Gifrific: Snowballs.

Oh man, The Snowman is terrible.

Short of the Week #60: Arene

As I patiently await the release date of the Alita Blu-ray, I was reminded of a fantastic proof-of-concept short film that hit the Web a few years ago. Here below is Henrik Bjerregaard Clausen's super ambitious short, Arene from 2016.

Sadly, it doesn't look like anything more came out of this - though Clausen has since directed two more shorts - but it is definitely cool regardless.

Short of the Week #22: The Banishing

This week I'm posting one of my favorite shorts from 2014, Erlingur Thoroddsen's The Banishing.

I adore pretty much everything about this piece, from the performances of its young leads to its tight pacing and wonderful grasp on storytelling. This short film went onto be part of the 2016 anthology Patient Seven. That same year, Thoroddsen made the jump to features with the monster-in-the-closet film Child Eater.

Short of the Week #21: The Sun Has Died

Having spent a lot of time in VR of late, I was reminded of one of my favourite POV horror short films, Daniel Bødker Sørensen's The Sun Has Died from 2015. 

I love the tension built in this piece. The Sun Has Died not only escalates to a satisfying conclusion, but its arc justifies the eighteen-minute run time. Imdb has no new projects listed for Sørensen at present, but I hope he resurfaces because he's got some serious chops.

DKTM 338

Hello all. Your weekend is going well I hope and if it's not, maybe these little horror morsels will lift your spirits.

But What A View.

The new trailer for Gabriel Carrer's newest, Death on Scenic Drive dropped this week.

I enjoyed his previous film The Demolisher for its look, tone and use of music and it looks like a lot of the same team has been utilized on screen for this one. I'll no doubt be seeing somewhere (whether it be Fantasia, TAD or BITS) this year, so it's nice to have that to look forward to.

A Mother's Love.

Ahead of the May 26th release of their Friday The 13th video game, Gun Media posted these two Pamela Voorhees tapes.

Apparently these “Pamela Tapes” will be unlockables that you can find throughout the levels. I think it's a nice little extra, and actress Jen Burton has done a pretty great job of recreating the original performance by Betsy Palmer.

How Swede It Is.

I found a trailer for a new Scandinavian horror called Robin.

A Danish/Swedish co-production looks like it's definitely got the visuals down. Robin premiered the Brussels International Film Festival earlier this month, so hopefully it comes my way at some point. The last similarly-themed Swedish horror I saw was Filip Tegstedt's Marianne, and that stuck with me for a good long while.

Red Vs Dead

As is customary for Toronto After Dark, Saturday is zombie appreciation night, which this year featured Zombeavers (which you can read my thoughts on here) and the highly-anticipated follow up to Tommy Wirkola’s 2009 flick Dead Snow, Red Vs Dead.

Martin (Vegar Hoel), having survived the events of the first film, wakes up in the hospital to find that not only is he on the hook for his friend’s deaths, but has also had his severed arm replaced with that of Herzog’s (Ørjan Gamst). And the undead Nazi colonel wants it back!

Red Vs. Dead was tons of fun. I really enjoyed the first one, but this sequel is bigger and better in almost every way. As Wirkola has demonstrated on a few occasions now, he is very adept at mining fresh ideas out of tried and true minutia. There is some pretty clever stuff in here and I appreciated how much more he opened up this universe. While the first one was basically people holed up in a cabin, Red Vs Dead expands to include the entire Norwegian countryside, leading up to an impressive final battle featuring zombified German & Russian forces facing off against each other.

All hell breaks loose in Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead.

Seeing Martin Starr show up as the leader of a group called The Zombie Squad was a nice addition. He even kicks some ass toward the end of the film! I was also surprised to learn this summer that Zombie Squad is an actual thing, with chapters all over the world. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, considering how bonkers popular zombies are now.

As with the first movie, the make-up was top notch, and while perhaps not quite as bloody as its predecessor, there are still no shortage of gruesome, over-the-top deaths. And fron its several festival screenings, a sing-along portion has now evolved with karaoke favourite Total Eclipse of the Heart being belted out by audiences during the final scene of the movie.

Much like Sam Raimi, Red Vs Dead is Wirkola returning to his roots, after a less-than-ideal experience with the studio system. Well, consider his passion rekindled, as this movie is a spirited sequel full of bloody comedic energy.

TIFF 2013!

Yesterday, The Toronto International Film Festival announced the films that will be flaying our psyches as part of their Midnight Madness & Vanguard programmes.

