COT at BITS

Last weekend, the film that I worked on earlier finally had its premiere. At The Blood In The Snow Film Fest, Chamber of Terror played in front of a packed, enthusiastic house. It was such a great time and almost everybody involved was able to come out.

The Cast & Crew of Chamber of Terror

The movie turned out pretty good, and was actually a lot funnier than I was expecting. Truth be told, it's the ladies (Jess, Storm and Sigourney) that really make this thing pop.

I'm not sure where its going to go from here, but I'm so proud of my buddy Mikey for making it happen. 

Nailed It!

Check out this sick new poster for Mike Pereira's new film Chamber of Terror.

Matt Therrien seriously killed it with this one. CoT premiere on November 20th at BITS has already sold out so you know I'm not the only one excited to see it.

Enter The Chamber!

I've got good news! My buddy Mike's movie Chamber of Terror is premiering next month at the Blood in the Snow festival.

All involved worked really hard on this and I was glad to be a small part of it. So awesome to see it's going to screen in front of a packed house of appreciative fans. If you happen to live in the GTA, come on out!

Short BITS 2019

My recent trip to Saskatoon Fantastic ran parallel with the eighth edition of Blood In The Snow so I was sadly unable to attend this year. However, they were kind enough to send me screeners so I did get a look at this year's crop of shorts. BITS had a staggering number of films playing this year - three separate short blocks and a web series showcase - but here below were my faves.

Robert Cuffley's Romi was a dark bit of Black Mirror-esque sci-fi. Spearheaded by a strong performance from Camille Sullivan, it's not surprising to me that this took home Best Short honours.

It was cool to see Jeff Sinasac (a former collaborator of mine) show up in Tyler Williams' Sky So Blue. This was an engaging two-man show (Daniel Park being the other) built upon a cool concept involving an ethereal piece of music.

Though it was more of a faux trailer than a short, I got a kick out of Frédéric Chalté's Le otto dita della morte or The Eight Fingers of Death. It nailed the giallo aesthetic perfectly and I kind of wish it had been around last year so I could have paired it with Crystal Eyes at HexFest.

Short films that I really respond to are creepers that feature a really cool prop (The Armoire and Kookie are past examples) and this year that short was Daniel Pike's The Acrylic. It oozed with the energy of the creature features from my childhood. 

Similarly, Navin Ramaswaran's newest The Remnant has everything we would expect from this journeyman of Canadian genre cinema. It's not BITS without a Navin joint!

I think my fave overall was Jeremy Lutter's Giltrude's Dwelling. I saw this short earlier this year and was glad to see it show up at BITS. This short possesses a tremendous amount of high quality world building, production design and just old-fashioned heart.

A good showing this year and a proper way to close the curtain on the two-thousand's teens.

Short BITS 2018

The seventh edition of the Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival wrapped up early last week and was, by all accounts, a rousing success. Expanding to six days and adding several more panels and a new spotlight of genre web series, the fest showed that the future here is bright. Though I took in a few features (the highlight of which being Danishka Esterhazy's Level 16), I will be concentrating on the short films screened at the fest.

It was a strong year that ran the gamut, whether it was the adorable middle-school produced Frostbite from the North West Territories, or the all-too-real tragic scenario of Daumoun Khakpour's Standby, there was something for every horrorphile throughout the weekend.

Nelson Dunk's The Devil You Know was a piece I had seen a few times while screening shorts for festivals this year and I am glad it found a place here. It's an interesting concept that flourishes on the strength of its two leads Courtney Hecktus & Aubree Erickson.

Ariel Hansen's Nepenthes upped the ante on the killer house tale, offering up something extra gooey.

It is often hard for festivals to find slots for long form shorts, but fortunately BITS found one for Nicole Goode's Supine. This beautifully shot piece about a lonely taxidermist kept me engaged throughout, largely due to the sullen, yet striking performance from Eva Larvoire.

David J. Fernandes' Binge offered up an intriguing mystery that would've been at home in an episode of Vincenzo Natali's series DarkNet.

