Madness '15

The films screening at the twenty-eighth edition of TIFF's Midnight Madness programme have been announced. Usually, I'd throw up posters, but some of them are so new, they don't even have Imdb listings yet.

However, we do have some returning directors this year, including Sean (The Loved Ones) Bryne with Devil's Candy and Joe (Almost Human) Begos with The Mind's Eye. Hopping over from the Vanguard programme is Jeremy (Blue Ruin) Saulnier with his new thriller Green Room. Japanese icon Takeshi Miike returns to midnight for the umpteenth time with Yakuza Apocalypse. Word on the street is that Miike may actually make an appearance this year for the first time since 2000.

The cast of Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room.

Horror heavyweight Wes Craven serves as producer on Nick Simon's The Girl In The Photographs starring genre fave Katherine Isabelle.

Adding to the list of promising anthologies out there is Southbound, featuring the talents of David (V/H/S) Bruckner and Radio Silence.

There are also two titles that were birthed from short films at this year's fest. Ilya Naishuller's Go-Pro lensed actioner has now morphed into Hardcore, and the Turkish horror Baskin has opened its window into hell even further. 

Closing out the programme will be Todd Strauss-Schulson's SXSW hit The Final Girls.

This is a pretty promising lineup and looks to carry forward the momentum built from some strong titles last year. See you in September!

Trailer Tuesdays: Brain Damage

With this year's Midnight Madness lineup being announced today, I figured I'd take a trip back in time and post a film that played the very first edition way back in 1988, Frank Henenlotter's Brain Damage.

For more info on the films that have screened at past Midnights, click here. 1990 & 1992 were mind blowing rosters, and the year the beat since I've been going is still 2003.

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Good afternoon everyone. Here's some genre morsels to chew on.

Well, Hello Dolly!

Rue Morgue turned me onto the work of Bill Butler this week. Inspired by Matryoshka, the Russian nesting dolls that fit into one another, Butler decided to handcraft his own, using pop culture figures as his subjects. Though he has done dolls for Ghostbusters and various Nintendo characters, my favourite would naturally be his version of the numerous incarnations of the Voorhees clan.

Pretty neat, wouldn't you say? To see more of Butler's work, visit his website here.

The Body Count Rises.

It looks like there is another slasher-themed television show (to add to the already produced Scream and Scream Queens) in the works. Slasher will be a eight-episode event airing on Chiller in the US, and Super Channel here in Canada.

There isn't a lot known about it right now, except that it revolves around a woman who returns to a small town where her parents were murdered, only to find that copycat killings have started anew. The cast includes Katie McGrath, Brendan Jay McLaren (who also appeared in the similarly themed Harper's Island in 2009) and Alysa King. I'm hopeful for this one, as I think this subject matter is far better suited to a set length than an open ended one, as is the case with the two aforementioned projects.

For more info on the show, click here.

Short Cuts.

In the last few weeks, there's been a large influx of horror short films that have come to my attention. I mean there's never a shortage of shorts being uploaded to the Web, but there's been a few contests and articles written recently that have kept me very busy. First, there is a horror short challenge wrapping up over at Tentsquare that features several dozen entries, of which three are below.

Secondly, Matt Molgaard over at Dread Central put up a cool and in-depth post about ten offerings currently infecting the online universe. A sampling is below, but the full article is here.

Heads Will Roll.

Back in 2013, you may recall me gushing over an American indie called Found. For those who haven't seen it, the film features snippets of a fake horror film called Headless that spurs on one of the characters murderous appetites. Shortly after, the crew on Found decided to dig in and make a feature length version of Headless. I was naturally interested, and recently Mermaid Heather – God bless her – was kind enough to send me a DVD of the film.

Also, just to acknowledge it, I'm aware that Headless is not technically a VHS, but the movie is meant to be a forgotten Video Nasty from 1978, so I'm running with it.

A masked maniac (Shane Beasley) terrorizes the Midwest, abducting & killing young women for his psycho-sexual pleasures. Who will be next?

So, to quote the coverbox of Juan Piquer Simón's Pieces, “this is exactly what you think it is.” The caliber of gore is top notch and every bit as splattery as the parts eyed (see what I did there?) in Found. The filmmakers decided to load all the original footage in the credit sequence and film all new footage for the actual movie. It turned out even more nihilistic this time around, lulling me into a false sense of security about how things were going to play out.

Boy, do these guys ever have the aesthetic down. Not only does Indiana once again prove itself a veritable treasure trove of locations (a roller rink! Who knew those even still existed?), but there's also apparently an abundance of seventies vehicles still kicking around, as well. I was really impressed just how closely this resembled the old shot-on-video fare of the early eighties. Except the acting was better, and the camerawork, and.. well pretty much everything. I felt that director Arthur Cullipher & company were actually trying to create something here, not just make a buck. Like Found before it, there were visual homages throughout Headless, as well. While its predecessor showed them through the VHS and posters that adourned Marty & Steve's bedroom, Headless used visual cues that ranged from the obvious, like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, to the more obscure like The Town That Dreaded Sundown and Tourist Trap.

Despite all that though, I came away feeling a little cold at the end. Most of the reasons I really connected with Found were absent here, so what I was left with was a string of really gory kills. I would never complain about that, but it wasn't Found. You know? However, what you do have is a much better version of infamous titles like 555 and Spine, minus the detective subplots, which you can be damned sure I was thankful for. In its place are some really natural performances by would-be-victims Kelsey Carlisle & Ellie Church, and genuinely creepy imagery involving a skull-faced boy and a no-faced lady.

