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 “Have you ever exceeded the limits of pain?” Now, I have. When Your Flesh Screams is in need of more lighting, more rewrites, more experienced actors, and more time in an edit bay. Most of all, Guillermo Martínez’s low-rent ode to exploitation-horror is in need of someone to show it the door. This is a film made by people who have seen raw works like Last House on the Left and are only interested in the…
By: Mark Barber Goodnight Mommy exists at the intersection between Dead Ringers and Psycho, with a little bit of Misery thrown in for good measure. Twins Lukas and Elias (named for their actors, Lukas and Elias Schwarz) settle into their country home with their mother (Susanne Wuest), who is recovering from facial surgery after a brutal car accident. In the midst of divorce proceedings, she does not take the trauma and stress well, and begins…
By: Addison Wylie Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments, Pontypool) is a very busy filmmaker. In 2010 alone, the award-winning director released three films. If I don’t like one of McDonald’s films, I can at least find something I can appreciate about his filmmaking, but his latest horror Hellions suggests to me that the next best thing for his career may be some downtime. The main problem with Hellions, a film about a…
By: Trevor Jeffery At Toronto’s Fan Expo (an annual gathering for sci-fi super fans, comic book buffs, anime addicts, gaming geeks, horror… fans), badge-wearing nerds flock from all around, many garbed as pop culture icons, to enjoy a convention of collective interests. It’s a place where people can gather in community, compliment each other’s costumes, bathe in their favourite entertainment cultures and, of course, enjoy the celebrity guests.
By: Addison Wylie Cooties hits theatres and VOD at a fantastic time. Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion’s skittish dark comedy/horror works as great escapism for a post-secondary crowd already dreading more responsibilities, and it’s an entertaining essential for future Halloweens. Scream Queens co-writer Ian Brennan and SAW co-creator Leigh Whannell have teamed up to make a subversive, gory lil’ number featuring self-centred teachers seeking safety after a virus unleashes itself onto children through batches of skunked…
By: Mark Barber Adam Macdonald’s Backcountry is a terrifying mix of Jaws and Blair Witch, but manages to avoid the usual kitschy pastiche of recent Canadian genre films. Unlike the campiness of Wolfcop and Hobo with a Shotgun, Backcountry is an intense, serious horror film. Inspired loosely by tragic events, Backcountry follows a Toronto couple, Alex (Jeff Roop) and Jenn (Missy Peregrym), as they become lost in a camping trip in a northern Ontario park….
By: Trevor Jeffery Ciarán Foy’s Sinister 2 startles to the point of frustration, but frightens beyond its use of clichés. In the cellar of his runaway family’s newly squatted home, Dylan joins a pack of ghost kids to watch the snuff films they made, in order to stop his nightmares. It seems counterintuitive, but the snappily dressed leader of the pack insists it helps. Dylan Collins, his brother Zach and his mother Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon)…
By: Addison Wylie Aaron K. Carter’s thinly budgeted zombie romp Dead Kansas wears the same pants as that punch drunk comedy Tetherball: The Movie I reviewed in April. Not only because the filmmaker reached out to Wylie Writes to get an opinion on his modest horror, but Dead Kansas is also filled with that same vigour that can only be supplied by friends who make films because that’s what they love to do. These cinephile fellas pulled together resources…
By: Addison Wylie Final Girl is exactly the movie an up-and-coming actor makes in order to break into the biz. Later, when that actor has gone on to perform in bigger and better things, the breakout role is used as a nomination for film geeks to name obscure low-rent schlock that person had starred in. For some reason, actress Abigail Breslin has decided to work backwards, and make the low-rent schlock after earning an Oscar…