Robert DeLeskie's short film Lay Them Straight was terrific and well deserving of the Best Short Award at this year's fest. It's extremely sedate and introspective, ultimately building to a chilling, yet wholly satisfying conclusion.

For me personally – and for those who know of my penchant for babysitter creepers this should come as no surprise – my fave of the fest was Jenny Stang's The Whistler. It's not only well acted and looked great, it also took the time to create its own lore. I've come to describe it as this year's Banshee, but far superior in my opinion.

So that's my rundown of the BITS bunch. You may or may not have noticed how many of these aforementioned shorts were directed by women. It is actually a promising trend I have noticed while watching hundreds of shorts in 2018. Numbers are definitely up and that's encouraging. Speaking of which, I'd like to give a shout out to Larissa Thomas & Alicia Faucher for being nominated for Best Web Series in Allie & Lara Make A Horror Movie. Check it out here if you feel so inclined.

DKTM 358

Hello all. I hope you are all having a good weekend. Here's what I've got for you this week.

Invading the Popular Consciousness.

YouTuber Jarvis City sent me a cool video recently compiling eighteen minutes worth of references to The Shining from pop culture. You're welcome!

Having done a few of these myself, I know how time intensive they can be. I also give him props for not including The Chickening because that shit hurts my eyes -- and my soul.

On The Vanguard.

Last week, during the Blood in the Snow Film Festival's awards ceremony last weekend, my friend and prolific Canadian actor Ry Barrett was presented with the Vanguard Award in recognition of work in Canadian genre cinema. The award was preceded by a compilation reel of his work compiled by director and compatriot Gabriel Carrer.

I was honoured to have his work in my short films Lively and The Good Samaritan included in there. Ry deserved every bit of this recognition.

Going to the Dogs.

So, what if Reservoir Dogs had had an actual dog? Like a killer dog that showed up at the warehouse mid-film! Well, your prayers have been answered!

Though I haven't seen Dark Summer, I was a fan of Paul Solet's 2009 debut Grace and his weird BMX-western segment in Tales of Halloween, so I'm eager to see what he can do with a larger budget. It appears to be fairly action heavy, which is good, but I guess it comes down to how digital will the antagonist be. Bullet Head releases in theatres and VOD on Dec 8th.

Bloody Short Cuts 2017

The Blood in the Snow Film Festival continued its tradition of showcasing Canadian short filmmakers last weekend, screening almost two-dozen works from coast to coast. Here were some that stood out to me.

Apart from some familiar works from Shock Stock earlier this year, like Carlos Henriques' Human Cattle and Chris Giroux's Scraps, as well as Greg Kovacs' Fun (which I programmed at Saskatoon earlier this month) I was seeing a lot of these for the first time.

Carl Tremblay's Quebecois short The Wolf was really good looking piece of work. Home invasion stories are decidedly becoming a little long in the tooth, but I did like how this one handled the material.

Michael Peterson's Consume was a stark and unwavering tale rooted in actual events in Canadian history. Combining the ugly reality of the residential school system with the legend of the Wendigo, this short paints an ugly portrait that won't soon be forgotten.

On the science fiction side of things, I really enjoyed Daelan Wood's Timebox. A delightful cross between Primer and the The Most Dangerous Game, this was one of those rare occasions where I hoped there might one day be a feature version of this made.

Kalen Artinian's Destruction Makes The World Burn Brighter was another strong showing. While I think some of the subtext went over my head, there's no question he has a commanding grasp of composition and visual storytelling. I was also glad to see he utilized those Mad Max-style landscapes that I see every time I drive out to Hamilton. Frankly, I don't know why those aren't in every horror movie.

It did not surprise me in the least that Best Short honours went to Gigi Saul Guerrero's Bestia. She's been tearing up the festival circuit for a while now and this latest piece is her most striking yet. Having moved from her previous dark and grimy interiors into the British Columbian wilderness, the scope has increased, but her signature grit and texture are still as present as ever. At this point, her jump to feature filmmaking has to be imminent.

