said. It was.
There's that one scene in the movie where I'm sitting in the
bedroom with Vanessa and I'm like, you know, well, I used to
get paid to talk movies and then people stopped coming or
something like that, right. And I guess that, but I've had
buddies show like their 10 year old kids our movie because I, I
think I've sold about 700 units through the store through arrow
alone. But anyways, this one kid comes
in and he's like 6 and he's with the sister.
He's about 7 and and the dad's like my son has a question for
you. And then the kids like, how did
you get back to the video store? And I'm like, oh shit, as a six
year old, they think it's real. And it's very because I do have
a video store. So I had to explain to him that
after me and Caster bounced through a few movies, Caster
told me I had to go back and open the video store in his
loving Jason manner, you know, And then, but then I thought it
was cool. I have the cursed tape, the
prop, it's behind my desk. I thought it was cool to show
the little boy the tape. The minute I showed it, he
freaked out at me. And he's like, don't you ever
play that tape? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
And I tried to show his sister, and the sister hid behind the
mom's legs. It was adorable, thought, young
man, that I'm like, don't worry, son.
The reason the tapes here is so I can keep an eye on it so I can
never get bad hands again. That's right, but keeping the
world safe, baby. No, but it, it, it's cool, silly
stuff like that, that like, you know, I never thought like the
day would come. We're like, do you mind signing
this? And I'm like, no, not at all.
You know, like, I hope Arrow's probably happy going, man.
We're selling a lot of this independent movie that we
distributed a couple years ago. I wonder what the connection is.
You know, like, it's cool to have the movie because it's
always stalked on the shelf because, you know, when you go
to some cool touristy place, you usually want to buy a T-shirt
that says, I was here or keep, well, people are coming in.
Like, well, I might as well buy the movie based off this cool
store that I'm visiting. So.
Yeah. Yeah, dude.
Yeah, sure, I know. You got.
You did you. Have the physical release of the
movie or yes I do I got that arrow got the arrow going to get
your your send me your your mailing address.
I want to send you the Canadian release through black fawn.
The the bonus features are totally different and we did a
video commentary in the real video storm for it.
Nice. What you do is the movie.
Plays in the bottom. Left corner and it's me my 2
directors SIM and Cody and action Jackson Josh all sitting
on my couch kind of podcasting you through the whole thing how
we made it I love that dude yeah I I definitely need.
That I'll I'll send you a copy brother.
Hell. Yeah, I will and I'll.
I'll send you some stupid videos of.
My video store that pales in comparison to your real video
store. No one can buy things from my
video store, they just borrow. So if you need some more, if you
need some some pictures this. Video of my real store to give
you an idea how it looks. I know there's a bunch on my
Instagram if you scroll way down, but I'll I can send you
some images. So you have a rough idea of how
close the store actually is to the movie.
Yeah, I I would love that because like you said, like with
the movie. You don't have nearly as many
like cutouts and whatnot because obviously blocking, right?
You got to like, you can't have shit in the way.
Cool reasons too, right? The idea of filming in the real
video. Store was autumn, everything
would be blurred out. You'd have to blur things out.
We don't have the rights to have that Evil Dead poster or the pit
stand up that's in my store. And luckily we Charles Band gave
us the rights for free to show any full moon thing in the
store. He just said, yeah, go for it.
Lloyd Kaufman, same thing. And obviously Drafthouse films.
That's why you see like Blake and Fright and and obviously the
Aspirant 6 stuff was everywhere. That's, well, like, I mean, I
know it's not the same thing. It's not here anymore, but in my
set I have a lot of little posters.
And so like we have modified like the Prom Night poster and
it's called the Stabber. And I changed the, you know,
it's all a bunch of Italian names and it's like when he
stabs you, you die as the tagline, you know, like a bunch
of mod modified stuff. So you're not like, look at all
this copyright shit. Funny you mentioned prom night.
Just so you know, I live in. Edmonton, AB, Canada.
And the best horror movie ever filmed in our city was Prom
Night 2. Hello, Mary Lou.
That was then. We had a screening of it on 35
mil print about 10 years ago. Every dude that was at theater
that was in their late 40s, early 50s, they were all the
high school extras. They're all the students from
that movie. What?
Yeah. We also also the Bill Goldberg
classic Santa Sleigh was shot here in our city too.
Nice I do we have Friday night screenings in the video store
after I close everybody's welcome to be able to make
popcorn and a big projector screen comes down and we'll let
people vote on what movie to watch.
We did we did that one about well during the holiday season.
Big hits, big hits. I love that's a really short
easy watch too it. It doesn't.
I don't even think it crests 90 minutes.
It's it's pretty fast with our movie.
It's with credits it's like 80. 2 minutes, right?
And but I always have this thing, I have this discussion
with customers. I'm like, bring back the 90
minute movie, you know, bring like 89 minutes, especially if
it's a genre movie. It does not need to be over 2
hours long. I mean, those last three
Halloween movies were all 2 hours and 5 minutes. 2 hours and
10 minutes. Like, no, don't need to be that
long. Pretty bloated, like Friday the
13th, the final. Chapter is the.
Perfect essential slasher movie. You probably picked up on our
love for Prodigy and Final Chapter by using Beaver Lake
Four. Yeah.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
And then there's a bunch. Of Easter eggs, I'm sure you got
the. Address in my video store the
the numbers are real like one O 815 but then it's like one O
815. You need a Ave.
Oh yeah yeah yeah. Return of living dead.
Television in the movie a lot if you'll don't get this.
My director found it on Kijiji in Ontario.
That is the exact model and brand and year of this Game 2
from Poltergeist. It's same television from
Poltergeist. Little things like that that I,
I, I think. Stand out.
The last one that Joe Lynch picked this up on on his
podcast, The Prey Stalker, was designed as that first crappy
version of the Predator with Van that yeah, that that was.
I love it. TV wise, the TV.
