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Toronto After Dark

Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘The Inhabitant’ and ‘Tigers Are Not Afraid’

October 15, 2018Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

The Inhabitant (DIR. Guillermo Amoedo) Latin American cinema is in the middle of a great resurgence, creating some of the best works since the cinemas of poverty of the 1960s.  On another hand, there has been an influx of supernatural home invasion films: thieves having to deal with demons who won’t let them leave, a torrent which deemed any new arrivals in the genre mundane.  Using this dichotomy, one is left to wonder what the…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2017: ‘Dead Shack’ and ‘Rabbit’

October 19, 2017Shannon Page0 Comments

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.

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2017: ‘Defective’

October 18, 2017Addison Wylie0 Comments

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.

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2017: ‘My Friend Dahmer’

October 12, 2017Shahbaz Khayambashi1 Comment

Whatever happened to that weird kid from high school?  In My Friend Dahmer, the weird kid grew up to be one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.  This film adaptation of Derf Backderf’s graphic novel of the same name looks at the life of Jeffrey Dahmer in his last few years of high school, where he acts like a fool to get attention and drinks heavily to keep the voices at bay.  This…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2017: ‘Sixty Minutes to Midnight’

October 11, 2017Addison Wylie0 Comments

Filmmakers seem eager to work with Robert Nolan – I don’t blame them.  Nolan is, undoubtably, one of the best character actors working in the industry.  He’s respected because of his ability to morph into a role, and because of how professional he is.  I’ve seen him play an embarrassing parent, an insane clown, a teacher on the brink of destruction, and I’ve even seen him pull disgusting “things” out of his body.  He can…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2017: Shahbaz on Short Films

October 10, 2017Shahbaz Khayambashi0 Comments

Throughout my years of attending the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, I have come to learn a few truisms: 1) if a film is a world premiere, steer clear, 2) the international shorts program usually contains some of the best work at the festival, and 3) the Canadian shorts usually contain a handful of brilliant selections surrounded by others that are…less so.  Being unable to speak to the first (as of now), I am glad…

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Festival Coverage

Toronto After Dark 2016: ‘The Lure’ and ‘The Void’

October 23, 2016Shahbaz Khayambashi1 Comment

The Lure (DIR. Agnieszka Smoczynska) Often, a film that has a convoluted plot is trying to hide the fact that it has nothing else going for it.  Thus, it is absolutely understandable if someone were to question whether or not to see a Polish horror-musical about a pair of human-eating mermaid sisters who work in a cabaret show, partially based on the original Hans Christian Andersen version of “The Little Mermaid”.  Thankfully, Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure is…

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