The Trap (2015) – Melanie Raabe

  There is an immediacy to Melanie Raabe’s debut novel, The Trap, which sees its English release this week, via House of Anansi Press here in Toronto. Translated from German the captivating tale draws the reader into the world that she has created, much as her character, author Linda Conrads, is drawn into the situations…

Hot Docs 2016: Beware the Slenderman – Irene Taylor Brodsky

  Having its international premiere last night at the Lightbox,  Irene Taylor Brodsky’s film is a slick looking, unnerving and surprisingly emotional look at the blurring of fiction and reality in the modern age, as two young girls, Anissa and Morgan succumb to the terrors and stories of the internet created character of the Slenderman,…

Night Film (2013) – Marisha Pessl

  This week’s book shelf brought me a book that was dark, troubling, steeped in film, murder, the occult, interactive elements, and evil. I loved it! It came to me via my sister at Christmas, and reading the inside of the jacket, I was duly interested. Who doesn’t like a good mystery, especially when it’s…

Hot Docs 2014: In Country (Mike Attie & Meghan O’Hara)

Screening for the second time of the festival today at 12:30pm at the Lightbox is this reality blurring documentary about a group of veterans as well as some everyday people, who reenact the Vietnam War. Weaving through the footage shot in Oregon with newsreels, sounds and images from the actual war, the line between what is…