It is hard to believe that the Midnight Madness programme has been going twenty-five years now. Starting in 1988, with titles such titles as Hellbound and Brain Damage, they have since screened titles like Braindead, Dellamorte Dellamorre, Ichi The Killer and Martyrs. Here are some of the selections from this year’s MM crop.

Lucky McKee makes his first appearance at Midnight with a remake of his 2001 debut All Cheerleaders Die. He and longtime collaborator Chris Sivertson have been releasing dark and disturbing work for years, and I’m sure this one will be no different.

Eli Roth returns to Midnight Madness with his fourth film (if you count last year’s Aftershock which he produced and starred in), an ode to eighties cannibal flicks entitled Green Inferno.

From Austria comes The Station, which seems to be another nature fights back parable involving some weird-ass glacier juice. I sure hope this one plays out better than 2006's The Last Winter.

Every year there is usually a film that sells me on its screenshot, whether it be High Tension in 2003, or last year’s Thale. Why Don't You Play In Hell? (pictured above) definitely looks like this year's. Not that I would ever need an extra nudge to see anything from Sion Sono.

It’s always great to see some local blood infect Midnight. This year it is a nasty looking ditty called Afflicted featuring two travellers running afoul of a mysterious disease. I am a little weary of the found footage aspect eluded to by the synopsis, but I may give it a shot.

It's been a while since I've seen a good alien abduction yarn - Eduardo Sanchez's underseen flick Altered is the only one that comes to mind, and that was 2006 - so I'm definitely up for Almost Human. Plus, nothing says Midnight Madness like a guy with a chainsaw!

You really only had to tell me that Oculus was made by Mike Flanagan, the man who brought us 2011’s Absentia. Also, the whole possessed mirror thing gives me warm recollections of The Boogeyman, so good or bad, I think we’ll be in for a treat.

On the other side of things, the Vanguard program has been quickly gaining momentum over the past few years. I’d go so far as to say the 2012 programme easily trumped that of Midnight’s. Here are some of the announced titles I’m eager to check out.

Alex Aja’s triumphant return to TIFF sees him adapting Joe Hill’s novel Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple.

After two solid genre efforts (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), Ti West bursts into Vanguard with the religious horror of The Sacrament starring indie darlings AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg and Amy Siemetz.

Perhaps the most anticipated sophomore effort is that of Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani’s with The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears. I’m all for their style of visual sex – first experienced in 2010’s Amer– but I’m hoping for a little bit more of a narrative this time around.

Others that caught my eye were the revenge thriller Blue Ruin, the Dutch home-invasion tale Borgman and Zack Parker’s Proxy, also again starring Swanberg.

It looks like it is going to be another busy September. But, then again, isn't it always? For more info on the Midnight Madness programme, click here. For more info on the Vanguard programme, click here. For TIFF ticket info, click here.

Marianne.

I am crazy busy with a few projects at the moment, but wanted to share some thoughts on a film I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while now. Late last year, I was able to check out the 2011 Swedish film Marianne by director Filip Tegstedt.

After Krister (Thomas Hedengran) loses his wife in a car crash, he is left alone to raise his two daughters, one a rebellious teen (Sandra Larsson) and the other a newborn infant. Racked with guilt over the incident, he starts experiencing insomnia, sleep paralysis and nightmares about being visited by a spectral figure. Is it his imagination, or is something out to get him?

I like this film because it is one of those titles that really creeps up on you. Marianne has a very surreal vibe running though it that echoes the protagonist’s mental woes. Past and present are mixed together to create this weird geography of events that is jarring at first, but somehow ends up suiting the material.

This film features some very grounded and sincere performance, making this piece more about the characters than the story. This is likely why it didn’t bother me that the film’s end-game was apparent from fairly early on. It also helped that the film is saturated with an atmosphere of dread and despair, perfectly complimented by – my favourite aspect of the film – the music by Mikael Junehag and Kid Arctica.

I love this stuff. It reminds me of the bands I was jamming to in the mid-nineties. The sound design in Marianne is also exceptional. I wager once you hear raspy tones of the Mare’s appearance, you won’t ever forget them. Speaking of Mares, this is also another recent film from Scandinavia that has mined its rich folklore for cinematic effect (Thale and Troll Hunter being two other examples). It is this spiritual foundation that keeps their film industry so unique and vibrant.

A sizable amount of time had elapsed when I finally got around to writing about this, so I actually went back and watched it again. I think I liked Marianne even more the second time around, for I was aware of what it was, and what it wasn’t. Marianne is a drama first and a horror film second, not the other way around, which, in this case, works in its favour. I can’t recall a film that has melded these two genres so well since – also sadly under seen – 2009’s The Eclipse with Ciaran Hinds and Aidan Quinn.

