Last Updated on July 27, 2021

AITH/JOBLO.COM DO:
TORONTO AFTER DARK!

READ PART 1 OF THIS REPORT HERE

Intro: Today,
I headed down to the legendary Bloor Cinema in Toronto for the first annual
Toronto After Dark Festival excited as hell. The Toronto After Dark Festival
is a festival strictly for fans of international horror, sci-fi and fantasy
films, and the line up is very eclectic.

Rue
Morgue’s Editor in chief, Rod Gudino and I

Hanging
out with Hal Haberman (co-director of Special)

Fans will get everything from
Swedish vampires to superhuman ninjas. Most of these films are also
Canadian and North American premieres, which is pretty sweet! Here’s PART 2
of my experience!

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Rating:
4/4

Director: Scott Glosserman
Cast: Nathan Baesel, Robert Englund

In a world
where Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers exist, a new horror villain emerges from
the shadows. His name is Leslie Vernon and he just happens to be the sweetest
and most charismatic guy one will ever meet. The ambitious future serial killer
invites a documentary crew to record his every step along the way (from picking
his “survivor girl” to the night of his attack) in becoming a new horror icon.

This is the
best horror movie that has come out in years. Behind The Mask is a fresh
and beyond creative film that deconstructs the slasher genre in the most
intelligent manner I’ve ever seen. Scott Glosserman has created a universe
where all the slasher movie no-nos are really thoughtfully well planned out
booby traps, hiding places and weapons are clever metaphors, and killers are
just everyday people.

The
character development in this movie is amazing, considering the fact that most
slashers are notorious for consisting of underdeveloped and one note
characters. Leslie Vernon (played by the extremely talented and incredible
looking Nathan Baesel) is quite possibly the most likeable and funny character I
have ever seen in a horror film. In fact, I liked him so much that I actually
found myself rooting for him in the first half of the film.

His close
friendship with the journalist, Taylor is what really sold me however. It
really humanized this man even though you know he’s a psycho deep down. I
applaud Scott Glosserman and Nathan Baesel for creating and making a killer come
to life and making the audience emphasize with him knowing full well they
shouldn’t.

I can go on
and on about this movie for hours if I could, but I don’t want to give anything
away for those of you who have yet to see this amazing horror film. It is a
must-see and it will have legends of horror kicking themselves for not thinking
of its original concept first. I honestly have nothing bad to say about
Behind the Mask. Kudos to director Scott Glosserman for giving the horror
genre the much needed change it deserved!

Night of the Living Dorks

Rating: 2/4
Director: Mathias Dinter
Cast: Tino Mewes, Manuel Cortez

Philip,
Wurtz, and Konrad are the not the coolest kids at Friedrich Nietzsche High
School. In fact they are the ones that are constantly picked on by bullies.
Philip wants so badly to get with Uschi, the most popular girl in school, and
figures a voodoo love spell will do the trick. He enlists his two buddies to
take part in the ritual, and afterwards they unfortunately get in a fatal car
accident, but then get turned into zombies. At Friedrich Nietzsche High, being a
zombie is the ticket for instant popularity.

This Rom
Zom Com may be mildly amusing, yet it is very predictable. Geek wants popular
girl. Geek’s more beautiful best friend secretly wants him. Geek becomes
popular. Geek gets popular girl, yet realizes it wasn’t what he wanted. Do I
really have to continue? Add basketball and a whole lot of fur instead of
rotting flesh, and you’ve got Teen Wolf. I never quite understood how
becoming a monster in high school could make you very popular, but I guess
that’s just me.

The
dialogue in the movie was quite funny (reminiscent of American Pie humor)
and the gross out scenes are very memorable. (Whether you like or it or not.)
If you thought the “zipper scene” in There’s Something About Mary was
bad, wait until you see what happens to one zombie who happens to have a little
“erectile dysfunction.” (I’m not even a guy, and I winced after seeing that!)

However,
these zombies could have looked more like…gee, I don’t know…ZOMBIES! I had
walked into this movie expecting to see zombies like the ones in the stills for
the movie, but they were not to be found in the movie. Where the hell were those
cool looking zombies? (Can we say false advertising?)
Also, the movie was a little too
long in my opinion. It could definitely have cut a good 10-15 minutes to make
this movie way tighter.

