TAD 2022: Day Zero dir. by Joey De Guzman

It’s Zombie Night at the Toronto After Dark film festival, so be careful if Scotiabank Theatre is overrun by the undead! The second screening this evening features the North American Premiere of the Filipino film, Day Zero. The film follows Emon (Brandon Vera, an MMA fighter turned actor) and his prison buddy, Timoy (Pepe Herrera)…

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy (2022) – Megan Bannen

I’ll be honest, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, available now from Orbit Books hit me like a sucker punch. I didn’t know what I expected from this whimsical, playful tale, but what I did not expect was a genre mash-up that at its heart (or Hart) riffed on the classic tale told in Shop…

Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (1952) – John Gilling

This comedic title which features the next machine menace in DK Books’ Monsters in the Movies is a film that could have been filed under vampires or robots (though the vampire is definitely in it a lot longer than the robot). Apparently Mother Riley films were a thing in the UK, the character is played…

The Mummy Returns (2001) – Stephen Sommers

Two years after Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Evy (Rachel Weisz) returned the Mummy (Arnold Vosloo) to the ground, director Stephen Sommers brought him back for another adventure, and it serves as the next stop in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies, as I explore the chapter on Mummies! Despite only taking two years between…

Pet Sematary (1989) – Mary Lambert

DK Canada’s Monster in the Movies continues to guide me through their chapter on zombies, and Paramount’s first adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror novel arguably falls well within the realm of the undead. It became a cult classic, and the film has aged fairly well, it is, however, populated with television actors, which at…

Day of the Dead (1985) – George A. Romero

DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies brings me a Romero zombie classic, the last installment of the original trilogy, Day of the Dead, as I continue to explore the chapter focusing on the walking dead, the zombie. With makeup effects work by Tom Savini, and a cool score by John Harrison, Romero’s classic is a…

Le Notti Del Terrore (1981) – Andrea Bianchi

Somehow, we’re still in the so bad, we’re not quite sure they’ve come around to good again section of the zombie oeuvre in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies. I’m definitely getting a fresh perspective on this sub-genre as it seems I’ve been very fortunate in my selection of zombie movies up to this time….

Zombie (1979) – Lucio Fulci

The next zombie movie to be featured in DK Canada’s highly enjoyable (and bloody) Monsters in the Movies book has been on the periphery of my life for a long time, though I had never seen it. I remember seeing the poster for Zombie aka Zombie Flesh Eaters aka Zombi 2 on the theater sheet…