It's Not Cheating...

Well, that was a nice little break after a crazy, crazy couple of months. Truth be told though I was still keeping myself busy. I was actually slaving away on the weekend setting up another blog. Now don't worry, I still love you. This is just a project I'm doing with my buddy Darryl. I may have mentioned that I was spending a lot of my free time on a film set over the last few months. That film is Android Re-Enactment that just wrapped principal photography a few weeks ago. Feel free to check it out, if you feel so inclined at http://ar-movie.blogspot.com/.

Anyway, just wanted to keep you all informed. I had a fantastic Halloween weekend, as I hope you all did, as well. Talk to ya soon.

The Best Day Of The Year

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

Halloween Links

As you would expect, the Internet is currently alive with ghoulish content. Here are just a few I have come across in my travels. If you've seen anything cool recently, please feel free to pass it my way.

Over at smashingapps.com, they have an article about creative Halloween ads. Here's a sample.

Atom.com has a ton of original horror content, here are two quick vids from Waverly Films.

Atom.com: Funny Videos Funny Animations Upload Video Clips

Atom.com: Funny Videos Funny Animations Upload Video Clips

I bet you've never seen THESE deleted scenes from John Carpenter's Halloween.



If you go over to Yahoo! Music, they have collected together a bunch of ghoulish videos, like this old classic from Aphex Twin.



Fans of Hatchet will probably dig the new short from Adam Green, called The TiVo. Click here to check it out.

The season finale of Ghostella's Haunted Tomb (called Top Friends featuring 300's Lena Headey) is not online yet, but click here for an episode from earlier this year entitled Ex.

Lastly, there is a cool bit over at King-mag.com about the history of Scream Queens.

Happy Devil's Night everyone!

The Big H.

With Halloween almost upon us, the subject of this week's Coverbox Wednesday should be fairly obvious. Enjoy!

The Trail of Stellar Work Starts Here.

Director Christopher Nolan is one of Hollywood’s brightest stars. This year, his gargantuan Dark Knight challenged for the number one spot for all-time grossing film currently held by the unsinkable Titanic. The great cast (including Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger) and the strong iconography of the Batman brand were contributing factors to this of course, but it would have never happened without Nolan at the helm. He is not one of the more recognized filmmakers in the business, yet he should be. His filmography, now six films strong, is extremely impressive and it all started ten years ago with the release of a humble little indie called Following.

A lonely young writer (Jeremy Theobald) escapes boredom by 'shadowing' strangers at random. Living vicariously through the people he follows, he becomes obsessed with the lives they lead. As time goes by, it becomes harder for him to abide by the rules he set for himself.

Following is an excellent crime film. You can immediately see the beginnings of Nolan’s signature narrative style here. It feels almost like a run through for his subsequent film Memento – like Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock was to Snatch – which propelled him into the mainstream in 2001. Nolan is first and foremost a storyteller. The multi-million dollar budgets of The Prestige and Batman are just the bells and whistles on an already sound skill set.

At a scant seventy minutes and just three main characters, Following feels more like an intimate stage play, than a film. It is a shining example of engrossing filmmaking on a low budget. The difference between Following and The Dark Knight maybe a decade and five hundred million plus, but both were executed adeptly by a director at the top of his game.

Never Trust A Corpse

It was a crazy week at After Dark this year, but unfortunately all good things must come to an end. The closing night film was an odd curiosity called I Sell The Dead. This was only the movie’s second public screening (the first was at Sitges), so it’s not surprising I hadn’t heard of it before it was announced for After Dark.

The night before his execution, grave robber Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) tells his life story to a priest (Ron Perlman), who has come to give him his last rites.

I liked I Sell The Dead. I’ll refrain from using the word ‘cute’ to describe it, as that was the term I heard coming out of people’s mouths all that night in regards to it. In my book, cute is a term reserved for Gremlins and E.T.

The low budget underpinnings of I Sell The Dead are easily overcome through strong performances, good storytelling and solid production design. I believed I was in this world and that’s really all you can ask for. I Sell The Dead also scores points with me for having a really cool and fulfilling conclusion. The sound mix was a little difficult to decipher at points, but that could have been due to the venue, which I’m sad to say had several different playback problems this past week.

I Sell The Dead felt like an elongated Tales From The Crypt episode (by no means a knock) as Arthur Blake regaled the priest with his exploits. His world was filled with all sorts of colourful characters. I got the feeling that there were a few more movies worth of material that could be told and, to be honest, I would watch them. I wouldn’t call I Sell The Dead cute, but the words amusing and charming do come to mind.

The cast and crew of I Sell The Dead.

Writer/Director Glenn McQuaid

Larry Fessenden

Brenda Cooney

Angus Scrimm sporting some pretty funky shades.

After the film and Q&A, we filed over to the Bovine Sex Club for the closing night party, which was capped off by a wicked performance by Orco Muto (fronted by the great Maurizio Guarini of Goblin fame). I didn’t even know they were going to be there until the unmistakable themes from Suspiria, Tenebrae and Deep Red started booming from the front of the club.

It was a great night and Adam Lopez, Todd Brown and Peter Kuplowsky should be proud of themselves for what they have accomplished here. The festival is growing exponentially, as anyone can see from the four sellout shows, zombie hordes and countless press that were in evidence at Bloor & Bathurst this last week. Can’t wait for 2009!

The Shorts

Along with its line-up of features, Toronto After Dark also showcases several shorts over the course of the week. A Canadian short was screened before every film and Sunday afternoon featured an International Programme of nine shorts from around the world.

Here are my top five shorts from the week:

1. Treevenge – The new short by Jason Eisener, the genius behind last year’s Grindhouse faux trailer competition winner Hobo With A Shotgun. Gory, clever and downright hilarious, Treevenge is fifteen minutes of absolute gold. Eisener is on track for great things.

2. The Facts In The Case of Mister Hollow – Like I mentioned before, this played in front of Let The Right One In and I’m still thinking about it. The attention to detail and eerie score really work together to make this a stunning piece of art.

3. The Goblin Man Of Norway – A faux documentary meant as a companion piece to Silicon Knights recent video game release Too Human. This short was so brilliantly executed that a good chunk of the audience thought it was real, until the following Q&A. Watch it here.

4. Hydro-Levesque – A highly enjoyable experimental film – an oxymoron in itself. If David Lynch had grown up in Winnipeg, we may have gotten something like this, instead of cult darling Eraserhead.

5. Bum Rush – A really funny short about three average Joes taking on a very angry vagrant. What makes this even more impressive is that this was a 24-hour film challenge entry. I know what is involved in producing one of these and the fact that the final product was this polished is a true testament to their skills. See it here.

Some honourable mentions:

Martians Go Home – An homage to eighties horror involving a movie geek fighting alien zombies.

I Live In The Woods – This is a great stop motion animation bit about a maniacal forest dweller. He wreaks more destruction in three minutes than most could in ninety. Click here for a sneak peek.

Kingz – This German actioner just got better and crazier as it went on. Gangsters, kung fu and aliens oh my! Check out the trailer here.

Deadspiel – Someone finally had to bright idea to combine zombies and curling. Hilarity ensues!