The awards have been announced for the 2014 Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Mirroring the original film’s win in 2009, the Gold Audience Award went to Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead. This marks the third year in a row that a zombie film has won the audience award, which seems to suggest a pattern. …
Toronto After Dark 2014
The 2014 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival ended up being its most successful. Breaking through in its ninth year, this year’s edition of Toronto After Dark had a record 13 sellouts, which helped prove how this year’s line-up was of a particularly high quality. Even though there were a few films that …
In addition to the pre-feature Canadian shorts, Toronto After Dark also screens a showcase of nine short films from around the globe. This year’s line-up include home invaders in pilgrim masks, a sci-fi film about selling doorknobs, and romance about a man who removes his skin. Here is my rundown of the Shorts After Dark …
Preceding every feature film screening, this year’s Canada After Dark short film line-up featured everything from stop motion thrillers to surreal romances to exploitation homages. Here is is a rundown of all nineteen Canadian short films. Foxed!This stop motion short involves a girl forced into labour by a group of foxes. Even though it has …
Amelia (Essie Davis) is a single mother, who struggles to care for her six year old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Suffering from apparent behavioural problems, Samuel is obsessed with finding and killing monsters, which includes developing weapons. One night, when asked by Amelia to choose a bedtime story, Samuel picks a mysterious pop-up book off …
Police Constable Rachel Heggie (Pollyanna McIntosh) is starting her first night at a police station in a small Scottish town. On her way to the station, she picks up a delinquent named Caesar (Brian Vernel), who has apparently hit a stranger (Liam Cunningham) standing in the middle of the road. At the station, Rachel becomes …
Why do people like horror? As one of the most misunderstood genres, horror fans often find themselves stigmatized by society, who assume that there must be something wrong with them. As a very hardcore horror fan, Rue Morgue magazine journalist Tal Zimerman sets out to explore why horror is so appealing to people. Featuring interviews …
In 1946, the town of Texarkana was terrorized by a serial killer, known as the Phantom Killer, whose identity has never been confirmed. Thirty years later, the killings were the basis for the 1976 slasher film The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which is screened every year on Halloween. Following one of these screenings, high school …
In a post-apocalyptic Australia, a virus has turned nearly the entire population into bloodthirsty zombies. Barry (Jay Gallagher) is one of a handful of survivors, which also includes Benny (Leon Burchill) and Frank (Keith Agius), who are immune to the virus and struggle for survival. In the meanwhile, Barry’s sister Brooke (Bianca Bradey) has been …
Following a bacterial outbreak, society has crumbled and the survivors have gone into hiding, in constant fear of marauders. Jack (Carter Roy) is hiding out with his wife Nell (Amy Rutberg) and daughter Birdie (Eva Grace Kellner), along with fellow survivor Kyle (Chris Kies). One day, while scavenging for food, Jack takes in a man …
Finn (Matt O’Leary) is the building manager of an apartment complex, who lives with his girlfriend Callie (Danielle Panabaker) and friend Jasper (George Finn). After finding out that the scientist that lives across from their apartment hasn’t been heard from for a while, the three check in on him and find a giant camera pointed …
From The Spierig Brothers (Daybreakers) comes the brain-twisting time travel thriller Predestination. There exists a government agency, headed by Mr. Robertson (Noah Taylor), whose agents travel through time to prevent crimes before they happen, while keeping interference with the overall timeline to a minimum. One of these agents, known only as The Bartender (Ethan Hawke), …
Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi) is a 29 year old woman living in Tokyo. She unhappily works in an office and is chastised by her mother for not yet getting married. Kumiko’s only source of happiness is an old VHS tape of the Coen Brothers’ film Fargo, which she watches and analyzes with great detail. Believing the …
From director Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes) comes the webcam-based cyber thriller Open Windows. Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) is the webmaster of a fansite about movie star Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey), who has apparently won a contest to meet her. While waiting in his hotel room, Nick receives a Skype call from a mysterious man named Chord …
