It Follows Midnight Madness A suitably atmospheric, but direly serious teen thriller, It Follows takes a somewhat goofy premise and cranks it to eleven but never manages to follow through on a lot of promise at the outset. After making love to her new boyfriend for the first time, nineteen year old Jay (Maika Monroe, […]
It’s a sweltering late July afternoon, but I’m still sitting down over a cup of warm tea at Canteen in the lobby of the TIFF Bell Lightbox and talking to Colin Geddes the day after most of his choices for the heavily watched and buzzed about Midnight Madness and Vanguard sections had been announced. (Really […]
[REC] 4: Apocalypse Midnight Madness Picking up where [REC] 2 left off, no one is safe as the authorities struggle to contain a viral zombie outbreak of now demonic proportions. It won’t set the world on fire in terms of originality or craft, but if this is the final entry in the franchise, it could […]
We take a look at some of the best goings on in Toronto this Halloween from movies, to TV, to theatre, and one really kick ass party. And we might have some surprises in store... if you dare.
Enter for a chance to win a pair of tickets to the TIFF Midnight Madness World Premiere of Afflicted on Monday, September 9th at 11:59pm, courtesy of Dork Shelf and eOne Live!
We talk to The Raid: Redemption director Gareth Evans about his knowledge of martial arts, his close working relationship with his stars, and what it's like trying to get an action film made in Indonesia.
This morning, the Toronto International Film Festival announced the full slate of Midnight Madness titles, and it's an extremely exciting line-up featuring films from newcomers and returning vets alike. Midnight Madness is where you'll find world premieres of some of the best genre flicks of the year. This programme is for your inner dork; the place to be if you don't feel up for the stuffiness and pretension found elsewhere in the festival. Crime, action, horror, sci-fi - it's all here.
Director Wuershan’s feature debut, The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman is pretty much the epitome of a Midnight Madness film. A combination of period film, slapstick comedy, food film, love story, martial arts film and revenge thriller, with objects, images, and a contemporary soundtrack constantly being thrown at the audience, this is a film that should not work, but somehow it does.
A recent trend in horror and science fiction films is examining the world not in the midst of disaster, but once it has begun to adjust to the aftermath of a disaster. This can lead to some very interesting examinations of contemporary issues. Winner of the Cadillac People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award, Jim Mickle’s Stake Land is set in a future that includes vampires. But these are not sparkly vampires, nor ones that have souls. These are vampires are little more than animals, and like George A. Romero’s zombie film series, society must adapt to the new world order.
It must be hard to be a director like John Carpenter. When you create such classics as Halloween, The Thing and Escape from New York within four years, any subsequent films will never apparently measure up. And his new film The Ward, does not, but it is still a solid old-school horror film with plenty of scares and a twist that is only obvious after the fact.
Probably more than any other program at TIFF, the Midnight Madness section is set apart by films that are heavy on style. As many of them are genre films, the style weighs heavily in conveying the themes and subject matter to the audience. Unfortunately, often films that rely upon or engage too much of their […]
There have been a number of films made in recent years that are use the concept of average people becoming costumed vigilantes. From last year’s ambitious Watchmen adaptation, to the Canadian indie flick Defendor, and more recently the big screen version of Mark Millar’s ultraviolent Kick-Ass, normal people putting on tights and bashing criminals in […]
Since the 30 films already picked by Will and Shelagh only represent about 10% of what’s shaping up to be another great program at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, it wasn’t hard for me to find 10 more that I think are worth checking out. The lineups have been crazy and of course advance […]
Midnight Madness has always been a favourite refuge for dorks at the Toronto International Film Festival. Free from the stuffy attitude that plagues the rest of the festival, Midnight Madness is just about the movies. Awesome, weird and insane movies. The programme is a showcase for the best in sci-fi, fantasy, action, horror, animation and […]
British director Michael J. Bassett brings to the screen Solomon Kane, the graphic novel penned by Robert E. Howard (who also created Conan the Barbarian) with all due seriousness and gravity, as apparently befits the character. I have not read the books, so this was my first exposure. And while certainly not a perfect film, […]
