Review: Heartless – TAD 2010
Heartless is a dark tale of love, betrayal, faith, sin and chaos – but it is so much more than that. The Toronto After Dark Film Festival hosted the Toronto premiere of director Philip Ridley’s return to the screen after a 14-year hiatus. His previous films, The Passion of Darkly Noon and The Reflecting Skin, were critical successes and Ridley proves his absence did not weaken his remarkable abilities in the slightest.
Review: Nanny McPhee Returns
For those of all ages who enjoyed the first chapter, Nanny McPhee Returns is more of the same with a new family in a different decade.
Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) arrives to help an extremely stressed young mother, Isabel (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. Adding to her troubles, Isabel’s brother-in-law (Rhys Ifans) is trying to convince her to sell the farm so he can settle his own debts. Nanny uses her magic to teach the woman’s three children (Asa Butterfield, Lil Woods and Oscar Steer) and their two spoiled cousins (Eros Vlahos and Rosie Taylor-Ritson) five new lessons and help them get their lives back in order.
Review: The Switch
We’ve entered an age where women who want biological children do not have to wait to find Mr. Right; she can utilize a sperm donor, as some celebrities and recent movie characters (see The Back-up Plan) have selected. The Switch centres on a mishap that “could” occur when choosing this option.
Review: Phobia 2 – TAD 2010
Last year, four Thai directors terrified audiences with their anthology of scary stories titled 4bia. This year, three of the filmmakers return (with one new one) to Toronto After Dark Film Festival with the equally terrifying sequel Phobia 2.
Review: Alien vs. Ninja – TAD 2010
Let’s face it, when you have a title like Alien vs. Ninja you go into the theatre with your tongue firmly in cheek. Anyone Monday night at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival expecting something like Ridley Scott’s Alien or even the original Predator film would have been disappointed. Anyone looking for a fun, brainless ride in the vein of the Power Rangers would have gotten what they were looking for.
Review: All About Evil – TAD 2010
In the ’80s there was a brand of low budget horror that appealed to a particular taste and often garnered a dedicated following. These films occupied midnight screenings across North America with regular attendees and lines that could round corners. The acting was somewhat over the top; the music was defined and corny; and the characters were usually peculiar – think John Waters, but more blood. Canadian premiere All About Evil is one of these films, coming in under the ‘cult’ section of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.
Review: The Last Exorcism – TAD 2010
Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF) hosted its first truly star-studded event, complete with professional security guards for the talent and film prints, recording device detection equipment during the screening, primetime news coverage and incredibly giddy fans. The film: The Last Exorcism. The celebrities: stars Ashley Bell and Patrick Fabian with producer Eli Roth.
Review: RoboGeshia – TAD 2010
The great thing about the Toronto After Dark Film Festival is that its programming is much more than horror films; it’s also a mix of sci-fi, action and the just plain weird. RoboGeshia is certainly a mix of all four of those areas and much more done quite brilliantly.
There are just certain types and styles of films where you go, “that only could have been made in Japan.” Japanese filmmakers have a unique creativity that filmmakers from other parts of the world just seem to lack in comparison. They mix outlandish humour with sex and violence that somehow works when it is all put together. One of the best examples of this brilliant cinematic insanity is RoboGeisha. Read more
Review: Cargo – TAD 2010
Though they’ve been few and far between, genuinely good science fiction films have been slowly emerging from the U.S. and now Switzerland is getting in on the action. The Canadian premiere of Cargo at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival was on my list of must-see this year and definitely met my expectations. It combines story elements that we’ve seen before, but still presents an entertaining, unique entry into the genre.
It’s the 23rd century and the Earth is uninhabitable. People crowd onto dirty, disease ridden space stations and try to scrape together enough money to travel to Rhea, an idyllic planet slowly being colonized by Kuiper Enterprise. Laura Portmann (Anna-Katharina Schwabroh), a young doctor, signs up as a medic on a cargo freighter for an eight year – four there and four back – journey to earn her passage and be reunited with her family on Rhea. During the final eight-month solo shift on watch, Laura discovers she and the ship’s small crew are not alone. As members of the crew start turning up dead, they begin a hunt for the murderer hiding in the shadows amongst them.
Review: Doghouse – TAD 2010
Toronto After Dark Film Festival founder and programmer Adam Lopez prefaced this first screening of Zombie Appreciation Day by apologizing for the vulgarity and sexist behaviour of his fellow Brits featured in the film Doghouse. He then told everyone not to worry because just as you begin wishing they’d die horrible deaths, some of them do.
Vince (Stephen Graham) is handling his divorce badly. He’s depressed and going to pieces. But his best mates aren’t going to let him just wallow in his misery. Struggling with their own women troubles, they drag Vince off for an ultimate lads drinking weekend in the country. Arriving in the small English village of Moodley where the women outnumber the men 4:1, the boys find themselves holidaying in a community overrun by psychotic, homicidal man-flesh-eating zombies. As the guys find themselves under constant attack by the infected, cannibalistic women who are the victims of a strange government experiment, the disparate group must band together to try and escape the “pissed-off, man-hating, feminist cannibals” with their lives.