Sorry, there's not really a lot of images to choose from online...

Marianne is a bold, mature and heartfelt debut that lingers long after the credits have rolled. Though this film has still not received any kind of official release domestically, I urge you to keep your eye out for it, as these kind of genre-tinged character pieces do not come around that often.

Hour of the Wolf (#9)

The next title I checked out from the Time Out Best 100 List was Ingmar Bergman’s 1968 film Hour of the Wolf.

Alma (Liv Ullman) relates the story of the ill-fated island vacation with her artist husband Johan (Max Von Sydow).

I’m getting down to the final few titles now and judging by what I have remaining, this process may also act as an informal film school.

Before all the bells and whistles of today, Bergman and filmmakers of his era were of a different breed, using the tools of narrative and inference like master craftsmen. In Hour of the Wolf, Bergman employs an even keel of dread throughout, thus amplifying the effect when he throws something abstract into the mix. I was especially caught off guard at the film's rather abrupt conclusion. It was only on my second viewing, and again hearing some of those early conversations between Johan & Alma, that things became clear. This is one of the strengths of this film, as Bergman is not concerned about spelling out what is and isn't real. He merely tells the story via Ullman's character and leaves it up to you to interpret it however you like. I found the underlying theme of infectious psychosis really intriguing, and surprisingly unique.

Max Von Sydow (left) & Liv Ullman in Hour of the Wolf.

I also find Hour of the Wolf fascinating because it falls in a time period where I can see films from which Bergman drew inspiration, as well as ones that were later influenced by him. Even though my knowledge of pre-sixties horror films is limited, I can see that Bergman’s visual palette may have been drawn from European silent era pictures like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I also thought there might have been a whiff of Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls, but I know not whether Bergman would’ve ever seen that film prior to 1968.

On the flip side, it seems to me that Hour of the Wolf would have been the kind of thing that a young David Lynch would have eaten up. That strange and foreboding conversation between Alma and the old lady with the hat early on in the movie is exactly the kind of exchange we’ve been seeing in Lynch’s work for decades. And that's not even mentioning his penchant for protagonist insanity and symbolism.

See what I mean?

Moving on from that, I was impressed with the naturalistic performances. After growing up seeing Max Von Sydow in countless films - The Exorcist, Dreamscape, Strange Brew and Dune just to name a few – it was cool to see him in one of his earlier roles. Although, even here he still looked like an older gentleman, which makes me wonder if he was ever young. Ullman is also great and reminded me a little of Jessica Chastain, but that could very well have been due to me seeing three of her films that same week.

So, for excelling in simplistic storytelling alone, I can see why Hour of the Wolf is on the list. When you add in the great cast and the dreary look of the film, you have yourself something that really sticks to your bones.

A Norwegian Tail.

The last film I took in from at year's TIFF Vanguard series was Aleksander L. Nordaas' Thale.

While on a job cleaning up a remote cabin, Elvis (Erlend Nervold) and Leo (Jon Sigve Skard) stumble upon a hidden chamber inhabited by a “huldra”. Before they can even wrap their heads around their discovery, something even more dangerous comes calling.

I quite liked this little film from Norway. While I admit that a good chunk of my admiration comes from what the filmmakers managed to do on a micro-budget of ten thousand dollars, there are other things I really dug about this piece, as well. The production design was excellent and the various gadgets seen throughout the film looked they actually worked within the universe – and weren't just culled together from stuff found in a junkyard which I later learned was the case.

The three leads interacted well with each other, especially Silje Reinåmo as the title character, Thale. It must have been physically demanding role and she pulled it off beautifully. Like many non-human characters in genre films before her, Reinåmo was able to convey much without dialogue and convincingly straddled that line between angelic and deadly.

Nervold (left) and Reinåmo in Thale.

Scandinavians have such a rich lore, so it is always great to see it mined for theatrical effect (like 2010's Troll Hunter) and Thale is a wonderfully modern interpretation of one of their most common stories. The film was also complimented with an ethereal cello-based score which created a nice bridge between reality and myth.

I had been warned about the bad CG in the film, and it was troublesome, but I've seen worse and it wasn't as predominant as I was led to believe. I'd have preferred a little more restraint to fit their budget, but it surprisingly wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Director Aleksander L. Nordaas.

At seventy-some minutes, the pace was brisk and didn't overstay its welcome. Thale is a solid fairy tale made flesh, and it is clear that Nordaas already possesses the storytelling skills of a seasoned pro.