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Toronto After Dark

Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2019: ‘The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale’ and ‘Witches in the Woods’

October 16, 2019Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale (DIR. Lee Min-jae) The zombie genre has always managed to survive because zombies, as a monster, are wholly dependent on the zeitgeist of the time.  Since they are brainless creatures, their existence can generally be justified by the anxieties of the time (military industrial complex, consumerism, conformity, racism, etc.).  While that is an advantage to sub-genre, most zombie films follow the same template.  The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale is no…

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One-on-Ones

Wylie Writes’ One-On-One with Corey Stanton

October 6, 2019Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

Robbery is a solid drama that tells the compelling story of Frank (Art Hindle), a cerebral career criminal suffering from dementia.  When his son, Richie (Jeremy Ferdman), finds himself the target of a dangerous organization to whom he owes money, Frank must come out of retirement and use the remnants of his mind to save his son. I talked with writer/director Corey Stanton to see where this surprisingly unique story came from.

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘Extracurricular’, ‘Lifechanger’, ‘Nightmare Cinema’, and ‘You Might Be the Killer’

October 27, 2018Wylie Writes Staff3 Comments

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…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘I Am a Hero’ and ‘Satan’s Slaves’

October 24, 2018Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

I Am a Hero (DIR. Shinsuke Sato) I Am a Hero is long.   That is not often how a review will start, but that may be the most remarkable thing about this new zombie film from Japan – running at over two hours, it is needlessly long.  Otherwise, it doesn’t reinvent or make any new addition to the zombie mythos, it doesn’t have anything interesting to say, and it doesn’t really pick up until the third…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘Prey’ and ‘Robbery’

October 23, 2018Shahbaz Khayambashi1 Comment

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,…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘Prospect’ and ‘The Ranger’

October 19, 2018Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

Prospect (DIR. Chris Caldwell, Zeek Earl) First, we lived through “mumblecore”.  Then, we were subjected to “mumblegore”.  Now, it seems like the next logical step is to “mumblego” where no man has gone before.  Case in point: Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl’s exercise in furious navel-gazing, Prospect, a film so enamored by its own cleverness that it manages to make its modest runtime seem endless.  A film whose total lack of direction in favour of world-building…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘I’ll Take Your Dead’ and ‘Mega Time Squad’

October 16, 2018Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

I’ll Take Your Dead (DIR. Chad Archibald) The multi-hyphen horror film is just a concept that is here to stay.  Despite everything being a hyphenated genre lately, very few films actually know how to do it well.  The issue is that these films are often so lost in their own muddled genres, that they forget to specialize in one.  Very rarely can someone pull off an actually balanced hyphenated genre film, leading to practical magic when…

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