Night of
the Living Dorks
is no Shaun of the Dead, but it has enough amusing moments
to keep you entertained for an hour and a half. If you want to watch a movie
that brings back the feel of 80’s comedies, watch this zombie flick!

Re-Cycle

Rating:
3.5/4

Directors: Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang
Cast: Angelica Lee, Ekin Cheng

A female
writer, who is best known for writing romance novels, tries to do something new
and starts to write a supernatural novel. When she tosses out the first chapter
for the novel, she soon discovers that her rough work is coming to life, and is
soon pulled into an alternate world where the abandoned and forgotten go.

I had heard
many good things about this psychological thriller directed by the highly
acclaimed Pang Brothers. (The Eye, Cure) I went in the theatre with high
expectations and thankfully got what I hoped for and so much more.

Re-Cycle
is Silent
Hill meets The Cell. As soon as the main character delves into the
world of the abandoned, she become like Alice in Wonderland (or should I say,
horrorland) as she tries to escape persistent zombies, a cave of fetuses, (yes,
you read that correctly) and an abnormally tall and ghostly woman who are all
determined to make her stay in the world she forced them into.

The film
was full of fantastic and visually stunning imagery, and had a new and fresh
take on the J-horror genre. My only real beef with the movie was the last
fifteen minutes, where the audience is revealed something quite serious.

Instead of
taking such a controversial issue and handling it with care, the movie took an
unexpected melodramatic and cheesy turn, which made most of the audience, burst
out in unbelievable laughter. Although, this wasn’t enough to take away anything
good about the film. Go watch Re-Cycle if you’re looking for a J-horror
film that is honestly different from the rest!

Mad Cow Girl

Rating:1/4

Director: Gregory Hatanka
Cast: Sarah Lassez, James Duval

Mad
CowGirl is
about an emotionally unstable woman named Therese, a meat inspector who is as
sinful as they come. She has a failed marriage, an obsession for the elderly
televangelist (played by Star Trek’s Walter Koenig) she’s having an affair with,
an incestuous relationship with her brother, (played by Donnie Darko’s
James Duval) and just happens to have either a brain tumor or mad cow disease
that is causing her to commit awful acts.

You would
think with such an original and bizarre concept, Mad Cowgirl would keep
the audience’s full attention. Unfortunately, this movie was way too absurd for
me to get into it. I can’t for the life of me tell you what genre this movie
belongs to. For me it was an experimental disaster that had potential to be so
much more.

This movie
goes all over the place and is totally inconsistent and incomprehensible after
the first twenty minutes. The audience is left with many unanswered questions.
It is never stated whether or not Therese actually in fact has mad cow disease,
and when she gets the crazy idea that she must become “The Girl With The
Thunderbolt Kick” and kill the Ten Tigers From Kwangtung, I was completely lost,
but at least at that point I didn’t care. I was too busy praying this movie
would just end already.

Like a raw
piece of meat, Mad Cowgirl is undercooked, a bloody mess, and has left an
awful taste in my mouth.

Tokyo Zombie

Rating:
2.5/4

Director: Sakichi Sato
Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Sho Aikawa, Arata Furata

Fujio and
Mitsuo are best friends who happen to share the same passion for the art of
Jujitsu. (Unfortunately that is only thing both of them are good at.) When
caught slacking off on the job, they end up having a huge fight with their jerk
boss, and accidentally killing him in the process. They decide to dispose of
his body on Black Fuji Mountain and they soon discover that this mountain is
unleashing the dead upon Tokyo.

This buddy
comedy kept my attention for the most part. The first and second acts of the
film were quite strong, well paced and delivered the goods when it came to the
gore. (We get grisly bites, torn out intestines, a kicked off head, and
fellatio gone horribly bad) I actually cared about these two dopey characters
and hoped they would escape the zombie madness. Unfortunately, during the
film’s final act, it lost its fast pace, spunk, and humor that kept me
interested in the first half.

The second
half focuses primarily on the events five years after the zombies strike.
People are forced to live in a closed up city where Fujio and others must make a
living entertaining the rich in caged fights with zombies. (Sounds eerily
similar to George Romero’s Land of the Dead.)

Unlike
Romero’s latest hit where he only focused on the zombie fights for ten minutes,
this film spends its remaining running time on it, which made me lose interest
very quickly. There was also this disgusting and morbid running joke in the
movie that was completely unnecessary and not funny involving child rape that I
wished wasn’t in the film at all.

