With just over two weeks to go until the ninth annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival begins on October 16, it is time to reveal the final batch of films to make up this year's lineup.
We will start here at home with a couple of titles from local lads Chad Archibald and Tal Zimmerman. Archibald's The Drownsman, his homage to classic psycho slasher flicks, will have its Toronto Premiere. Zimmerman is the subject of the documentary Why Horror? Filmmakers Nicolas Kleiman and Rob Lindsay follow horror fan Zimerman as he takes a look at the psychology of horror around the world in order to understand why we love to be scared. I believe this will be the Canadian premiere.
Sticking close to home, from our neighbors to the south titles left to announce are Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's slasher flick The Town That Dreaded Sundown and Andrew Robertson's feature film debut, the suspense-thriller Refuge (formerly The Mansion). We will also get to see the latest film from Adrián García Bogliano, Late Phases, starring Stakeland's Nic Damici and Cheap Thrills' Ethan Embry. And the TAD audience will see Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter starring Pacific Rim's Kikuchi Rinko. Kikuchi plays the titular character who goes to Minnesota after watching Fargo, believing the treasure is really out there.
The second wave also includes two titles from the southern hemisphere that have been creating a lot of buzz, one of them for a while and the other shortly after its World Premiere in Austin.
The Kiwi horror-comedy Housebound will make its Toronto Premiere and open the festival. This should be one of the hottest tickets of the fest. Believe the hype. See. This. Movie! The other flick is Aussie zombie flick Wyrmwood. It just made a huge splash, or splat, in Austin the other week. I know one of the programmers from TAD has been gushing about this flick for a while now so I cannot wait to see the huge grin on his face when this bows at the fest!
And, finally, a statement in horror film from Ireland, Let Us Prey. Brian O'Malley's horror flick stars Game Of Thrones' Liam Cunningham and The Woman's Pollyanna McIntosh. McIntosh is PC Rachel Heggie on her first night in a small town police station. Not only will she have to deal with her new colleagues but Hell has decided to pay a visit to this remote town on the same night as well.