So that's it for this year. I have to hand out mad props to Kelly Micheal Stewart and his crew for putting together a really solid year. It may honestly be the strongest yet, which becomes even more impressive when you consider that Toronto After Dark scooped almost double the amount of CanCon they usually do (five titles) earlier this year. I guess the resulting winning line-up is a testament to just how much great genre content The Great White North is pumping out now.

And with that, festival season is finally over. I can relax for a few weeks before I have to start screening shorts for Hexploitation Film Fest in March. But before then there's Little Terrors in January. And the Black Museum debate in a few weeks. And the Paperbacks From Hell show tonight.

It never ends, does it?

Bless The Child

On Saturday, Blood in the Snow screened two creepy kid flicks, the first of which being Jennifer Phillips' debut effort, Blood Child.

After suffering a miscarriage in Singapore, Ashley (Alyx Melone) with the help of her maid Siti (Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie) make a pact with a witch doctor to bring forth a “ghost child”. But as time goes by, it becomes increasingly difficult to control, especially when Ashley becomes pregnant again.

I am hoping that Phillips is the beginning of a new cycle of bringing lesser known South East Asian folklore to the West (much like up-and-comer Larica Pereira did with her short film Tik-Tik last year). I found the whole concept of the ghost child fascinating, especially when Phillips explained at the Q&A that this is an actual practice in Singapore. When not filtered through the lens of a studio (like say last year's The Forest), delving into these customs comes off as a lot more sincere.

Alyx Melone as Ashley in Blood Child.

Blood Child was definitely at its strongest when it was dwelling on its lore. It was when Phillips fell back on generic horror conventions – and the usual trappings and logic gaps that plague these kind of supernatural thrillers – that it was less interesting to me. I liked it well enough though, even if it did end rather abruptly in a manner I wasn't crazy about.

Something I found unique was the pairing of the housewife and the maid. In most horror films, the maid would be played as an antagonist, but this duo were intrinsically linked by the pact they had made. Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie accomplished a lot with very little dialogue beyond “yes ma'am” and I spent most of the film trying to place why the lead Alyx Melone seemed so familiar. It finally dawned on me that she possessed both the looks of fellow Canuck Tristan Risk and the mannerisms of Heather Lankenkamp. Everyone else in the film just seemed to be circling in an ineffectual orbit around these two the whole film.

Cast & crew of Blood Child. Photo courtesy of Joe MK.

I think the core of Blood Child, built around its compelling folk tale and two strong leads, was solid, even if some of the interstitials fell flat at times. I'm all for the effort though. We need an infusion of new things that go bump in the night beyond the usual revolving door of CGI apparitions, flesh eaters and dudes in animal masks.

Blurring The Line.

Next up on the Blood in the Snow docket was Rob Grant's documentary Fake Blood.

An attempt to make a documentary about whether cinematic violence inspires the same in real-life pulls two filmmakers (Grant & Mike Kovac) into some very dark places.

Fake Blood was a very clever documentary. It was not only a piece about violence in film, but also the nature of filmmaking itself in that often you set out to make one thing and it, seemingly on its own, morphs into something else entirely. This was a perfect example of people chasing a story and falling down a rabbit hole into imminent danger. I found it very difficult to discern – without any context – how much of this documentary was fact, and what was fiction. I mean, I know it must have been, as there are three credited writers on the project, but it was so well crafted.

As storytellers, Grant and Kovac do a commendable job of setting the stage, using a weird fan video they received about the correct way to dismember a body (in response to seeing it done in Grant's previous film Mon Ami) as a jumping off point for their exploration into their responsibility as filmmakers when dealing with violent material. This was all very natural with nothing showy about it.

Later on in the film when they encountered a, let's say shady, individual, the ensuing dramatizations were consistent with every true crime show you've ever watched. Just when I had been sucked in by them, Grant, in a stroke of genius, pulled back the curtain to remind you that you were watching a recreation of a recreation. My brain was constantly trying to access how much of this was real and that's the mark of a good film.

Director Rob Grant with John Doe.