In the cabin is the shempotron, you know.
'Cause it's. Not real.
I mean, it's totally real. Hell yes.
Mirage, you with a shit load of photos from my store when I get
there later tonight, like OK, and then there's this and then
this. I love it.
I'm going to send you pictures of everything.
Yeah, no doubt because you know, it's it's when you meet.
A. A like minded person that's into
it. It's like it's not bugging them,
it's showing them awesomeness. That's right.
I think we are friends forever now.
You, you just messed up. We're buddies.
Forever and Well. Wait, did you say you're in
June? Baby, You were born in June.
Yeah. So was I What?
June? What?
7th 23rd What up June? 7th 84 if.
I was born on June 6th. I'd have the same birthday as
Robert. England, but no, I I'm, I'm one
day off from Bruce. Campbell, he was 22nd.
I'm like, shit. But I suppose we can move on to
this last. Segment, Sir, if you are ready
to throw down, all right, one of these, let's do it.
So now it's time. To take a look at your hot.
Takes. For this segment, Sir, we are in
fact the. Deep Cut Podcast.
And I would not be doing the name of that podcast justice if
I did not endlessly scroll back through all of your social
medias and look at a bunch of things that I've seen you say in
one post or another that you like, you love, and then make
you choose between A or B. So 10 different AB choice
questions. You can either rant and ramble
as to why or just say this is my answer next.
So all right, some are cinema related, some are not.
But like you said earlier, no politics, no bullshit.
We don't do that. We're we're we're above that.
So people take that that. Garbage in the world so.
That's right. I ain't about that.
I want people to know who you are as a.
Human being, the kind of stuff that you love and get to know
you so #1 Twilight Zone. Outer Limits.
Fuck Twilight Zone. Just cause Rod Sterling is.
A God, I mean I've I've been re binging the OG series earlier
this year. The writing is still what What
happened to good writing? You know it still holds up.
And Sterling died, that's what. Happened.
Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Yeah, all.
Right next full moon cannon. I'm.
Gonna have to go with Canon on that one I I think.
Early full moon has a lot of greatness, but Canon, if you
were a kid in the 80s, that logo would pop up and you were you
were ready for gold. Especially with kids.
One of you like, whether it was Shogasugi, Chuck Norris,
Bronson, it didn't matter. Oh, Dudakov.
I mean, come on, Michael Frickin Dudakov deserved a better fate
as an. Actor.
Man, that they really. They really screwed him over.
But no Canon films. I mean, where else are we going
to get space vampires in London AKA life force, right?
Well, Toby Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars in the
theater when I was 10, you know, and can saw 2 is a comedic
masterpiece. It's it's bloody brilliant.
And yeah, like I've mentioned earlier with SHO Kasuki, if you
were a kid in Ante 4 when Halloween came around, you
either want to dress up as a Ghostbuster or as a ninja
because enter Revenge Ninja and Ninja 3.
The Domination is one of the wildest trilogies.
Like show plays the bad guy in the first one, the good guy in
the second one, he's a damn exorcism wizard in the third
one. I like to show people the third
one with no context whatsoever. That's like my favorite thing to
do. Like it's like The Exorcist
meets Flashdance. Meets a ninja movie, but it's
got Lucinda even break in and break into electric moving and
growing up. So yeah, not nearly enough break
dancing. I'll I'll just say all.
Right #3. Cats or dogs?
All right, I love all animals, but.
Because I've never had. The luxury of having a house
with a yard. I'm an apartment guy and I'm
never and I'm never home either, right?
Cats for me personally, as my cat Ebert is rubbing against the
computer right now. I had, I had two brother cats.
Sadly, one passed away, but I did name him Siskel and Ebert
after the film critics. I'm like, well, you guys have
been watching movies with me all the time.
You're going to be judging me for my bad choices in life at
2:00 in the morning with some of these movies.
But I feel like I cursed my cast because in real life, Gene
Siskel passed away like 1999 and and my cat Ebert passed or
Siskel passed away when he was 12.
But I got my cat. He's about to walk by the camera
right now. I love it.
See, you're a cat person and and they know.
Half years old and he's still kicking, you know, and.
So maybe you can make it to 20. I'd be OK with that.
OK pal, I I love it. We are.
We had two cats. Merle and Daryl, I know where
you understand where that came from.
And they passed away. We had them.
For like 15 years. We have a dog now, Danny
Torrance, so very little mini pincher, and he's getting up
there too. But yeah, yeah, appreciate the
time you have with them. Right?
Absolutely. All right, next one.
This is a weird category and this is tough for me, and I know
this is going to be tough for people in the audience that know
these films, but this is a film choice.
I'm going to get you Sucker or Black Dynamite.
I'm going to go. All all the respect.
In the world for I'm going to get you, sucker.
Because it came out before off first, obviously, and the like
the the wayans are are awesome. I'm I'm really pumped for Scary
Movie 6 just because they own the property again.
But I think Black Dynamite is perfection.
And I mean that as he and I've shown Black Dynamite to people
who didn't know what it was about, didn't know it was made
in 2009 and until they recognize Michael J White, they were
convinced this movie came out in 1974.
The the own of it, the music, taking every blaxploitation like
story arc ex Vietnam, getting the drugs off the street.
We got to fight the man, the Kung Fu, all of it and wrapping
it into one character. Like the fact that black
Dynamite himself is a mix of black belt Jones and probably I
want to say Jim Brown where his I love bullhorn.
Bullhorn is literally dolomite. He is Rudy Ray Moore, you know,
with and the, the fact that they kept that scene in.
I love that scene in the pool hall, which was based off a a
real event that happened on one of the film says 70s where a
dude really punched the dude and a fight broke out and they had
to switch the actor real quick. And obviously, if you remember
that scene, there's just too much to laugh at.
Who cannot die laughing when he throws the the the the I threw
that shit before I came in the room.
