Little Terrors 20!

After a small absence, Justin McConnell’s Little Terrors returned to the Carlton on Wednesday. The twentieth edition of his short film series, once again stacked with great content, emphasized a more comedic bent this time around. Here were some highlights.

Director Ryan Spindell takes our inherent fear of dentistry and spins this ether-fuelled yarn called Root of the Problem. This was well acted with some unexpected effects gags at the tail end that really impressed me. It’s always good to see Brea Grant pop up in genre fare, as well. Here’s the trailer below.

The duo behind the flick Resolution are back with a short called Wrecked. Starring KassemG as a marooned fighter pilot, it is just the kind of mind-bending surrealism we’ve come to expect from these guys. Fortunately for you, the entire fourteen-minute short is now online via the new Tribeca Film initiative Picture Show. Here it is below. Enjoy, brother!

I love the show Community, and I love Gillian Jacobs even more, so imagine my elation at seeing her in the Matt Spicer directed It’s Not You, It’s Me. I like the well-timed comedy of this one a lot, which makes the simple storyline a success. For your viewing enjoyment, here it is below.

My favourite of the night was definitely Cody Blue Snider’s classroom gore-fest Fool’s Day. This wonderful short involving a fourth grade class’ April Fool's prank gone horribly wrong is a real winner. It is chock full of great comedic performances with dialogue to match, and despite being almost twenty minutes never runs out of steam – a feat in itself. This was a delight. Check out the trailer below.

Of course, it wasn't all laughs. There was also Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi’s impressive high concept science fiction opus For Clearer Skies & Little Terrors veteran Patrick Rea's newest Vindicate to keep everything grounded. Here’s a trailer for the former.

It was another strong night for Little Terrors, and next month’s lineup on Devil’s Night – to be aptly Halloween themed – will likely not disappoint either. Until then, kiddies…

Trailer Tuesdays: Nightmares.

My post yesterday got me thinking about that 1983 horror anthology Nightmares again. It's a solid flick featuring a bunch of recognizable faces, including Lance Henriksen, Emilio Estevez, Richard Masur and Veronica Cartwright. Here's the trailer.

The whole “each summer, one film opens, that you've never heard of” seems like an odd way to pitch a film, but hey, this was pre-Internet marketing. This was the same era where box art moved rental tapes, so I happily digress.

Back To The Vault.

I took another trip out to Hespeler, ON this weekend to visit The Vault and boy, did I ever make out like a bandit! Zack has been stockpiling stuff over the past few months in preparation for his move to a bigger location and I was like a kid in a candy store. I love visiting The Vault as it is one of the few places left that recalls the video stores of my youth. It also helps that Zack loves VHS as much - if not more - than I do. Here's what I picked up while I was there.

I've been looking for that one for a long time, as the cover has always intrigued me. Sure, it's a bit beat up, but the tape plays fine. I also love that the back has a list of all of Media other available titles.

Anyone who spent any time here knows how much I love this film, so I was chuffed to finally get my hands on an actual VHS of this. Paperhouse still remains one of those titles that has eluded a domestic DVD release.

Here's a couple of eighties anthologies that I loved as a kid.

The rest!

As you can see, this will keep me busy for some time. I look forward to seeing Zack's new location, as he'll finally have floor space to showcase his considerable wares. So, if you've got sometime to kill, The Vault is open weekly Wednesdays to Saturdays and absolutely worth the drive.

DKTM 193

Hey all. Here's some quick tidbits from the week at large.

I WANT THESE!

Jayson over at Ghoulish Basement directed me to a Japanese toy site that is selling this lovely little thing.

At over $200, this Tokyo Gore Police toy is not cheap, but can you really put a price on reptile hooker hybrids? I think not. To check out the site - and find out just how anatomically correct this toy really is - click here. Also, Fright Rags continued its run of excellence this week by announcing pre-orders for this.

I know, very difficult to resist the urge, isn't it? They'll be taking pre-orders starting tomorrow here.

Can-Con.

I thought I'd support my peeps and put up trailers for some upcoming Canuck projects. The first is Jesse T. Cook's toxic thriller Septic Man, and the second is Karen Lam's revenge flick Evangeline.

Netflix Pix 7.0

There was a recent explosion of good genre content on Big Red while I was gallivanting around for TIFF, so let me get you up to speed.

Resolution, the festival darling from last year has finally come to Netflix. With a great story that is hard to nail down, Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead let their actors do all the heavy lifting with fantastic results. But the less I say about it the better, now you have no excuses. WATCH IT!

