Loathe Thy Neighbor centres around a misunderstanding between two neighbours, Will Larkfield (Brennan Clost) and Wanda Bellerose (Lauren Holly) and hilarity ensues. Images by Benjamin Dunlop, Courtesy of New Mountain Films.
by Kiera Merriam
Cast and crew are getting ready for the nationwide release of their film Loathe Thy Neighbor, filmed in its entirety on a 100 acre farm in Arran Elderslie.
We caught up with Brennan Clost (The Next Step, Tiny Pretty Things) who co-stars and co-produces the film alongside Lauren Holly (Dumb and Dumber, Picket Fences) ahead of a local screening of the film.
"I'm really excited for the Owen Sound screening, it will be fun," said Clost during our recent video conference chat.
The Owen Sound screening is invite only and is set to take place early this week with a Toronto screening happening later in the week.
"It's really starting to feel real now," Clost said.
Loathe Thy Neighbor is billed as a dark comedy and Clost said the story is about unlikely connections, not judging a book by its cover, and confronting grief.
"My character as he's coined in the film is a 'citiot' so he's sort of this quintessential city kid who moves to the country farm he inherits after his father passes away," said Clost. "He's allergic to everything and orders this online epipen, the package goes missing, he asks his neighbour about it which she interprets as him accusing her of theft and a feud erupts," he said.
Brennan Clost's character, quintessential city kid Will Larkfield (right) chats with Joe Dickinson (left, played by Shaun Benson) after inheriting his father's farm.
"It's a boy to man journey for my character," Clost said, adding that while the film is funny, there's also a real "tug on your heart strings" element to the film.
When I asked Clost how Loathe Thy Neighbor came to be filmed in Arran Elderslie he said the location actually came first.
"It was through a family friend of mine," he said. "They knew I'd made like web series in the past and they're like 'Oh, you could make a movie at our farm.'" Clost said the wheels started turning.
"They thought I was going to run around with my iphone and make a little movie with my friends and we had all this gear and a crew and actors and like a proper union film," he joked.
Once they had the location, they developed the story and the cast and filmed it with borrowed gear over a two month period, from September to October in 2023. The film made its debut as an Industry Select at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2024.
With borrowed gear, cast and crew of Loathe Thy Neighbor descended on a 100-acre farm where they lived and worked for two months in 2023.
Loathe Thy Neighbor was Clost's first role as a producer. "So I really had a lot more creative say than I've had it the past," he said, adding that he got to make this movie with "basically all my best friends."
"All the actors in the movie I've worked with on different projects here and there so it was nice to collect all of my favourite people and get to make something all together," Clost said.
He revealed that the most spoiled cast member in the film was a prize winning pumpkin from Bracebridge grower Ben Carter. The pumpkin in question, a 962 pounder, won third prize at Bracebridge Pumpkinfest in 2023 and due to the Bracebridge weigh off happening earlier in the season than Port Elgin Pumpkinfest (and for reasons we can't reveal without spoiling the film) pumpkins that had yet to be entered in the Port Elgin festival couldn't be used for the film.
"We didn't want it to get too damp and rot so every night me or Lauren would tuck in the pumpkin with like blankets and tarps," Clost quipped, adding that people who have seen the film come away surprised that it's a real pumpkin.
"People in Toronto were like, 'Woah, what a cool prop.'"
Billed as a dark comedy, Loathe Thy Neighbor actor Brennan Clost said there's a real "tug on your heart strings" element to the film.
Clost said he is so grateful to the property owners for letting them take over their farm for two months, adding that they lived on the farm for the duration of the making of the film.
"We were all bunking together, waking up in the morning and having breakfast together and filming all day then having dinner together and prepping everything for the next day," he said, adding that in the evening he and Lauren would be steaming their wardrobes and getting their props built, all while memorizing their 10 pages of lines for the next day.
"It was really immersive," said Clost likening the experience to film camp. "It's all I'm thinking about, I pour my heart and soul into it, I really love working on projects like that," he said.
Clost gave a shout out to local vendors and the region as a whole. "I'm so grateful to Bruce County and so many local vendors who gave so much for the film," he said. "I was just cold calling a lot of people and I was just met with kindness at every turn which I'm so grateful for."
"There were just so many things that had to work for it to even come about and I still can't believe we pulled it off," he said.
Clost is from Burlington, now resides in Toronto, and has lived, worked or trained in Europe, British Columbia, and the United States. He spent time visiting and vacationing in the Grey Bruce region growing up.
Clost recalls one summer when his family's cottage week was really rainy, "but actually it was great because then we explored the area," he said, adding that among their stops was the Keady Market and the former Owen Sound Drive In. "I just fell in love with the area," he said.
In addition to acting and producing, Clost, now 30, is a dancer and choreographer and following the national release of Loathe Thy Neighbor, he is set to appear in the series finale of The Next Step. His role with the Canadian teen drama was what broke him into the industry at the age of 16 and the show is bringing back original cast members for the finale which is set to air in Canada this fall.
He also has a TV movie coming out later this year and he's in the early stages of a television project that he called his baby. While he didn't want to reveal too much he did say that it will involve dance. "I always find I come back to dance, it's how I see the world," he said. "It's what brought me up in the world, my filter for every day life is through the filter of dance."
"I find musicality in everything," he said.
Loathe Thy Neighbor is available in eight locations in Ontario but unfortunately none of them in Grey Bruce.
You can see it in Stratford (Stratford Cinemas), Oakville (Cineplex Cinemas Winston Churchill), Toronto (Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas and Cineplex Odeon Eglinton Town Centre Cinemas), Vaughan (Cineplex Cinemas Vaughan), Newmarket (Silvercity Newmarket Cinemas), Whitby (Landmark Cinemas 24 Whitby), and Ottawa (Landmark Cinemas Kanata).
Loathe Thy Neighbor is also showing in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, and Halifax.
Loathe Thy Neighbor is set for a nationwide theatrical release August 29, 2025.