I was literally just going to say I quote that like on a daily
basis. I.
Threw that shit bar. I came in the room.
The person I watched that movie, I I spit.
Out whatever I was drinking like that line just caught me off
numb chucks right they fly through the window and.
How how they come to the conclusion that Anaconda?
Malt liquor shrinks your Dick like with the hole breaking, you
know, in in the oh, I just and I love who doesn't love the pimp
scene with pimp Captain Kangaroo and I'm like a hole in there.
And and Miguel Nunez junior from returning to living dead is one
of the pimps. Damn right.
That's such a good movie, man. So good.
Yeah, but. But Speaking of Miguel.
That that dude like there's a guy like to meet at a
convention. He's been around forever.
He doesn't get the he you forget he worked with Eddie Murphy.
I think it was Harlem nights he was in and like he taught us
about enchiladas, you know, like he he I I dude, I even have
copies of Juwan a man in my store just because that's a star
in that movie. Also kicking it old school,
which is criminally underrated. I genuinely.
Love. And I'm like, yeah, anyways.
Propster Miguel Nunez. Junior A A a working a working
afters man you know he's he's I also love Return of Living dead
when. He didn't realize he was.
Going to get slapped the second time, yeah.
So he was pissed too. Yeah, yeah.
That story is great. Speaking of a a slaps to the
face that were did you know you remember the Stallone movie
Oscar where he it's a mafia comedy.
He came out in 91. I don't think I've ever seen
that one only bombed, but you you should give it a watch.
Tim Curry, Marisa. Tomei Chaz, Palma, Terry, great
movie and Stallone showed like like I know he did stop a model
shoot which was terrible, but this was.
There's an opening scene where Stallone Kirk Douglas plays his
father and he's dying on the bed and he promises him he'll make
the business go legit. No more gangster shit.
Well, the story goes that Kirk Douglas was apparently supposed
to be Richard Krena's role in First Blood, but it didn't work
out. I guess Douglas kind of blames
Stallone on that, so cut the Oscar.
That scene allowed Kirk Douglas to slap Stallone across the
face. And if you watch it over the
scene, oh, he bitch slapped him hard.
He said there, Now we're even 10 years left.
Here's your receipt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pretty much fucking into wrestling now.
We're going to be here forever. That's beautiful.
All right. Next question.
All right. Well, seasons, winter versus
summer. I know you.
Are in Canada so it's always winter there I believe.
I'm not sure. Yeah, and I, I would have been
in. My igloo to podcast.
This one for you guys, but you know, I I thought I'd they can
look respectable, like we actually have walls and stuff.
You know, well, honestly, my favorite season is it's neither
Fall, fall, autumn is the. Greatest season of them all I.
Fucking love autumn. It gets a bad rap because winter
is next. Yeah, where I live, obviously it
can. The cold, it can be like -3040
in, in February, it's not bad now.
It's like 0°. It's nice.
You get used to it. Short weather.
Yeah, well, I. I'm not the biggest Christmas
guy, but I. Find Christmas without snow
super fucking weird. Like I've only had that happen a
couple times where I'm visiting friends or or relatives and I'm
like, where's the snow, dude? Like I need it, man.
I need it. But yeah, if I had to pick, I'd
say summer because it's a dry heat up here.
Like, so it's not humid. I don't know how people like in
Florida or even Austin when I was down there.
It's so humid, dude, like next to you, at least here.
Well, even in the winter time, it's a dry cold too.
So if you're bundled up, you're fine.
But if if you're like nor E like like Toronto or maybe Boston or
somewhere around there like it, it cuts through you, doesn't
matter how. Yeah, I am not a winter which we
live in the Midwest. We live in Iowa, breaking
kayfabe. We're not in Broward, Illinois.
We're in Iowa and it's like cold like seven months out of the
year here. And I, I don't know why we have
never moved. I, I just, I don't know why.
But maybe once the kids graduate and move, we'll, we'll venture
to warmer climates. But art is though, right?
I I. Asked like I got my director.
Is written whether they don't get winter right it's just rainy
or whatever. Like Kev how can you just move
open the video store in Vancouver and like, first of all
it's way too expensive that's too big of a city for me.
I I like where I live because it's a big city.
Population's over 1,000,000 here, but it's a big, small city
where, you know where everything is, right?
Yeah. Everything's like separated.
So it's not all like just on top.
Of each other. I live in like the cool artsy
district of my city pubs. And movie theaters, video store
and just a lot of live music stuff like that, right.
But like I've been to Toronto like it's, it's too big.
Vancouver's too. The only, the only big city I
fell in love with was Montreal actually, because as a kid I
grew up in Germany, so oldest city in Canada.
So the architecture is like beautiful, right?
And yeah, Montreal, a lot of lovely people out there, I'll
say. And you don't have to speak
French, which I learned real quick too, because I couldn't
for the life of me. I took French.
We had to take, you know, school for years.
I don't remember a damn thing I was going to say.
Do you speak French? Oh, God, no.
Well, the. Funny thing is I used to speak
fluent. German because when I was a kid
I lived in Germany, but then we moved to Canada, we stopped
using it and I kind of forgot it all because like as a child,
you're like a sponge. You can soak up so much, right?
Right. But no, I'm I'm sadly I'm I'm I
find the the people with the best superpowers in the world
are. I got buddies that can speak
like 5 or 6 languages and that's insane.
I don't know how you can fit all that in your brain.
Dude. I don't like, I remember.
I saw Glorious Basterds with a buddy of mine and he.
Used like about 3 different languages in that movie.
He didn't have to read a single subtitle.
He's like that. I can hear it all.
I'm like God damn you, you're good man you're good.
That's differentiating the dialect like.
But the movie's spoiled. I already know.
Yeah. All right.
Next one we touched. On.
One of them already, but this is a director question.
Corman, Cohen. Corman or Cohen?
