It’s unfortunate that The Exorcist is considered the gold standard in horror films, because the film having its Canadian Premiere at the Scotiabank Theatre as part of the Toronto After Dark film festival is no doubt going to draw comparisons because of it’s subject matter. And that is unfortunate, because the Mexican/Chilean coproduction of The…
Tag: haunting
Kuroneko (1968) – Kaneto Shindo
While not necessarily a vampire movie, although there is a lot of neck-biting and blood, the Japanese horror film Kuroneko is a fantastic entry in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book. The story follows the fate of two women, Yone (Nobuko Otowa) and Shige (Kiwoko Taichi), who are set upon in their own home…
The Long Walk (1979) – Stephen King as Richard Bachman
King’s first novel, written, not published, is a gripping thriller that terrifies and captivates, from the first page to it’s haunting conclusion. Writing under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman, the story follows Ray Garraty a young teen in an alternate timeline where a totalitarian government has assumed control, and all of it is overseen by…
Seven Fallen Feathers (2017) – Tanya Talaga
Seven Fallen Feathers is a defining book. It is a haunting, distressing and angering discourse on racism and loss in Northern Ontario, and across Canada. Talaga, a dedicated and insightful journalist turns her investigative eye, shining it like a spotlight onto a piece of Canadian life that many of us are loathe to discuss, accept,…
The Shape of Water (2017) – Guillermo del Toro
del Toro’s latest film, The Shape of Water is very much a fairy tale for adults, as well as sharing a kinship with the horror films of the 1950s, specifically, 1954’s The Creature From the Black Lagoon (as well as to Abe Sapien as seen in del Toro’s own Hellboy series). But in this film,…
The Twilight Zone (1963) – A Kind of a Stopwatch, The Last Night of a Jockey, and Living Doll
There’s the signpost up ahead, it’s time to take a turn into The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series on blu-ray thanks to Paramount Pictures. Up first is the Rod Serling scripted, A Kind of Stopwatch. The series creator adapted a story by Michael D. Rosenthal and debuted the episode on 18 October, 1963. Patrick Thomas…
Toronto After Dark: Backtrack (2015) – Michael Petroni
Last night, the 10th Annual Toronto After Dark film festival took us Down Under for a spooky, and well-crafted ghost story starring Adrien Brody and Sam Neill. And for the first time all festival, a jump scare got me! Brody plays psychologist Peter Bower, who finds himself in strange circumstances as he still mourns…
Room 237 (2012) – Rodney Ascher
When I first heard about this documentary from Rodney Ascher, it was coming to TIFF, and I very much wanted to see it, I love the ideas of secrets and conspiracies hidden in movies. Both the opportunities I had to see it fell through, and I was a little bummed. Then I heard it was returning to…
TIFF Next Wave 2013: Ghost Graduation – Javier Ruiz Caldera
Attention Toronto film fans!!! Thanks to TIFF’s Next Wave Film Festival, you will have another opportunity to catch one of my Top 12 Films of 2012 on the big screen one more time!!! I was lucky enough to see this one premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, and I can’t rave about…
Mama – Andres Muschietti
Usually, early in the new year, the films that come out are…well…fairly crappy. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. Silence of the Lambs, for example, is one of my top ten favourite movies of all time, and it was so good it held on all year to be showered with accolades during…
The Mind Reels 