Tokyo
Zombie could
have been a great addition to the zombie genre, if only it stuck to the first
half’s concept throughout the entire film. However, it wasn’t a complete loss
and if you feel like watching something completely out there, I recommend this
as a must-see!

Funky Forest: The First Contact

Rating:
1.5/4
Directors: Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki
Cast:
Tadanobu Asano, Susumu Terajima

Funky
Forest is a
film impossible to describe. If you can find someone who is able to make sense
of this movie, they better hope to God they don’t have to give a urine sample in
the near future, for they are probably taking as many (or more) recreational
drugs as the filmmakers were making this nonsensical flick.

I can’t
even call this is a movie. It’s more like a two and a half “Five Alive”
commercial. It basically consists of incomprehensible and surreal sketches that
had the audience roaring with laughter because it was so weird and out there.

I, on the
other hand was not impressed. If it weren’t for the fact that I dragged my
friends to come see this with me, I would have escaped the theatre during the
three-minute intermission midway through the film. The only thing I can
honestly say I was mildly amused by was the Homeroom!!!!!!!! segments
which I can not describe for the life of me.

Funky
Forest is not
for everyone. (Especially not for me at least.) If you like to watch films that
make sense then stay FAR away from this one. But, if you’re looking an excuse to
get high or drunk, watch this with a bunch of friends!

Slaughter Night (SL8N8)

Rating: 3/4
Directors: Frank van Geloven, Edwin Visser

Cast: Kurt
Rogiers, Victoria Koblenk

After her
father dies in a car accident, Kristel goes on a trip with a group of her
closest friends to get his belongings at a mine where he was gathering
information for his last book about the life story of a child serial killer who
was obsessed with voodoo and who was burned to death in the mine. After getting
stuck in the mine, the friends decide to play with a oujia board and they
unknowingly unleash the spirit of the killer who wants each of their heads.

Slaughter Night
starts off with a bang and with a very shocking opening. It was so shocking; I
gasped and put my hand over my mouth like a drama queen. (I won’t give it away,
but it deals with something rarely seen in horror movies) After the opening
scene however, the film takes it sweet ass time for the horror to hit again, and
just before you start thinking this movie sucks big time, the horror hits.

When it
hits, it hits hard, and the rest of the movie is an on going thrill ride not to
be missed. Horror fiends get everything from nasty decapitations, slit throats,
and much more as the spirit jumps from body to body knocking off the cast one by
one.

It did make
some obvious mistakes, (the elevator not working/then working all of a sudden
was a major one) but I remembered I was watching a slasher film. Nothing more
and nothing less and all was forgiven. I did wish the camera didn’t shake as
much as it did. I felt like I was watching The Blair Witch Project all
over again.

Slaughter Night
is full of fantastic kills and jumpers. Although it doesn’t bring
anything new to the table in terms of horror, it does provide the key
ingredients to make a solid slasher film for all horror fans.

Conclusion

“Acne”
director Rusty Nails (to my left) and Andrew Olsen( founder of MoviePatron.com)
(to my right)

Thirteen movies, two gala parties, and five
sleep-deprived nights later, and the Toronto After Dark Film Festival has come
to an end. It was an amazing experience in which I was able to meet great people
and watch movies I can brag about to my friends. The film festival also provided
some great Canadian shorts before the features films. (My favorites were Head
Shot, Day of John, Disfingered and The Eyes of Edward James)
 

Also, iconic film director Lloyd Kaufman graced
horror fans with his presence at a Midnight screening to premiere five minutes
from his upcoming horror film, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
that will please any Troma fan.
 

With the exceptions of some drunk a*sholes at the
midnight screenings, a couple of bad movies, and seeing my ex boyfriend dressed
up like a zombie and spying on me, (Yes, I saw you buddy! The jig is up!) the
festival exceeded my expectations and I can’t wait until next year’s line up!
Now it’s time to get some much needed sleep!

Rue Morgue’s Dave Alexander, Scott
Glosserman(writer/director of Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Thanks to Adam Lopez, Todd Brown and everyone involved with the
Toronto Dark Film Festival for the good times!

READ PART 1 OF THIS REPORT HERE