Yeah. Well, I mean in.
Fairness. Like when I think of Corman I.
Think more of him as a producer. Like, I know, like, yeah, I
mean, he was passionate about all the other alcohol
adaptations with Vincent and, you know, but I mean, I think in
a lot I'll always love Death Race.
But we're talking Larry Cohen, right?
Yeah. OK.
So talk about eclectic cinema. Larry Cohen can go from doing
like Black Caesar with Fred the Hammer Williamson, which I love
and Hell up in Harlem, by the way, for the good back man, that
James Brown soundtracks banger and he can give us Q the wing
serpent and he can give us the stuff and he maniac cop, which
you know, I don't Ludzik wait, did Ludzik Rudzik directed it
and Cohen wrote it. I think that's he's called epic
writer, right. So that documentary King Cohen
Cohen was fantastic and it's just sad that he passed because
he's like come interview me again in five years.
I'm, hey, I'm going to go with Cohen on this one, but it's
close. It's very close, OK.
But when we we met Cohen. I think it would have been 2016
at Crypticon in Kansas City. And dude, he, he was so funny.
He he had a fruit basket on his table and he had bananas.
And we were talking and we're just like having a normal
conversation. And then he just while we're
talking, he just peels this banana.
And then he just puts like half of it in his mouth.
And then he just continued to talk to me.
Like, like, you couldn't understand him.
He was just like, like doing a gag.
And everyone around me was like, what's wrong with this guy?
And it was like, it was just comedy genius.
He was like just having the most fun ever and.
Yeah, well, also, you know, and the one thing you got to love
about both of those? Guys is they're they're they're
no give a shit attitude to shoot something without any permits.
Yeah, like I love watching like something.
Like black? I think it was black.
Season where Fred the Hammer is getting in a fight with a guy at
the airport and you're jumping all over those suitcases.
Like those are real people. Suitcase.
Those are not actors in the background.
I'm like, man, if you thought to do a mock fight at airport
today, you'd be shot. You know, I'm like, yeah, but
yeah, all we're like. And honestly, Cohen did one of
my favorite masters of horror episodes pick me up with or
score the first second episode. I think maybe, I think and you
also. Got to give props up to Larry
Cohen because he was the. Only one who could wrangle in
Michael Moriarty. You know that a lot of guys did
not enjoy working with Michael Moriarty.
Apparently he was a tough one, but he did kick ass on Law and
Order. Just going to say yes, he did
he. Absolutely.
But yeah, so. No Larry Cohen and and and.
It's sad he's gone, too. Yeah, both.
Both legends. Next one.
This is between 2 movies. This is a hot topic I guess.
My Co host and I, we we go back and forth on this.
So the Wraith or the Crow 'cause they're the same movie?
No, it's a scary movie. Dude, it's so.
I literally so I. I sell or rent out the rate
every couple weeks, and when somebody asked me, you guys
nailed that description. When somebody asked me what's
the rate like? It's like the Crow with cars,
but it's in the 80s and it's got Chuck Sheen, Randy Quaid and
Clint Howard. OK, 'cause my, my, you know, my
high school years were the early 90s and I was, you know, into
industrial music and all that. And what would happen with
Brandon Lee. And then the first time we saw
The Crow was actually the drive in in 94.
I just turned 18. It just that soundtrack that
that movie capsulates that that that 90s era perfect like that.
If you were into that kind of stuff, Prematrix, I'm going to
go with a personal. Person.
I'm not saying which of these better that's that can be.
There's no right or wrong. Everybody's allowed to have
their opinion. But the Crow.
In fact, I'm so passionate with the Crow that when that God
awful Sarsgaard one came out, I wouldn't even allow it in my
store. I didn't.
I refused. I haven't watched it.
Oh. Costner asked me.
Kev, can you order it in for me? And I'm like, 'cause I got a
shipment of. Like 4 grand in movies in every
week and I'm like, I will order it for you.
It will never enter my video store.
I will give it to you outside of the store.
You give me money. I've never felt that passionate
about letting my personal taste get in the way of business.
But in that case I I just no, this is wrong on every level.
Like I I don't you can make crow 5678 that's fine.
I'm not offended by that at all. Never offended by a shitty
sequel or even a friggin a television spin off.
Whatever you want to do, but don't remake this movie.
The guy literally gave his life for it.
He not like. So I'm going to go crow nice.
Yeah, draw the line in the sand and keep that outside of the
video. Store yeah, I'll tell you we we
champion both of the movies here.
I I am firmly in the the Wraith and my Co host is a big crow
guy. We did a Clint Howard
appreciation month where we covered 4 Clint Howard movies
and evil speak. Yes we did.
That's like a Clint Howard movie.
Yep, we covered. I'll send it.
To you we covered evil. Speak we covered.
The Wraith we covered I can't remember off the top of.
My head but those two. For sure.
But yeah, I, I love the Wraith. Plus the 80s boobs don't hurt,
you know what I mean? Like it's a, it's a rock'n'roll
fun. I I I It sucks getting older.
But I'm so glad I grew up as an 80s and 90s kid and the movies
and, and just the love of it all.
And, you know, again, not to get too deep and philosophical, but
it's, it's not a, you know, young people don't get it
because no, they do. In fact, I got a lot of cool
young regulars that prefer 80s movies.
They literally go all the way. They want the 80s because they
want. So when it comes to horror
movies, they love practical effects.
They pick a CGI. It's just there's nothing you
can do anything you want now, but there's something the charm
is not there, you know, like practical effects and, and, and
something about the 80s. It was just when it came to
movies, it was more excitement. It was more of an event going to
the well, it was an event going to the theaters or going to the
video store like we talked about earlier, because now everything
is a click away. So it's not that exciting.
Or if you don't theater opening weekend, like don't worry guys,
we'll be on streaming by two weeks from now.
You know, I'll wait before the same day.