Now you can watch last year's infamous short film experiment, The ABC's of Death. Marvel at the best ones, shake your head in disbelief at the poor ones, and pick your jaw up off the floor from the bat-shit crazy ones. If anything, it will prepare for the next installment, the aptly titled ABC's of Death 2, coming next year.

American Mary is one of the more fascinating genre efforts I've seen in the past few years, as the world of body modification is explored through the eyes of med student Mary, played with calculated zest by Katherine Isabelle. It was these ingredients that made this revenge thriller a cut above your average fare.

Would You Rather was a nice surprise when I saw it earlier this year. It has a great set up, tense set pieces and a delightfully devilish performance from genre veteran Jeffrey Combs. 

Getting past the fact that Crawlspace was an amalgamation of better films (notably Aliens - the first act sooooo wants to be Aliens - Resident Evil & Event Horizon) it is hard not to appreciate how much Justin Dix & company accomplished with so little. There's plenty of heart here, and at a brisk eighty-three minutes, it's hard not to recommend.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I happen to think The Ward is Carpenter's best film since In The Mouth of Madness. It's moody, atmospheric and features a ton of hot, young talent. Check it out and decide for yourself.

Okay, that should keep you all busy while you are all prepping for Halloween. Until next time...

Midnight Mass.

Midnight Madness wrapped up last Saturday with Alex de la Iglesia’s newest feature Witching & Bitching.

After a botched robbery of a Cash-for-Gold outlet, two bank robbers fleeing for France, come upon a town of witches.

This was a pretty enjoyable film. Iglesia’s work is a sizable gap in my repetoire, but from what I can gather, his work is not normally this overtly comedic. The comparison to From Dusk Till Dawn is apt, as it does follow a similar structure – swapping out a pack of vampires for a coven of witches – though the movie is unfortunately never as good as its tremendously fun first twenty minutes. It flailed in a lot of different directions in the middle, but thankfully always maintained its playful attitude, so as not to be detrimental. This chunk of the film reminded me of Juan Martinez Moreno’s Game of Werewolves, though I remember that one being a little more centered. Iglesia then brought it home with a really great set piece at the climax which rivalled that of the action fantasy of Guillermo del Toro in ambition and execution.

Witching & Bitching sounds like a throwaway title, but it actually described the subject matter quite well. The film features witches, yes, but it also features every character complaining about their lot on life. The battle of the sexes is the through line of the picture, which – as the Iglesia made us aware during his intro – was inspired by his divorce and subsequent lawyering. This was definitely apparent in the movie, but was, somewhat surprisingly, never presented in a malicious way. Iglesia’s priority here was to entertain, and for the most part, he succeeded.

Director Alex de la Iglesia

As it turns out, it’s fortunate we even got to see this film, as Iglesia was plugging away in post right up until the last moments, with it arriving in Toronto just the day before. Like I said previously, I had no reference to Iglesia’s other work, but Witching & Bitching was a decent flick, falling somewhere in the top half of this year's Midnight line-up.

So, as the curtain closes on another TIFF, time now to regroup and get back to the regular routine…

*TIFF photo courtesy of Kurt Halfyard.

Proxy.

On my last day of TIFF, I checked out the Zack Parker's thriller, Proxy.

After Esther (Alexia Rasmussen) is attacked and loses her unborn child, she takes solace in a support group where she meets Melanie (Alexa Havins), a woman with a troubling secret of her own.

Proxy is a curious little character piece. I have heard the word “challenging” bandied about to describe it, which is fairly accurate, but not for the ways I think it was meant. Contrary to what I'd heard about the film, it was actually nowhere near as inflammatory as I was expecting. If anything, the violence of the first few moments was treated with an veritable nonchalance.

I feel that Proxy is a case of the director (who also served as editor) getting in his own way. There were several sequences that had a real Hitchcockian vibe to them, but the film overall could've been much stronger in more skillful hands. As it was, some key scenes were executed in such a way that didn't quite play like the director perhaps intended them to. A more deft hand in the editing bay would've substantially improved the pace of the film, as well.

Alexia Rasmussen (left) and Alexa Havins in Proxy.

Uneven presentation aside, I actually dug the story quite a bit, and appreciated I was unsure where it was going to go. Even though I had some problems with the nuts and bolts of the piece, there were some fascinating avenues explored involving whether these characters were unbalanced even before they were touched by tragedy. I also have to give Parker credit for the bold narrative shift he pulled off in the middle of the film. I've seen this type of thing derail films before, but here it was successful; necessary even. Proxy was also kept afloat by measured performances from Rasmussen & Havins.

Proxy is a flawed film, but I can't deny there's some provocative stuff going on within. If Parker keeps at it, I expect he'll hit gold soon enough.