Fake Blood was definitely the most realistic doc I've seen in on this topic since J.T. Petty's 2006 faux-snuff doc S&Man. Unfortunately with Grant's film, I didn't get the luxury of having Petty point out his on-screen antagonist in the front-row after the screening. Until someone tells me definitively and I can breathe the sigh of “well of course that wasn't real”, this doc will be clanking around in my head for sometime.

Red & White

This year's Blood in the Snow Festival kicked off last week with the world premiere of Jeff Sinasac's Red Spring.

In a world overrun by vampires, a group of human survivors forage for supplies by day and stay on the run at night.

I was really stoked for this, as I know Jeff and his producing partner/wife Tonya Dodds very well. They've acted in several projects of mine and I know Red Spring has been a passion project of theirs for years. This movie has had a long history, starting with his script that was a optioned a few times and even almost produced with modest budgets and A-listers over the last ten years. When all that fell through, Jeff & Tonya just committed to making it themselves.

I have to say I was pretty impressed with what they achieved on such a tiny budget. Red Spring was a really ambitious project, not just by design, but also in scope. Filmmakers have made post-apocalyptic tales on a shoestring before, but most have been content to just have them be morose, insular affairs that take place in one location. Sinasac reaches higher by employing many locales with several action set pieces.

Using Richard Matheson's I Am Legend as a jumping off point, Sinasac quickly builds his universe by having his survivors flee Toronto via an abandoned Gardiner Expressway. Starring Sinasac himself, he also mined several great talents from within the local web series scene, including Elysia White and Lindsey Middleton, as well as genre up-and-comer Adam Cronheim (who previously tread similar terrortity in Jeremy Gardner's 2012 festival darling The Battery).

Rather than going for a stylistic tone to gloss over their meager budget, Red Spring takes a more grounded approach. The character's know they are living on borrowed time, but that doesn't stop them from fighting all the same. And the world may have ended, but that doesn't mean you can't still crack a corny joke once and a while – including one random reference to a Maple Leaf Foods ad from like forever ago.

Maybe the most jaw dropping piece of trivia was that Red Spring boasts over four-hundred visual effects shots. The first act has a few that aren't so hot, but there are also some subtle and understated ones that I didn't even notice. I should mention that in addition to being actor/writer/director/producer/editor, Sinasac also did every single one of those effects shots himself over the course of a year-and-a-half. That's one dude! What's your excuse Justice League?

Cast & crew of Red Spring.

Red Spring concluded in true Dawn of the Dead fashion, which means that there are definitely more stories to be told within this universe. And I'd watch them. I just hope it doesn't take another ten years for them to see the light of day.

Turkey & BITS

Happy Thanksgiving to my friends south of the border. We may have celebrated Turkey Day last month, but we Torontonians at least have the Blood in the Snow Festival all this weekend, starting tonight with Jeff Sinasac's Red Spring.

That's where I'll be for the next few days, but you can be sure I'll be back next week with a full report. 

Horror-Rama 2017

The fourth edition of Horror-Rama took place last weekend and I, of course, was there to take in the festivities. 

This year saw the convention move to another venue, an arts & culture space in the Annex. While the last two years at the Hyatt certainly allowed the con to expand, it felt a little constrictive to the vibe that organizers Luis Ceriz and Chris Alexander were trying to create. Spread out over a half-dozen rooms, the venue this year recaptured the essence of year one.

Also, unlike the previous two years when it fell during Toronto After Dark, I was actually able to fully enjoy Horror-Rama, as I was not running back and forth between venues all weekend. As is tradition with horror conventions, I also got to hang with my buddy Schwartz. Our continued failure to keep each other from spending money on horror merch was upheld I can assure you.

All the usual suspects were in attendance, but I felt there was an especially strong showing of VHS & Blu-ray vendors this year, from Arrow to Vinegar Syndrome to Suspect Video. It is always great to catch up with Brad at Poster-Mortem and Rob from the Canadian Cult & Horror Community, as well.

Clowning around with CanMake Productions' Justin Decloux & Emily Milling
and artist Andrew Barr.

I did quite well this year acquiring some interesting VHS titles.