Yeah, right. Which is crazy.
Which is like. That.
Playing like you have to understand in the 80s if you
missed it in the. Theater you might have to wait
up to a year before it hits VHS or Beta.
Yeah you can bare minimum like 6 months.
Yeah, for sure. And.
Then unless it's a sell through tape like a.
Batman or who from Roger Rabbit were like the first ones to do
it or ET. Good luck buying a copy for
8995. And that is 80s dollars.
So the first VHS tape I saved up money to buy and it was half
price at 50 bucks. And again, this is 1989 was
Halloween for the return of Michael Myers.
That is steep, yeah. I'll always.
Up for that movie. That's a great one.
Another one with that. Yeah, I saw it the same year,
Yeah, that I rented. That and child's play.
I was, I was. I was 12.
Yeah, when they both hit BHS. That's a fucking awesome double
feature, dude. Absolutely.
Next sports question. Hockey, professional wrestling,
I'm. Oh, you're going to make it be.
The stereotypical Canadian. But then again, the, the, the,
the, the heart dungeon is only a three hour drive from here on
Calgary. OK, let me just say in the 80s,
so our hockey team is the Edmonton Oilers.
So we had Wayne Gretzky back then.
So like it, it was champion after championship.
So it was hockey all the way. But then the 90's, the team was
garbage and the Attitude ever began wrestling.
I was 100% sucked into every Monday Night Raw and Nitro and
like, it was insane. That was like, to me, the golden
era of wrestling. Like, I don't think it'll ever
come back between 96 to 2002, basically.
Yeah. What still watching, still die
hard wrestling fan, but believe it or not, once I opened the
video store, I had to work every day.
So I kind of fell out of touch and I did watch Cena's last
thing there a couple weeks ago. I still don't want to talk about
that, but I watched the last AW pay-per-view.
My my my girlfriend's a die hard wrestling fan.
She used to wrestle locally here.
She's all like 5 foot nothing but completely tattooed and and
yeah, she knows she's all about Japanese pro wrestling and all
that shit. Like she, she can talk your ear
off. I love it.
But all overall consistency over the last 30 years of my life.
I'm gonna have to go with hockey, but I do love me a damn
good pay-per-view and the Royal Rumbles coming up.
And that's always the best paper of the year.
And we're degenerate gamblers at the bar we work at, so we we can
gamble on the Royal Rumble. Now you're thinking, oh, man,
that's, that's not fair because you, you think you know who's
going to win? You just pick up.
But no, no, you draw numbers out of a hat and that's you guy.
I love that dude. That's so rad.
Yeah, dude, it's. We do a $5 hat, a $10 hat.
A 21 hat so you could you could buy end all three.
And now that there's woman's and men's rumbles, there's six hats.
So one year, me and my buddies table, we won.
Oh crap. I think I won 600 bucks off the
men's one and then he won like 800 off the women's 1.
So it was a glorious night of the pub drinks on you, you know
what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely.
Oh. That's so rad.
Well, this is another I. Guess the stereotypical Canadian
question. This is food, poutine or
cheeseburgers. I'm going to go with
cheeseburgers. The thing is if.
I lived more East Coast Canada. Like if I was French Canadian,
it wouldn't even be a thing. But every, if you ever go to
Montreal or Quebec, you have to have the food team there.
That's like the legit source of goodness, you know, But I live
in Alberta and you know, beef is king here.
It's it's basically Texas North, right, as far as the, the food
goes, But I, I love them both, man.
I'm actually, you know, it's funny, the girlfriend's vegan.
I am not. But so half the week I eat
vegany food and the other half like, OK, back-to-back to
business here. Good cheeseburger with some
bacon on it. Oh, baby love.
That's, that's tough to beat. Like the 2 greatest smells to
wake up to in the morning are coffee and bacon.
Like it's just I'm out of bed, I'm up.
I smell it awkward. Like instead of making noise, it
just sends out the set. The smelling smells of coffee
and bacon. Like at the same time, I'd be
out of bed so quick. It's that Mitch Hedberg joke.
I was like, I wish I had a. Candle that smelled or an
incense burner that smelled like cinnamon rolls that my roommates
would wake up with false hopes. I wish there was a bacon scented
candle. Just a mess with you.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's even worse with
like. You know, the apartment
buildings where somebody's cooking bacon down the hallway
and I can smell it and I'm like, I just want to knock on their
door. I'm like, you know, it's kind of
rude if you're not going to offer a piece of bacon everybody
on your floor because we all smell it.
And it's, it's it's killing us, man.
And. And that's the way possible.
Yeah. Hook it up.
Just one piece. That's all I need.
All right, last one. Yeah, you.
You already brought this person up, but I'm going to make you
choose between Lanaya Quigley and Michelle Bauer.
That's AI think I already know, but I got to go with Lanaya.
I got to go. 'Cause again, I never met her,
but I know like, she's pretty tiny, right?
Like she's like, and I think it was actually, yeah, it was
shocked. It was my partner that said I'm
the same size as Lanaya Quigley. I'm like, how do you know that
they have the same shoe size? Apparently, and obviously not
just for the, you know, that young adolescent hormonal Kevin
of me back then, but the movies. I mean I I how many times have
seen return and as as silent night, deadly night Crepazoid
rules and dude, I'll still you know, they shot it in eight days
and they said one of the only movies where she doesn't get
naked. But come on, sorority babes, the
slime Bowlerama is so ridiculous And and the fact that they had
the title first, they had eight days to film in a bowling alley
with no script and I'm like and he's still a popular seller to
this day. Yeah, it's a killer poster art
and it's a it's a fun ass movie it.
It really is, yeah. And I was shocked when they made
a. Part 2 A couple years ago they
hit the shop. I I actually I haven't watched
it yet, but I heard it was not not not so didn't have the
charm. I did not.
I didn't see it, but I heard that the was the original.
Title of that just called like the amp.
