Saturday afternoon at Toronto After Dark gives Canadian filmmakers a chance to showcase their genre shorts, and this time around, there are nine shorts for your spine-tingling enjoyment. There is Bird Hostage written and directed by Lauren Andrews and features her and fan favourite Jay Baruchel in this eccentric little tale that sees Lauren (Andrews)…
Tag: horror
TAD 2023: Late Night with the Devil dir. Cameron Cairnes, and Colin Cairnes
The Toronto After Dark film festival got started on Thursday night with a bang with Late Night with the Devil. And it was a crowd-pleaser. If you are a horror fan, this is one to seek out, this is one to demand from your streaming service, this should move to the top of your viewing…
TIFF ’23: Sleep
Midnight Madness at TIFF is always a lot of fun, and some great genre films get scheduled that are designed to deliver to the late-night audience. Sleep hopes to do that this week. A Korean entry to the film festival from writer/director Jason Yu. It’s his first feature film, and Yu creates a tense, moody…
TIFF ’23: Hell of a Summer
Long-time friends Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk share directing, producing, writing and starring credits in their enjoyable and goofy riff on camp slasher films. It’s summer, and Camp Pineaway is gearing up for another round of campers and counsellors. In fact, the counsellors gather the weekend before camp opens to prepare, get reacquainted, drunk, high,…
A House with Good Bones (2023) – T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon has entertained and creeped me out with each of the books I’ve read by her; three to date, with A House with Good Bones being the latest. Once again she introduces us to a relatable character, in this case entomologist Samantha who, when her summer dig is cancelled, decides to…
Deep Blue Sea (1999) – Renny Harlin
This one is for my friend Lindsay, who insists this is a better shark movie than Jaws, and yet it can’t help but make a number of references to it, not the least of which is a familiar-looking licence plate. Director Renny Harlin does, for the most part, deliver a fairly solid thriller though even…
The Twisted Ones (2019) – T. Kingfisher
I absolutely loved Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places and immediately sought out her other horror novel, The Twisted Ones, and much like Places, this one didn’t disappoint. Filled with a sense of humor that is increasingly mixed with dread, this tale dives into folk horror, and leaves enough questions unanswered that the solutions your imagination creates,…
The Hollow Places (2020) – T. Kingfisher
The Hollow Places is a wonderfully creepy novel, laced with humour and pop culture references, and less than three chapters in I decided that I definitely needed to read more of T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon. We’re introduced to Kara, 34, newly divorced, and moving in with her Uncle Earl, taking up residence in a…
Swan Song (1987) – Robert McCammon
I remember seeing the original cover for this paperback in a variety of book racks when I was a teen, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I didn’t recognize the name of Robert McCammon at the time, though since that time Boy’s Life has become one of my favourite books. I didn’t…
M3GAN (2022) – Gerard Johnstone
So I finally took a look at the Blumhouse horror M3GAN, and was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed a couple of the themes at work in it, the actual need for physical interaction, to get away from apps, screens and interact with those around you. Sure, the climax, and scenes leading up to it, go a…
The Mind Reels 