Following the death of his wife, blind Vietnam veteran Ambrose (Nick Damici) is brought by his son Will (Ethan Embry) to stay at the Crescent Bay Retirement Community. During his very first night in the community, Ambrose’s next door neighbour is brutally killed. While the police excuse this as a animal attack, which “happens all …
Cayden Richards (Lucas Till) is a high school football star, who discovers the hard way that he is a werewolf. Going on the run, after his parents are found murdered, Cayden meets a stranger named Wild Joe (John Pyper-Ferguson), who tells Cayden about a town called Lupine Ridge, which happens to be populated entirely by …
After nearly drowning in a lake, Madison (Michelle Mylett) has developed a fear of water, since she sees a large monstrous figure, known as The Drownsman (Ry Barrett), near every water source. Fed up with her supposedly irrational fears, Madison’s friend Hannah (Hannah) stages a séance/intervention to try and snap Madison out of it. However, …
David Hayter makes his directorial debut with the action-thriller Wolves. Hayter is best known as an actor and voice-over artist, particularly as the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. He is also known for writing the screenplays for X-Men, The Scorpion King, X2: X-Men United, and Watchmen. In advance of the …
Director Tommy Wirkola returns with the sequel to his 2009 Nazi zombie comedy. Beginning immediately following the first film’s conclusion, sole survivor Martin (Vegar Hoel) narrowly escapes the clutches of the Nazi zombie commander Herzog (Ørjan Gamst), however he finds himself charged with the deaths of his friends. To make matters worse, Herzog’s severed arm …
Three friends, Mary (Rachel Melvin), Jenn (Lexi Atkins) and Zoe (Cortney Palm), travel up to Mary’s cousin’s cottage for a weekend getaway. Jenn recently found out that her boyfriend Sam (Hutch Dano) cheated on her, which makes it incredibly awkward when he and, Mary and Zoe’s boyfriends, Tommy (Jake Weary) and Buck (Peter Gilroy) crash …
Once again, 26 filmmakers present 26 ways to die in the horror anthology ABCs of Death 2. As with the first film, each of the filmmakers were given creative freedom to create a short segment corresponding to the letter of the alphabet they were assigned, with each ending in a highly creative and often gory …
From director John Geddes (Exit Humanity) and writer Tony Burgess (Pontypool) comes this surreal thriller about a gravekeeper venturing into the depths of hell. Charlie Baker (Stephen McHattie) is the constantly harassed groundskeeper at a cemetery, who is looking forward to his retirement at the end of the week. However, Charlie is told by his …
Unable to find a job after graduating from business school, Raymond (Matthew Gray Gubler) is forced to move back in with his parents Donald (Ray Wise) and Eve (Barbara Niven). As a kid, Raymond was plagued with the ability to see ghosts, though the visions stopped after he moved away. Shortly after moving back home, …
Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O’Reilly) is a young delinquent, who is arrested after trying to rob an ATM machine. Instead of the recommended sentence of time at a treatment facility, the judge instead sentences Kylie to move back in with her mother Miriam (Rima Te Wiata) for eight months of home detention. However, the house arrest …
Only three days remain before the start of the 2014 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival! This year will be a bit of a milestone for me, since it will mark my fifth year attending Toronto After Dark. In those five years, I’ve progressed from seeing a single screening on a very stormy …
The full schedule has been released and single tickets are now on sale for the ninth annual edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. I have already marked off some recommended picks in my earlier rundowns of the festival line-up, but I thought that I would go back and list off five films that …
Only about two weeks remain before the start of the 9th annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Today saw the announcement of the remaining nine films in this year’s line-up and there are definitely some interesting selections among them. HOUSEBOUND (New Zealand) Toronto Premiere & Opening Gala Film *RECOMMENDED PICK* Description: HOUSEBOUND is a wickedly …
The end of the coverage of one film festival is only the start of the next. The Toronto International Film Festival might be over for another year, but we are only one month away from the 9th annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival! This year’s festival will be taking place for the second time at …