So I'm really glad they went with, yeah, whoever, whoever
came up with. The the proper.
Title. I hope they got a raise.
You know, good old. It's like that is the kind of
title that if you saw that as a 12 year old kid in the video
store on the shelf you are renting that movie.
There's just ifs ands or about about it.
It's kind of like seeing that the cover of pieces and going
pieces. It's exactly what you think it
is. You know, like or like a class
of Nukem High, the cover of class.
Of Nukem High, you're like, I'm renting this.
Oh for sure. Do you have a favorite Tromo
movie? That's tough, dude.
So. Only directed, of course, right?
So part of me, so I. This is not a trauma movie and
and so. Lloyd didn't direct it, but
Trauma put it back out. So can that, can I use that as a
caveat? Yeah, for sure.
I mean, so basically they distributed.
It, but it'd be not it'd be. Night Beast.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm such a Don. Dolor, Mark I.
Worship Don Doler. So but if, if it's just pure
trauma, it's probably it's probably Terra firmer.
OK, yeah, Terra firmer. Let's give one.
I me. Personally, I go with Romeo,
Julia. Well, first of all, when you got
Lemmy introduced in the movie, I mean God, but man, that's how
you Lemmy. He's I look, I'm not the biggest
motor FM, but I'm a massive Lemmy fan, you know, like he was
as Motörhead. Obviously when Lemmy passed
away, we all took it pretty hard up here, especially at the bar,
right? In fact, I remember they were
showing his wake live on YouTube or whatever.
So yeah, that and like, it was a tough watch and it all the, but
we, we had, we, we opened the bar up for that wake.
It was a Saturday afternoon, I think.
And but the only deal was you could only drink Jack and Cokes
with nothing else. You could we served nothing
else, only Jack and Cokes all day like but I I love that like
Lemmy and even though I wasn't that big on the new toxic
avenger, I went to see with some buddies in the theater and it
you know, it's it's fine. It's it's a little bit too they
they can't really recapture that 80s greasy New Jersey
independent kind of feel to it as much as you want to try
right, but I reviewed they paid to Motörhead and Lemmy where
Dinklage is singing. Did you see the movie?
I I didn't. It is my Walmart.
Of all like tis the only place you can buy physical media in my
town has it and I pulled the trigger on black phone 2 instead
of toxic avenger. Yeah, I my coffees of Black
Phone 2 showing up last week in the.
Shop. I wasn't huge on black phone
one, I thought it was a little bit too over height by the time
I saw it. It was good, but it wasn't
great. I kind of like black bone too,
because a yeah, it's a nightmare on L3 RIP off basically, but
that's fine. It's not the personally to do
that. And I love the winter setting.
Maybe that's the Canadian in me. It kind of looked like Bieber
Lake. I'm not even sure they went out
there like I'm like whoa. And the IT kind of had like a
curtains. Call Back Curtains is a Canadian
jammer. I I, I I.
Just had I was recently interviewed up here by a a kind
of a Canadian type of celebrity does docs and we were talking
about Canucks exploitation cinema at my store and yeah,
curtains is I always tell people look any slash movie between
1978 and 1984 assume they were shot in Canada and they're
Canadian. Even though you don't think as
the tax credit, the shelter credit back then.
It's it's wild how many movies I didn't know were Canadian.
Like, wait, that's so many. So many.
Yeah. From that era, like it it it,
it's wild. Like, you know, depending on the
movie, she tells you what part of Canada is like.
Like My Bloody Valentine was shot in the Maritimes and you
could tell there's mooks had beer in every friggin scene of
that movie, you know, or, or something like, you know, Jason
Eisner is hoping with a shotgun is so Nova Scotia.
It's it's ridiculous. It's yeah.
Where, you know, like something like Wolf Cop is Lowell, Lowell
Green that that's like the Prairies.
You know, Wolf Cop was shot here and like all the astronauts 6
guys, stuff like Winnipeg is becoming Manitoba up here.
Like, man, they had like a couple wrong turns were shot
there. Both the the nobody and nobody
Part 2 were both shot in like Manitoba.
Like a lot of stuff's getting shot up here.
Season one of us, they used our city for the downtown.
They shut the whole downtown down for the Last of Us here.
Oh, that's bad ass, dude. Oh, man, it's yeah, it's it's.
Really surreal, it's. Yeah, but yeah, that's totally
sacked. Yeah, I was, Yeah.
Going from a trauma to yeah to Yeah.
No it's all good Romeo and Juliet because I always saw my
customers. Hey guys this is Jane Gunn's
first movie that he got paid 250 bucks to write and Co direct and
his brother Sean is wearing a big awesome pumpkin shirt in it.
It's also Tiffany Shepis I think was her first movie.
Yeah, I think you're right with a weird.
Sidebar to Tiffany. Shepis that goes back to Joe
Lynch and the movie Crypt, because you were just on there.
Tiffany Shepis was. On.
The movie Crypt and they were asking her about like getting
started and she mentioned a local film director named
Patrick Ray that lives about 2 1/2 hours from me.
Oh crazy. And she was basically like he
takes on. Anybody like for P?
As or whatever so you just kind of reach out to this Patrick Ray
he made a movie called I am Lisa.
He made nail biter couple other like really cheap horror movies.
But yeah, I I don't know about. Nail biter OK, all right.
And so she just basically was like if.
You want to get involved in film, you hit him up, You know,
just just brought it up in passing.
And I was working at a crappy factory job and was listening to
the movie Crypt. And I knew Patrick from the
convention circuit. So it's like 2:30 in the morning
and I'm like, I'm just going to shoot him a Facebook message.
What's the worst that he could say is no, I, you can't work on
anything with me. And by the time I got off work,
he was like, yeah, I'm shooting a like a Hallmark movie.
So I need, I need P as if you want to make the trip.
