Toronto After Dark 2017: Dead Shack – Peter Ricq

Toronto After Dark’s Zombie Night gets underway this evening at 6:30 at the Scotiabank Theatre with a special presentation of the Canadian zombie film, Dead Shack, directed by Peter Ricq. A fun, if short and simple film, the story follows three youngsters, Jason (Matthew Nelson-Mahood) and his friends Colin (Gabriel LaBelle), Summer (Lizzie Boys) and…

Toronto After Dark 2017: Rabbit – Luke Shanahan

The Australian film, Rabbit from writer/director Luke Shanahan has it’s Canadian premiere tonight at Scotiabank Theatre for the Toronto After Dark film festival. The film, a slow burn character drama that messes with your mind, stars Adelaide Clemens as Maude, an identical twin who believes that her twin, Cleo, who has been missing for over…

Toronto After Dark 2017: The Villainess – Byung-gil Jung

The hyper-kinetic assassin thriller The Villainess, has it’s Toronto premiere this evening at Toronto After Dark, screening exclusively at Scotiabank Theatre. This South Korean film is nothing short of a high-octane thriller that recalls Besson’s La Femme Nikita with overtones of Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Ok-bin Kim stars as Sook-hee, a violent woman with a violent…

Toronto After Dark 2016: The Void – Jeremy Gillespie & Steven Kostanski

Isolationist horror with Lovecraftian overtones and readily apparent influences of both Clive Barker and John Carpenter; coupled with the school of less is more when showing the monster, combine in The Void. Toronto After Dark’s closing night film for 2016 at the Scotiabank Theatre. Let me get two things out of the way, as much…

Toronto After Dark 2016: The Lure -Agnieszka Smoczynska

The last night of the Toronto After Dark film festival got underway at Scotiabank Theatre with the Polish musical/drama/horror The Lure. Taking its cues from the original Hans Christian Anderson tale, The Little Mermaid, as well as playing with mermaid mythology this one toys with expectations, sexuality and strange lyrics in a kind of fevered…

Toronto After Dark 2016: As the Gods Will – Takashi Miike

Things got nigh on bizarre this evening at Toronto After Dark, as it continues to entertain at the Scotiabank Theatre here in Toronto. It was Japanese cinema night, and sadly, thanks to work constraints, I was only able to make one screening today, but what a screening! If you aren’t familiar with Miike’s work, it’s…

Toronto After Dark 2016: Blood Father -Jean-Francois Richet

Action night concluded Sunday night for the Toronto After Dark film festival as Mel Gibson, previous person non grata in Hollywood, returns to form in this pulse-pounding thriller. This is not the place for me to ruminate on Mel Gibson’s career or his personal life and substance abuse, instead I want to talk about the…

Toronto After Dark 2016: In a Valley of Violence – Ti West

It was action night at Toronto After Dark on Sunday, wonderfully hosted by the Scotiabank Theatre here in Toronto, and they delved a little further west than they have in the past by screening the latest Ti West film, the western, In a Valley of Violence. West has gotten a lot of love from Toronto…

Toronto After Dark 2016: Train to Busan – Sang-ho Yeon

Train to Busan, the Korean zombie film that played to great acclaim at Cannes was the second feature of Toronto After Dark’s Zombie Night at Scotiabank Theatre Saturday night. A big budget, bloody kills, cool special effects and a solid story made for an engaging screening that saw zombie lovers out in force in the…

Toronto After Dark 2016: The Rezort – Steve Barker

It was zombie night at the Toronto After Dark film festival at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto, and things got underway with The Rezort. Treading liberally on Michael Crichton territory, in the vein of West World and Jurassic Park (which in turn was a take on the over-worked theme of The Most Dangerous Game), though without…