It’s that time of year again, when horror, sci-fi, action, cult, and just the bizarre movies come to roost and entertain here in Toronto, with the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. 9 nights of movies that, as long as you have the right audience with you, can’t help but entertain. This year seems to be…
Tag: horror
Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) – The Man Trap and Charlie X
Captain’s Log: Stardate 1513.1 I was going to wait until I finished one of the other shows that I am watching for the blog before I dove into Star Trek, but the 50th Anniversary beginning in September, and the DK Canada book, The Star Trek Book on the The Book Shelf this week drove me…
Monsters in the Movies – 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares (2011) – John Landis
How much do I love this book? Let me tell you! This gorgeous, coffee table book, available from DK Canada, penned and compiled by director John Landis (who directed my favourite werewolf movie of all time, An American Werewolf in London, though I was introduced to him through the Thriller video first) has created a…
The Passage (2010) – Justin Cronin
Epic, majestic, terrifying and engrossing. And heartfelt thanks to Amanda for pushing it in my direction! These words perfectly define The Passage by Justin Cronin. A massive novel, coming in at 879 pages in paperback, the tale it unfolds is massive, engaging, and is almost mythic in nature. With a vast cast of characters,…
Fan Expo Canada 2016 Preview
Thanks once again to Touchwood PR, The Mind Reels will be covering Fan Expo Canada as press! I am particularly grateful this year, as it’s the first time since 2005 that I haven’t been able to purchase a pass for the weekend, and was not sure if I would be able to attend at…
Stranger Things (2016) – Season 1
Picture a Stephen King novel directed by Steven Spielberg, with a score by John Carpenter, and a beautifully balanced touch of nostalgia and you have the wondrous, scary, funny, and exciting ride that is Netflix’s latest winner, Stranger Things. Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, the series is set in Indiana in the year,…
Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite (2015) -Svyatoslav Podgayevskly
It’s always interesting to see what genre films look like from other countries, and this Friday at select cities across the country, and on VOD on the 19th, we can have a look at Russia’s Queen of Spades. A riff on the Bloody Mary urban legend that is seemingly as old as mankind, the…
The Red Badge of Courage (1951) – John Huston
We delve back into the war section of the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book, and the next big title there, is John Huston’s adaptation of Stephen Crane’s novel, that follows a young, Union soldier, Henry Fleming (Audie Murphy) also known as The Youth, as he struggles with his fear, and the…
Hot Docs 2016: Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World – Werner Herzog
My Hot Docs got under way this afternoon at about 1pm as I settled in for my first screening at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, director Werner Herzog’s latest film, Lo and Behold. I was first struck, as I always am, by the amazing turnout this festival has. It should be no wonder of…
Village of the Damned (1960) – Wolf Rilla
The Sci-Fi Chronicles plunges me into B-movie horror filled with creepy blonde-haired children in this classic that is still a little unnerving. Based on the novel, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham this one still has the power to make the viewer uneasy. Strange things are afoot in the English village of Midwich when…
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