Toronto After Dark - That's A Wrap!

A few notes on this year's festival:

• Favourite Film - I keep waffling between the two, so I'll make it a tie: "Murder Party" for being a barrel of fun and "Alone" for scaring the begeezus out of a theatre full of people.

• Favourite Short - I have to give it to "Terror on 3918" which I actually wrote about last June when I saw it at the Worldwide Short Film Festival. The spaceship of the future seems to resemble the inside of a run-of-the-mill apartment and the laughs come from the absurdity of the ship, the very effective use of sound effects to make the everyday objects seem to be controlling things and the actors playing the whole thing straight.

• Best crowd reactions - 1) the first kill during "Automaton Transfusion" - the zombies in the audience were thirsting for blood, 2) the nervous laughter leading up to the scares in "Alone" as well as the release laughter afterwards, 3) the applause for the huge round house kicks seen in "The Rebel".

• The volunteers - Superb and friendly.

• The audience - The zombie films, "Alone" and "Murder Party" were all jam-packed and many other screenings had very sizeable crowds. It was all about having fun and the attendees were pretty relaxed and ready for anything. I also got to meet a couple of fellow bloggers for the first time (Hey Shannon!) and enjoyed the film discussion.

• Jaw dropping moments - 1) "Aachi & Ssipak" was pretty much one ridiculous moment after another - but in a good way, 2) the 8 Arrows Of Truth in "Audience Of One", 3) every frame of "Poultrygeist" - but in not as good a way.

• Things missed - I heard really good things about all 3 of the features I missed - "Mulberry Street", "In The Name Of The King" and "Wolfhound". Would have been nice to catch them too (though I'm still not convinced about Uwe...). I also would have liked to see the "Cutting Edge Horror" set of shorts. I missed both the opening and closing night parties as well - maybe next year...

• Ideas that should be continued next year - The "Pub After Dark", though I didn't get there much.

• I'm off boiled eggs for awhile - "Poultrygeist" had more than its share of disgusting moments, but that egg with the green and purple veins that gets eaten by the guy playing Jared...What's the icon for "wretch"?

• Poor doggies - Dogs just didn't fare well at this year's festival. In "Blood Car", "Alone" and "Simon Says" dogs all met rather disturbing ends. Even in festival closer "Murder Party", a dog chomps down on a bag of crank before then chomping down on a guy's face.

To quote the Toronto After Dark web site, it was a Bloody Good Time!