James vs. His Future Self (DIR. Jeremy LaLonde) Jeremy LaLonde’s recent movies have truly owned their genre in a unique way. The Go-Getters was a gleefully foul play on the traditional buddy formula, and How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town was a charming sex comedy. With James vs. His Future Self, LaLonde takes a swing at crossing science fiction with a romance – it’s a sweet success.
Extracurricular (DIR. Ray Xue) As the Canadian pop-punk band Sum 41 once sang, “motivation, such an aggravation.” That seemed to be Ray Xue’s complaint as well when he was directing Extracurricular, which is the only way to explain why anything in this film happened. Long time readers may recognize the number one rule of TAD: if a film is having its world premiere here, it will be terrible. This is not a knock against any of…
Prey (DIR. Dick Mass) Sometimes viewers are given the rare pleasure of experiencing a film that, by all intents and purposes, should be awful. Whether because of its genre’s history or just a general sense of ridiculousness, these films need to be dead on arrival, but sometimes a film is way better than it has any right to be. Dick Mass’ Prey, a film about a giant man-eating lion causing carnage in the streets of Amsterdam,…
Two teenage girls come-of-age in a small town. They use “teen speak”, spend all their time on social media, and find themselves consumed by their various hobbies. What makes Tragedy Girls different from a plethora of similar films is that one of these girls’ hobbies is murder.
Dead Shack (DIR. Peter Ricq) Audiences that like their zombies with a healthy side of laughs shouldn’t miss Dead Shack, director Peter Ricq’s dark comedy about three teenagers whose week-long vacation at a cabin in the woods takes a nightmarish turn when they learn that their neighbour in the cabin next-door is feeding unsuspecting young locals to her undead family.
Filmmaker Reese Eveneshen seems to be his own worst enemy with his latest project Defective. On one hand, on a limited budget, he’s developed Toronto into a nameless city living in a convincing dystopia. The visuals are on par with the works of Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium). However, Eveneshen’s overwritten screenplay becomes so convoluted, it reaches a point of no return.
This critic sometimes finds it impossible to believe the sort of films that premiere at film festivals. As I have warned you before, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival is particularly guilty of this cinematic crime when it comes to their world premieres. I would love to be proven wrong, but the streak continues.
Now, this is more like it! Let Her Out is the type of movie I want to see from Canadian filmmaker Cody Calahan.
By: Shahbaz Khayambashi Once again, the sun sets on another successful edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. On the tenth anniversary of this local darling, I felt it necessary to shine a light on what I have consistently felt to be an important and underappreciated part of this festival: the shorts. The first time that I went to the festival, about six years ago, my first screening was the Shorts After Dark program and I…
Deathgasm (DIR. Jason Lei Howden) By: Shahbaz Khayambashi Think to yourself for one moment: what do you imagine when you think of a film entitled Deathgasm? Jason Lei Howden’s film is basically that. The plot is simple enough: four teenage New Zealand metalheads decide to form a band, after sneaking into a Varg Vikernes stand-in’s house and coming into possession of music and lyrics to a demonic song which turns the inhabitants of their small town…