Toronto – With twenty horror, sci-fi, action, and cult movies crammed into nine nights, and an eclectic mix of short films thrown in between, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2012 gave the Toronto genre fan a multitude of reasons to be sleep-deprived. Before going into a sustained state of hibernation, audiences cast their ballot for which…
In the post-apocalyptic Bounty Killer, bounty hunters roam the wasteland and earn their keep by taking down white-collar criminals. One of the hunters, a guttural and scruffy Nathan Drake lookalike known as the Drifter (Matthew Marsden), turns prey when a bounty is suddenly put on his head, which causes a bit of strife between him and his rival, the foxy and more famous Mary Death (Christian Pitre), who happens to always wear what looks like a hybrid nurse and stewardess outfit (plush with go-go boots and garters).
Being trapped in a room full of zombies should be a bit more harrowing than the UK horror comedy Stalled would suggest. In the film, a hapless maintenance worker/janitor (Dan Palmer) gets trapped in the women’s lavatory during a company Christmas party. Things are exacerbated further when a slew of zombies start invading the loo, at which point the janitor realizes a woman named Heather (Antonia Bernath) is trapped with him a few stalls down.
It’s no big secret I love horror films, but 2012 hasn’t been a great year. In my top ten, three films carry over from 2011, two won’t be released until 2013, two are animated and another isn’t much of a horror film. With that said, 2012 gave us Berberian Sound Studio and Cabin In The…
[callout] The Imposter Directed by Bart Layton [/callout] [quote by=”Josh Spiegel”] Your mind play tricks on you all the time. You’re presented with a clear-cut fact, something that is immutably true, and you doubt it. You wake up in the middle of the night, but your mind convinces you that you’ve had a full night’s…
With over 2 billion reads, Anna Todd’s Wattpad-to-paperback literary phenomenon After has left us all reeling. In a novel packed with romance, drama and a bad boy that we love to hate, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on more books like After. After is a contemporary romance novel written by author Anna Todd….
The Editor Directed by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy Written by Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy 2014, Canada Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of homages to the giallo genre including Peter Strickland’s clever, slightly bizarre and altogether mesmerizing thriller Berberian Sound Studio, a movie that pays tribute to the…
‘Irish horror movie’ isn’t a phrase that comes up a lot, unless someone brings up Grabbers, and why on Earth would anyone do that. And yet, Fantasia 2014 has seen the unveiling of Let Us Prey, a new horror film by first time director Brian O’Malley, which is already making waves in the horror film circuit, and with good reason. Let Us Prey is a tense, tightly-wound and effective horror film that shows incredible promise from O’Malley, and delivers both for gore fans and those in search of something a little deeper than mere exploitation.
A Fantastic Fear of Everything Directed by Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell Written by Crispian Mills UK, 2012 A Fantastic Fear of Everything is a film that Wes Anderson would make if he didn’t give a flying sausage about storytelling. It has many of his auteur signatures (a twee pop-art sensibility, creative and meticulous set…
Game of Werewolves Written and directed by Juan Martínez Moreno Spain, 2012 A hundred years ago, a nymphomaniac queen kills an entire band of gypsies after forcibly having sex with one of the members and getting pregnant, hoping to keep the lineage of the lovechild a secret. With her dying breath, the wife of the…
A Fantastic Fear of Everything Directed by Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell Written by Crispian Mills UK, 2012 A Fantastic Fear of Everything is a film that Wes Anderson would make if he didn’t give a flying sausage about storytelling. It has many of his auteur signatures (a twee pop-art sensibility, creative and meticulous set…
In Their Skin Director by Jeremy Power Regimbal Written by Joshua Close Canada, 2012 Following a still raw and recent family tragedy, Mark (Joshua Close), Mary (Selma Blair), and their nine-year-old son Brendon (Quinn Lord) take a therapeutic sylvan sabbatical to their family cottage. One morning, they are unceremoniously introduced to the Zakowski’s, an overly…
Wrong Written and directed by Quentin Dupieux USA, 2012 An aptronym, or charactonym, is when a person’s profession or career is aptly expressed by their strangely befitting name. For example, if your name is Anita Baker and you become bread-monger, or if your name is Dan Druff and you become a barber, then this constitutes…
Dead Sushi Directed by Noboru Iguchi Written by Noboru Iguchi and Jun Tsugita Japan, 2012 Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a sincere documentary about a humble 85-year old sushi maker, was an “effective, ultimately heartfelt, and handled deftly” film about the skill, spirit, and dedication needed to fully grasp the rarely mastered culinary art. Now, imagine if…
Sushi Girl Directed by Kern Saxton Written by Kern Saxton and Destin Pfaff USA, 2012 Remember that iconic opening scene in Reservoir Dogs, when Steve Buscemi’s Mr. Pink has a scenery-chewing whinge about the audacity and impudence of tipping? Well, imagine if instead of coffee and breakfast on the table there was a fully naked…
My Amityville Horror Directed by Eric Walter USA, 2012 It’s been said that truth is stranger than fiction, but for over 35 years, Daniel Lutz made the claim that it was much more sinister; especially since a slew of horror movies were based on his story. In 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed his…
Resolution Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead Written by Justin Benson USA, 2012 In Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Resolution, Michael (Peter Cilella), after receiving a mysterious video, sets out to the backwaters to help save and sober up his estranged crack-addicted friend Chris (Vinny Curran). Finding him in a rundown cabin, Michael handcuffs…
After Directed by Ryan Smith Written by Ryan Smith and Jason Parish USA, 2012 After is a unique kind of horror picture. There are no zombies, possessed children, murderous hillbillies, or deranged sharp-object-wielding maniacs. There are no jump scares, torture porn, or unneeded found footage shaky cam. No, After is a horror picture with a…
Lloyd the Conqueror Directed by Michael Peterson Written by Michael Peterson and Andrew Herman Canada, 2011 Society has an outrageous double standard. If you like to play Dungeons and Dragons and watch sc-fi fantasy movies, you’re a bit of a dork, but if you love to watch NFL football and take part in fantasy sports…
Doomsday Book Written and directed by Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim South Korea, 2012 H.G. Wells, a godfather of modern apocalyptic literature, once said that, “all this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings who are not latent…
Cockneys vs. Zombies Directed by Matthias Hoene Written by James Moran and Lucas Roche UK, 2012 As with something like Snakes on a Plane, Cockneys vs. Zombies derives much of its promise and purpose from the title. How you enjoy the film is contingent on how well it manifests said title, so, by that very…
[REC]³ Génesis Directed by Paco Plaza Written by Paco Plaza, Luiso Berdejo and David Gallart Spain, 2012 The first [Rec] was a haunting and sinister horror film that ended on an intended note of malevolent ambiguity. [Rec] ², for better or worse, tried to elucidate the questions posed in the first. In [REC]³ Génesis, however,…
Inbred Directed by Alex Chandon Written by Alex Chandon and Paul Shrimpton UK/Germany, 2011 If you’re acquainted with Karl Pilkington, the most idiosyncratic and avant-garde thinker of the 21st century, then you’ll know that Northerners are “a bit weird, innit?” In the United Kingdom, Northerners are the equivalent to American Southerners (or, if you’re Canadian,…