So I drove, you know, 2-3 hours and worked at like 4 days on a
Hallmark movie with him as like a guy who carried shit around.
Cool man. That's yeah, it's it's had a
good experience like like again. For me, it was, you know, rather
than like just secluding myself when we were shooting the last
video store, I wanted to hang out with the grips and all those
guys. They were the cool guys.
And I, I 'cause this is all new to me, you know, I'm like, wow,
this is like, you know, it was still again, it was a micro
budget movie, but it was like we, we were in a real film
studio. Like we had that set and, and,
you know, all the lighting and all the gear and it was so much
gear. Like it was, it was crazy.
But yeah, poke it all in. Yeah, you go from shooting like
shorts and stuff. With your core group, group of
friends, and then all of a sudden there's like 20 other
people on the side of the camera and it's like it's the same
thing, just magnified a little bit, you know?
But it, you know, it's kind of funny the way the shooting
process went, though. It started off in this big
beautiful studio in Hamilton with like a crew of 30.
And then and then we go to and it was like, wow, this is
professional. And then we go to reshoots out
in Vancouver and it's like, that's a smaller little studio.
And now it's just green screen and there's like maybe six or
seven of us. And then literally shooting at
the very end, we were shooting in Cody, my director's living
room with one green screen and there's Josh or Jackson holding
up a, you know, a dummy head or whatever.
And I'm holding light and, and you know, and I'm like, like,
oh, great, now we're back to we're broke.
We have no money and we're shooting in our living room.
And then we did one real shot in the real video store and it was
just, it was that it's a close up to me when I'm tripping balls
on the praise stalker thing. That's me on my real couch for
like one shot so we can thought one thing in the real store.
So I mean as long as it, you know, if it cuts together and.
Tells the story, you know what I mean?
It's like, who cares where the insert of like my hand was or
whatever, you know what I mean? Like and because we're out of
money, like Cody, not he was he filming?
He was editing every night and he had do the VFX and there are
so many VFX shots in that movie. In fact, one of the bonus
features on the Canadian release, which I'm going to mail
you, it does the before and after thing.
Like even I was like, oh shit, that was a VFX shot.
Like like half of the roof was fake.
Like we didn't have enough. We didn't have enough panels to
fill the whole roof. So it was all VFX.
Later. Obviously the gumball was all
fake. I mean, you know, just little
like things you would assume is real isn't real, you know.
Did he go to school for that or is he self-taught they're.
All self-taught man. That's because they're younger
than me, right? So.
They're, they're all in their mid 30s, I want to say.
So, you know, I mean, the way these with the YouTube tutorial
videos and all this stuff and you have the right equipment and
the right programs. I mean, do you have to go to
film school anymore? I had so many buddies spend
like, I think it was like Vancouver film school in the
90s. It was like, dude, Canadian
money. It was like 25 grand for one
semester. And I had one buddy go and I
think it only gig out of it. He was a security guy on the
Teenage Mutirals television live series.
And then people go back broke and they're like, well, that was
a waste. We should just done it ourselves
kind of thing. Yeah, so you with the
independent, you know like Kevin Smith and and Tarantino and all
that, I mean it. And it really inspired, of
course. Now with everything being
digital, how hard is it to save up some money by counter, buy
some gear and you can figure it out if if you're smart enough.
Yeah. Yeah.
You like. Well, there's that famous
Tarantino quote. Like, I didn't go to film
school, I went to. Films, you know, watch enough
stuff, absorb enough stuff, and then you can't help but, I mean,
you might not make Gone With the Wind, but you can't help but
make something rad. You know what I mean?
I mean, yeah, it's it's funny. I was thinking like, wouldn't it
be? It'd be kind of cool if like.
Kevin Smith saw. The movie, I, I know if he gets
something of it because it was always weird describing the
movie to people that haven't seen it.
I always hate when you got to do that.
It's this meets this to sell your movie.
So it goes sometimes like it's Clerks meets Evil Dead or or or
or it was another one too. I always hated that, though.
I'm like like when people say because a lot of people they
thought it was a horror movie. Like it's not a horror movie.
Like it's so I call our movie it's it's AB movie, video store
adventure film. That that's what I felt like to
describe. It's it's a tribute to a very
specific feeling, not even a. Time.
It's a tribute to a feeling and and it's it's, it's also a
tribute. It's not a tribute to
Blockbuster, it's a tribute. To like the mom and pop video
stores that were around in every corner.
I'd never had nostalgia for Blockbuster.
In fact, I loathed Blockbuster whereas came into our city the
the smaller independent chains couldn't compete.
They closed down. But Blockbuster was not carrying
the cool 70s exploitation weird shit like it was.
It was a smaller stores where I discovered, you know,
nunsploitation, A blaxploitation and yeah, some greasy stuff and
all the cool independent slasher movies.
Blockbuster would never carry those.
They have no interest because you don't need 40 copies of the
Fugitive. You need some guy behind the
counter to be like. Hey, you ever seen Ghost in the
Machine? Well, that's a bad example.
Ghost in the Machine's a bad example, but you know what I'm
saying. You mean.
And also their uniforms were God awful but the.
Nostalgia Blockbuster to me is, I mean, I'm happy for those that
aren't nostalgia and maybe just because they were like legit
kids in the 90s, like the, you know, 10 years old in the late
90s. Yeah, Blockbuster would be
awesome for sure. They did have a good video in
that. But yeah, the fact that with the
indie stores, the mom and pop stores, I-10, year old me could
walk out with Dawn of the Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and
they nobody blinked an eye the minute Blockbuster came around.
Like, you're not 18. I'm like, what does that have to
do with anything? You know, just I I can trust me,
it's cool. Like even if my parents wrote a
note, it wouldn't work, you know?
But then I'm gonna generation where I could literally go into
a corner store with a note from my mother or step mom for a pack
of smokes and and it was legit too.
Like it was legit, but and they wouldn't.
