As sure as the leaves start blowing around the streets of Toronto, the cities biggest festival devoted to horror, science fiction and other genre oddities is right around the corner. They unveiled their full lineup of features and shorts today, which are previewed herein. And to visit the official site for the fest, click here.
Jim Mickle is no stranger to Toronto After Dark audiences, having opened the festival many moons ago with his NYC Were-rat drama (it's all about community!) Mulberry Street. His 2013 remake of Jorge Michel Grau's Mexican cannibal drama from 2010 opens this years festival as well. We Are What We Are centers around a family trying to keep their blood-thirsty habits a secret from their fellow townspeople.
If you see only one housefly revenge film this year, India's Eega has a lot of lovers in these here parts, none more than J. Hurtado declaring it the best film he saw last year:
"Every time I thought I had a handle on Eega, it threw me for a loop in the best possible way. Eega is easily the most flat-out entertaining film I've seen this year, bar none, and I didn't understand more than half a dozen words of dialogue in the whole thing. It's that good. It's often said that the best filmmakers know how to show, not tell their stories, and if that's the criterion for master filmmakers, S.S. Rajamouli is someone you need to know about. Incredible action sequences, inventive storytelling, technical excellence, and laughs and gasps that just keep coming; Eega has it all."
Israel's Big Bad Wolves has a series of brutal murders which put the lives of three men on a collision course: The father of the latest victim now out for revenge, a vigilante police detective operating outside the boundaries of law, and the main suspect in the killings who happens to be a religious studies teacher arrested and released due to a police blunder. A young girl goes missing in the woods. She’s soon found, very much dead, the latest victim in a string of terrible child murders plaguing the town.
Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado follow up to their critically acclaimed and award winning debut, Rabies, has proven to be an even bigger audience favourite putting the pair of directors on the road to mainstream success.
With Willow Creek, Bobcat Goldthwait plunges into not only the found footage sub-genre, but also the 'Bigfoot' sighting film:
Jim and his girlfriend Kelly are on a road-trip to the Bigfoot capital of the world, Willow Creek, California. Specifically, they are headed to Bluff Creek where the infamous Bigfoot footage in the Patterson-Gimlin film was taken. Jim is a believer; has been since he was eight. And Kelly loves her boyfriend, so she has joined him on this dream come true road trip. However, as they get closer to their destination, they face progressively more hostile resistance, first from the locals, then by something, or someone, in the woods. Jim's dream trip is about to become a nightmare.
Septic Man comes from the twisted mind of celebrated writer Tony Burgess (Pontypool) comes this disturbing and disgusting tale about a sewage worker who gets trapped inside a septic tank during a water contamination crisis and undergoes a hideous transformation. This is the third film to be featured at TADFF from Jesse Cook who previously directed Monster Brawl and produced Exit Humanity.
DO NOT watch this while eating.
Like the seemingly inexhaustible horde of Zombie films of the past dozen or so years, The Battery takes the stance that we are far worse to ourselves than the threat of the zombies. Other people, places, possibly sanctuaries encountered on the road threaten to end their relationship. This is the main conflict. While Ben and Mickey argue and make fun of each others failings, this brings them closer, cementing their platonic pal-dom. This is not your usual Zombie buddy comedy, it's far richer.
In this crowd-pleasing monster action comedy, when a Big Ass Spider threatens to destroy the city of Los Angeles, its up to a low-level bug exterminator to try and save the day.
The comic pairing of Greg Grunberg and Lombardo Boyar works wonders. As an exterminator and a security guard, they mock themselves mercilessly, and their breezy style matches the tone of the movie as a whole, in which mirth and mayhem are equal partners.
Cheap Thrills is director E.L. Katz's outrageous, darkly funny, and shocking award-winning (SXSW's Audience Award) thriller about a desperate, unemployed dad, facing financial ruin who gets offered a way out of his money woes by a wealthy, thrill-seeking couple. To pay off his debts, he’ll need to perform an increasingly risky series of dares for them over one tortuous night.
Silent Retreat offers a horror thriller merged with a creature feature in this frightening tale of a rebellious teenager who gets sent to a strict rehabilitation camp in the woods, where all attempts to escape lead to encounters with something terrifying that lurks beyond the trees!
The rest of the lineup includes:
Evil Feed, A bloody, horror-action-comedy about a sinister Chinese restaurant that kidnaps martial artists off the streets, forces them to fight to the death, and then serves the loser up for dinner to paying guests!
Found, A coming of age movie about a shy, bullied 10 year old who takes refuge in horror movies, only to see his life turn into a horror story for real when he discovers the older brother he shares the house with is a gruesome serial killer.
Banshee Chapter, A scary horror thriller about a young reporter in search of her missing friend, last seen experimenting with the same mind-altering drugs used by the CIA in the 1950s’ infamous MK-Ultra program.
Motivational Growth, A dark, twisted and funny horror comedy about a depressed man who lets his home fall into a hideous state of decay until a grotesque giant, talking mould grows and starts giving advice (voiced by none other than Jeffrey Combs.)
Odd Thomas, Stephen Sommers' adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel is set in a California desert town, where a young cook (Anton Yelchin) with a unique ability to see supernatural forces at work, encounters a mysterious man with a link to a darkness that threatens to destroy the people around him.
Last Days on Mars, Elias Koteas, Olivia Williams, and Liev Schreiber, star in this sci-fi horror thriller about a deadly strain of bacteria discovered in the Martian soil that begins to infect a group of astronauts, turning them one by one into blood-thirsty zombie-like killers.
The Machine, A dark and stylish sci-fi thriller with clear nods to Blade Runner about a conflicted scientific genius trying to make the perfect female android, while being funded by a secret government military program.
Solo, A teenage girl finds herself terrorized when she spends two nights alone, as part of her camp counselor initiation, on the same remote island where a camper suspiciously disappeared decades before.
Also,
A sampling of Short films includes their international lineup: INVOCATION, DON’T MOVE, SEQUENCE, NORTH BAY, ROPE A DOPE, C, BABY I LOVE YOU, MY FATHER IS A BIRD, and KICK-HEART
as well as Homegrown Canadian films: BEASTS OF THE REAL WORLD, BLESS YOU, CORVUS, DOWN BOB, JUST ELLA, KIN, L’ÉTRANGER, LIEBE (LOVE), MASTER, MONTREAL ZOMBIES, MOOD KILLER, NIGHT GIANT, REMEMBER ME, THE GUEST, THE HUNT, THE LAMP, THE LAST VIDEO STORE, THE VEHICLE and UNDER THE NEON LIGHTS