I've never heard of Where Are The Children? but Jack Sholder and a cool cover was worth a two-fifty gamble. I'd been looking Playroom & Pulse for some time, and well, Dream Lover is self explanatory.

On the Blu-ray side, Vinegar Syndrome sold me on a couple of titles. First, was Demon Wind with its recreation of the original lenticular VHS...

The other was one I didn't even know had been released on Blu-ray in Gorman Bechard's Psychos In Love. That had me with its terrific cover art.

I also couldn't resist picking up this little guy either.

Like last year at Horror-Rama, the Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival took the opportunity to announce their 2017 line-up at the show.

It looks like a good line-up this year with several colleagues of mine having projects premiering here. I am particularly looking forward to Jeff Sinasac's Red Spring, just because I know how long he's been working on it. I know a handful of people who worked on Ryan M. Andrew's Art of Obsession, so that'll be cool to see, as well.

Some other titles that intrigued me are the faux-doc Fake Blood, Buckout Road and the It's Alive vibe of The Child Remains. I also haven't seen a good chunk of the shorts programme, so I'm always keen to add stuff to my Little Terrors wish list.

Sunday, my only real goal was to talk with visiting Canuxploitation royalty Lesleh Donaldson & Lisa Langlois. I'm not usually one for autographs, but I had to get my Deadly Eyes VHS signed because this seemed like a rare opportunity. Ms. Donaldson is such a nice lady, and I made sure to tell her that I found the theatre used in the movie thanks to her input three years ago. 

I also never usually bother people for photos, but she was so friendly...

Lesleh Donaldson & I.

This was a happy day. The pair's ensuing Q&A was also very informative. They talked about when they met on Happy Birthday to Me and being surprised that any of these old movies have endured. They also brought up how many of those pictures were involved with some shady characters that to this day have still not paid what was owed. I was shocked to learn that Langlois had made more on residuals from a guest spot on one episode of Murder She Wrote than she did on all of her Canuxploitation work combined.

Actresses Lisa Langlois (left) & Lesleh Donaldson.

Mainly, the talk was a clinic on navigating the film business then and now, touching on everything from the actresses they were always in competition with, to the differences between working in Canada & the US and all the ugliness that is just finally coming to light now. Langlois compared this level of upheaval to when women burned their bras in the sixties, and with a new name seemingly being outed every week, who can argue?

And that was a wrap on Horror-Rama 2017. It definitely felt like a return to the first year and its intimate setting and I'm all for it.

Bloody Bits Trailer

I have posted before about the awesome Blood In The Snow shorts compilation Bloody Bits, but yesterday they released a snazzy new trailer.

I know you're probably tired of me saying how surreal it is to see my short Lively being promoted on this thing, but I'm really proud to be a part of this. If you'd like to get your paws on a copy of your very own, click here.

Bloodies 2016

The awards for this year's Blood In The Snow Canadian Film Festival (fittingly dubbed The Bloodies) were handed out last weekend, with a wide range of titles coming away with honours. Check out the winners below.

Best Poster

24 x 36: A Movie About Movie Posters

Paul Ainsworth, Josh Budich, Sara Deck, Gary Pullin, Matt Tobin

Best Music Score

Stephen Schooley for 3 Dead Trick or Treaters

Best Ensemble

Kidnap Capital

Best Screenplay

Felipe Rodriguez for Kidnap Capital

Best Editing

Kevin Burke for 24 x 36: A Movie About Movie Posters

Best Special Effects

Carolyn Williams for Madre De Dios

Best Director

Kevin Burke for 24 x 36: A Movie About Movie Posters

'Rising Star' Award

Jennifer Fraser for Capture Kill Release

Best Actress

Tianna Nori for The Sublet

Best Actor

Aden Young for The Unseen

Best Short Film

Jean Claude LeBlanc's Cauchemar Capitonne

Best Feature

Geoff Redknap's The Unseen

Lastly, a Vanguard award was presented to Post-Life Productions in honour of being the first filmmakers to have five short films screen at BITS.

So, that's a wrap on the fest. From what I saw, it appeared attendance was way up, so hopefully the BITS crew can take that momentum into 2017.