Yeah, there you go. Say hi to your mom kind of
thing. Yeah, exactly.
Because, yeah, different time. It was it.
It wasn't Stranger Things. But it was, it was, it was
different you. Know and like actually I haven't
bothered watching the season 5 of Stranger things.
I kind of it's. Been too long, I've kind of
lost. Interest after season 4, I'll
get around. I also have not.
I've got a bunch of buddies that are like, dude, have you watched
it? I'm like, no I haven't.
I haven't pulled the trigger. On it.
But the last series thing that I watched was Welcome to Dairy
because I was very intrigued. So I watched Welcome to Dairy.
It's great. I have not watched any of it and
the reason I can wait is because it's getting a.
Physical release in March. I want to so it'll be coming to
my shop and and again, I'm totally cool that it's the same
reason I haven't watched Del Toro's Frankenstein yet.
I missed it in theaters and I'm not watching on Netflix.
I I admit it's a bit. I don't want to be that guy, you
know, like, yeah, well, I get you.
I mean it gets all blocky and weird and loads funny.
Yeah, so a criterion is putting up Frankenstein.
So you need more. Directors like Del Toro and
what's his name, we did Midnight Mass and all the Stephen King
stuff, Flanagan, Mike Flanagan, you need like that to step up
and say, hey, I want my stuff on physical media.
And they are, you know, Fincher's the same way.
And the more directors step up, I think more it'll help us
collectors and obviously selfishly have business like
mine stay alive because, you know, these guys, these
directors of today's era, they grew up on video store culture
as well. So it means a lot to them.
They still want to see go St. streaming.
I mean, if, if, if our movie would have just went straight to
streaming and I'll get a physical release.
A movie called The Last Video Store, only available for
something I don't do. Yeah.
I mean, we're not VHS tape copies of our movie that the
Canadian company made for us. It was so pretty.
Yeah, but I mean, man, I can ramble here all day with your
brother. We'll just have to bring you
back, man. Oh dude, order, man.
I I really appreciate you. Coming on here so.
To wrap it up then. Just let everybody watching,
listening, or however the hell they're consuming this know
where to find you, all of your socials, where to find your
movie. And I'll let you get on with
your life because I know you had a late, late night and you need
some more caffeine. I'm sure one more copy.
And then I got to do the adulting stuff.
My one day off, you know, groceries.
Make sure my cab members. When yeah, maybe, you know,
laundry, that old thing. Yeah.
So I'm not the most socially media savvy guy.
I'm definitely never. Going to be on tik.
T.O.K, that's my my buddies were like, oh, dude, you should start
a TikTok count for the video. So I'm like, hell no, hell no, I
I, I I I stare at my phone too much as it is.
I need to take a step back. But my favorite platform to use
is generally Instagram because pictures, man, it's it's super
simple, no negative. And on Instagram, my name is
Kevin. So it's a simple video store,
Kev. And that's where a lot of people
message me from wherever they're at and we talk movies or I
recommend and stuff. There is a group page for the
the the store on Facebook. But the real video store is
called the lobby DVD shop where in the movie is called Blaster
Video. I was kind of bummed out we
couldn't use the real name of the store.
I mean, talk about the ultimate commercial for my store.
But yeah, I didn't. They had to separate the art
from the artist and in fact, I even had to sign.
Away my likeness. This is true story in a contract
where we film where Kevin the video store guy, I sold my
rights away as as me, which is really meta and weird, you know?
Yeah, you can find me find the shop on Facebook.
There is also a website for the video store too.
Our short films, I believe, are on our website and the website
is the lobby movies.com. Aside from that, hey man, if
you're ever in Edmonton, Canada, come visit me, Google me.
I'm around seven days a week usually.
And we can, we can shoot the shit about bad and good cinema
all at once. And yeah, hopefully maybe a
couple more gigs are coming up in the future.
And, you know, rock'n'roll, maybe I can.
But my goal in life as I know as a almost guy turning 50, and if
I ever wanted to keep pursuing this acting thing, which I don't
know, but because I have the oddly looking face I want to.
My dream is to be the next Crazy Ralph or the bartender from My
Bloody Valentine who gets to tell those damn kids not
snooping where they don't belong.
I want, you know, heed my warning, you know, with the 3D
eyeball. Yeah.
Sky ball you. Know or the grave digger in
Frozen part 6. You know, digging them up.
You think I'm a fart head? Fart head, you know, like I want
to be those amazing. Grizzled character actors.
I might have to fly you out. Well, I might.
I might be. Getting like a small acting.
Gig like all. Two scenes out of England.
If it's like they they might be flying the outs like Essex,
England for like one week of shooting in a scenario where I
could probably film it here in Canada.
Just send the footage. But you're like, Nah, we get the
money, we'll fly you out. Vacation, going on a vacation.
And that's the way I look at it. And it's being produced by now
a. Friend of mine who I met.
In in Austin, TX, Jake W who directed evil aliens and
doghouse and he did the video nasties documentaries out there.
Yeah, really, really awesome guy.
He's like a like a yeah, I know you'll say Billy Idol's distant
relative or something easy. Anyways, we'll see what happens,
but honestly my main goal is just.
Keep the video store going. Man, I don't have a choice now.
I wasn't intending to be the last video store in my city, but
I am. So I feel like the the Templar
Knights and Last Crusade, you know, when they're like guarding
the Holy Grail. It's like, can I leave now?
No, you cannot leave or or movie genre comparable.
I am Sam Neill and this is the event horizon.
She won't let us leave, or I guess I'd go Jack Torrance in
the Overlook Hotel, too, but you get it.
I love it. All right, well, on that note, I
suppose we should probably get going because after all, there's
a lot of movies. Out there and somebody's got to
watch them, so why not us, right?
Yeah, well, maybe we can catch up in a few months and we can
shoot the shit about the good and the bad, so.
Far 2026. Who knows?
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