By: Addison Wylie I don’t consider it a good sign when a film makes you consider similar movies of its kind that you’ve given bad reviews to. Take Allan Ungar’s Gridlocked. I not only didn’t like it, but it made me wonder if I was too harsh on other action copycats like Olympus Has Fallen. However, I’m not going back on my word. Olympus Has Fallen is as much of a Die Hard ripoff as…
By: Addison Wylie Shut In’s leading damsel Anna (played by Beth Riesgraf) and filmmaker Adam Schindler have something in common: both have the ability to surprise and disarm. Schindler’s thriller begins as one of Toronto After Dark’s tamer offerings, and then socks us upside the head with brutal consequences and intense confrontations. Anna is reserved in mourning, and her agoraphobia keeps her hushed inside a rickety house. When she’s threatened by thieves interested in her stashed wealth, Anna reveals…
By: Shannon Page Known for directing video games such as Gotham City Impostors and Alien vs. Predator 2, Nathan Hendrickson makes his feature film debut with The Hollow One, a horror about an unstable young woman (Rachel played by Kate Alden) struggling with her memory of a tragic event. Rachel and her sister Anna (Chelsea Farthing) return to the small farming town of their childhood and reunite with Racheal’s ex-boyfriend (played by Jesse James of Jumper and TMI…
Awesome Runaway!! (DIR. Benjamin De Los Santos) By: Addison Wylie Benjamin De Los Santos’ Awesome Runaway!! is…well….awesome…for the most part. Inspired by video game combat, Looney Tunes, and the ‘Safe Haven’ segment of V/H/S/2, the filmmaker has conceived a stylistic treat that will surely delight Toronto After Dark movie goers. From the opening shot up until a final confrontation with an evil kingpin monologuing about nonsense, Awesome Runaway!! plays towards clichés in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The…
By: Trevor Jeffery James (Patrick McFadden) is a typical 20-something living in Toronto facing a quarter-life crisis: he’s got a job he hates along with a boss he hates, a girlfriend towards whom he is apathetic, and he is tired of the city’s drone. The final straw is a devastating diagnosis, after which he packs up and leaves everything behind for the dense woods of British Columbia. Camping out and surviving with only packed sundries…
By: Shannon Page Sibling filmmakers Ravi and Geeta Patel’s Meet the Patels is a feel-good documentary/romantic comedy hybrid that achieves everything that it sets out to do. The film, which began as a home video of a trip that the Patel family took to India, follows Ravi’s journey to find the woman of his dreams while navigating the expectations of his Indian-American family as well as his own connection to his cultural and heritage. It…
By: Mark Barber Those unfamiliar with the intensity and insanity of Sion Sono’s films might be understandably overwhelmed by the excessively violent Tag, one of six films that the Japanese filmmaker has made this year (Love & Peace is also playing at Toronto After Dark, and his fantastic and unconventional sci-fi drama The Whispering Star played at TIFF last month). Others, however, will find Tag to be yet another exhilarating action-packed outing from Sono. Narrative-wise,…
By: Addison Wylie The Hallow is made up of great parts that build towards a fleeting good time. The adult audience gets as much satisfaction out of it as a toddler does with a mall’s mechanical horse. Within the film’s undistinguished Irish town, the community unanimously agrees that the woods are not necessarily a great place to idle. Their distain is brought out when a family of out-of-towners move to a secluded millhouse that happens…
By: Addison Wylie Let’s not beat around the bush: the most comparable film you can mention when talking about Kyle Rankin’s Night of the Living Deb is Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead. Both Shaun and Deb are underdogs dealing with a zombie outbreak on the fly while trying to figure out their own issues with romance. The strongest thing you can say about Rankin’s horror/comedy is that while Night of the Living Deb is…
By: Addison Wylie I don’t regret liking HBO’s Entourage even though Doug Ellin’s cinematic continuation of the hit TV series stinks. The television show offered a sleek albeit heightened look into the politics and smooth-talkers behind Hollywood. Actor Vincent Chase was a lucrative asset to any major motion picture, and his friends witnessed this as they tagged along for the ride. Frequently vulgar and overtly macho, Entourage was amusing escapism that made filmdom look and…