The stripped bare narrative and extreme gore will no doubt narrow its appeal, but I think that Cullipher succeeded in what he set out to do, which was tear open a portal back to a grimy, blood streaked '78 where Headless could have existed.

Captain A.

The newest novel from Paul Cleave entitled Trust No One released this week. Even though this was his ninth book, I can't say I'd heard of him before digging into this. I guess that gives you an idea of how far my knowledge of recent genre ficton reaches beyond the name King. Regardless, when a review request dropped into my inbox several weeks ago, the familiar title and simplistic cover was enough to pique my interest.

Jerry Grey was a best selling crime novelist. That is, until Alzheimer's Disease took his thoughts away. His mind is a jumble and not only is he forgetting things, but he's also confusing the worlds he created in his books with his own. This isn't helped by the fact that he keeps waking up in strange places not knowing how he got there. Worse, his little trips outside the nursing home seem to coincide with a string of murders.

Man, Alzheimer's Disease sucks. Not that I was ever a fan, but having it presented in such a relatable context was downright frightening. As a writer, I pride myself on being able to create. Using nothing but my mind, I concentrate, move through the clutter and a story takes shape. It's a gift and the thought of that being taken away is harrowing. Writing is one of the few satisfactions I get out of life, and without control of my mind, well... what's left?

Trust No One was a really brisk read, cleverly framed within two threads. The first is in the present, where we learn about Jerry (or Future Jerry as he calls himself) and his predicament at the same rate as our protagonist as his memory is now shot. The second is through the pages of a journal – a madness journal – that Jerry (Past Jerry) started writing a few days after he was diagnosed in order to record his thoughts before they slipped away. This fractured timeline really kept me engaged, as Cleave could drop a breadcrumb in the present day that made me want to read on until the corresponding event appeared in the journal side of the tale. I also found the “if-I-could-only remember-this-one-important-thing” device - present in some of my favourite gialli - to be a source of much enjoyment.

When I discovered that Jerry wrote under a pseudonym named Henry Cutter – one that he would let take over when writing his darkest passages – I feared it may turn into Stephen King's The Dark Half, but thankfully, the story went elsewhere. With this book being a mystery thriller, it had its share of red herrings, but even though the last third came to a perhaps inevitable climax, I was certainly not expecting how it ended.

I think the real strength of this book was the storytelling, and just how tragic the character of Jerry really was. In the first half, we learn of some really ugly events just as he does, and his unfortunate situation just worsens from there. Trust No One was a good read that not only served as a solid mystery, but also shined a light on a cruel disease that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Trailer Tuesdays: They Live

I was very said to hear about the passing of Rowdy Roddy Piper last weekend. The wrestling legend and all-around cool human being left us way too soon at the age of 61. In tribute, here's the trailer for Piper's most memorable screen appearance, John Carpenter's They Live.

I was fortunate enough to see him in person at Fan Expo in 2006, and he was every bit as charismatic as you would expect, bursting with stories that stretched far beyond the hour his Q&A session allowed.

Is there anything more 80's than Mr. T fighting Roddy Piper in a boxing match?

I guess the one silver lining is that we do get one last hurrah with Piper in a genre context with Vivieno Caldinelli's Portal To Hell. The Indiegogo funded short in now in post production and should hopefully start hitting festival screens by 2016. Rest In Peace, Mr. Piper.

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Hey all. I hope all my Canadian friends are enjoying their long weekend. I'm a tad hungover from celebrating Ronda Rousey destroy yet another opponent last night, but I need to get things back on track so here goes...

Soundtrack Swap.

Here's a cool little experiment I found via The Play List. The Kentucky based site The House By The Video Store (which is pretty slick and you should check out) made a video which swaps out the scores for portions of 1960's Psycho and 2014's It Follows. Check it out.

While it largely doesn't match up, it's still a very interesting video. I'd say the switch works better for It Follows than it does Psycho and that speaks to just how timeless Bernard Hermann's score really is.

Homegrown.

I was very saddened that I had to miss two Fantasia film premieres from friends of mine. From the pictures of the events and the ensuing reviews, it sounds like both films went over like gangbusters.

Trevor Juras' The Interior, a lost-in-the-forest creeper was shot last year in British Columbia. I've known producer Peter Kuplowsky for years through Toronto After Dark, which is also where I met Juras, after his awesome short The Lamp played there in 2013. Check out the trailer below.

Second was Gabriel Carrer's The Demolisher. I've rubbed elbows with Carrer and his crew over the years at various festivals and conventions and their output is staggering. Ry Barrett, the titular character, was in my short film Lively, and I couldn't be happier to see him carrying entire films as a lead.

I wish these guys all the best, and hopefully these two flicks come home to Toronto soon.

Levelling Up To Z.

For those of us disappointed in 2012 that the game Zombie U wasn't released on a decent system, fear not! Ubisoft recently announced that the first-person zombie survival game would be released on PS4 and Xbox One on August 15 as the affectionately renamed Zombi. Here's the trailer.

As I await a PS4 price drop, this is another title to add to the list. I had hoped to indoctrinate myself into the current generation by the time Until Dawn was released later this month, but it's looking like I won't be owning one until at least 2016. It will definitely be by the time Uncharted 4 drops at the latest though. I wouldn't miss that for the world!