Toronto After Dark 2008 - "Trailer Park Of Terror"

Steven Goldmann's "Trailer Park Of Terror" (released on DVD just days after our screening) was a good complement as the second movie of Zombie Day at this year's Toronto After Dark. The zombies in the audience stayed for a second helping of blood and guts, the film provided them what they needed and, like the previous film "Kevin Tenney's Brain Dead", my opinion of it slowly changed as the film progressed. Unfortunately in this case, instead of warming to it, I slowly became less and less enamoured of it.

Based on a series of comics, the film begins with a bit of back story about the trailer park and Norma - a pretty blonde looking to get away from the park and its residents. Things go terribly wrong for her and with a suggestion by a mysterious roadside stranger, she returns to seek vengeance on the entire trailer park while taking her own life too. Cut to years later when a bus load of problem teenagers get stranded during a storm and seek shelter at the park with their pastor. The park is mostly abandoned, but they encounter a sexy, older woman who puts them all up for the night. Her name? Norma. There seems to be something amiss about this older and wiser Norma and when the first kill comes we see why that is - she's a zombie underneath.




These early scenes are actually quite well done and settle the audience in for what might be a fun ride. Nothing overly original, but it seemed to be a solid environment for an entertaining genre workout. The acting is far superior than what you might expect and Nichole Hiltz (as Norma) is exceptionally strong. The effects appear to be professionally done and look great, the teenage fodder is relatively interesting and Norma looks to be an amusing villain. But it all starts to turn in a different direction...It does this in two different ways:

1) A flashback scene to Norma and her Mom shows a nasty side to the old trailer park. The local Sheriff has been using her Mom for sexual favours and the scene we get ends in what can only be described as a very distasteful way. Yeah, I know...I'm watching a zombie movie where a boatload of people are going to die and get eaten - what did I expect? It's just that this scene is completely removed from the silly aspects of the zombies and placed directly into the real world. It's also a harbinger of things to come - several of the later death scenes involve torturing the victims a bit before their demise. Purely for the enjoyment of the zombies doing it. It killed the fun aspect of the movie for me.

2) The sense of humour Norma brought to the film as she met her new guests seems to evaporate as they shift towards a different type of comedy. Many of the same people Norma sought vengeance upon have also become zombies and remain in the park as well (Norma seems to be the boss of the place). However, they've retained their old ugly trailer-park-trash stereotypical personalities and that's where the film starts milking most of its humour. It gets tired pretty quick.

I know others will enjoy the film better in the latter stages where the "kills" become more graphic and creative, but by then all of the humour and fun had been sucked away for me.





Staying in the zombie realm was the opening short entitled "The Laundromat" that depicts a couple's attempt to hide out from the rampaging zombies out in the streets. He's been bitten already, so she tries to save him and also figure out how to save herself from the hordes. Solid entry and points for creative use of an iron.

Toronto After Dark 2008 - "Kevin Tenney's Brain Dead"

"Brains! Brains!" The first of two zombie films following last Sunday's annual Zombie Walk hadn't even started when the crowd started chanting the well-worn refrain. Not that they needed any real reason to do so, but there was a short delay because of a minor technical problem so the crowd simply decided to amuse itself (as there was some fiddling with the aspect ratio settings, some savvy zombie in the crowd yelled out - in best zombie-like fashion - "Wider!").

That's the kind of environment that makes the Toronto After Dark festival so much fun. These genre films (especially the zombie ones) already have a built-in sense of goofiness about them and the After Dark staff, Bloor Cinema staff, volunteers and fest director Adam Lopez all chip in to keep that same atmosphere in the theatre, in line outside and at the many gatherings during the fest. So that allows the crowd to keep smiling through small glitches and, more importantly, through less than perfect moments in the films themselves. Though that's not meant to be a preface for a complete tear-down of the film in question, there certainly was more than one moment during the early going of "Kevin Tenney's Brain Dead" that I was relying on that early built up good will.




Director Tenney himself touched on the main issue in the introduction to the film: "Horror Comedy is hard to do". And though the film did eventually settle into a better rhythm, aside from an early big zombie kill the movie initially laboured through some rough dialogue, uneven timing and not so funny smart-ass quips. Perhaps it was the admitted small budget of the film that led to some additional padding out of the script since there were some longish stretches of not very funny things happening. The plot was set up fairly straightforwardly - a meteorite from out of space crashes to Earth, the ooze it carries infects its first victim by turning him into a zombie who either kills or infects others, three separate small groups of people end up meeting in a cabin in the woods. Cue zombie attacks.

And that's when the film started to work much better. As a matter of fact the longer it went, the more I began to like it. Two main reasons: 1) the old school makeup and special effects were a great deal of fun and 2) once the attacks began to happen, the film began to play with the conventions of the genre a bit. There were still some clunky lines, but funny ones began to pop up here and there and you could settle in for the ride. The cast of characters include a pair of handcuffed escaped criminals (one unjustly sent to jail while the other is vicious), a pair of female hikers and a minister and his young buxom secretary. Though I guess in a film like this, saying 'buxom' when it comes to the female characters is rather redundant. Four separate women shed their tops for no better reason than to shed their tops. It's juvenile for sure, but the movie knows that, shrugs and keeps going. And it even managed to have the smart-ass quipping main character grow on me a bit...

So maybe it's that After Dark atmosphere that is still lingering with me, but in the end I found that the film had grown on me a bit and had even succeeded in entertaining me.





The opening Short "Deadspiel" got the crowd psyched. It's the easiest and shortest elevator pitch ever: "Zombie curling". And the comedy plays out pretty much perfectly with bloody good timing. Whether it was the zombies struggling to handle sweeping the stones or the zombie fans up in the bar watching their squad, the film brought out some solid laughs from the crowd. And with all that nice gleaming pristine white ice around, you know it's going to be sullied at some point...

Toronto After Dark 2008 - "Repo! The Genetic Opera"

Oh man...

I honestly really wanted to like this film. Composer Terrance Zdunich stated after the screening that he believes there is an audience for a 21st century Rock Opera and I absolutely agree. With a great premise (which this film has), it could find a solid fan base and creep into the mainstream. But that's not this film. This film is quite the mess.

The back story tells us that sometime in the future, an epidemic of organ failures takes place. Financing for organ replacement is common and provided by the corporate behemoth GeneCo, but those who cannot make their payments are subjected to repossession of the most intrusive kind. As well, addictions to surgery and black market painkillers (extracted from the dead) are becoming rampant. It's fertile ground for all sorts of interesting characters and situations. But the repossession premise is, if not entirely abandoned, simply not exploited to any depth. And when it does pop up (like when one of the repo men sings about his career while he graphically slices up an unknown victim) it's almost tangential and inconsequential to the story.

But at worst, it's just frustrating that they didn't follow through with the strong concept. What really hurts the film are the choices of what gets focused on instead - specifically the sections dealing with Rotti Largo (founder of GeneCo) and his family. Largo (Paul Sorvino) has a big problem: he's dying but refuses to bequeath the company to any of his three children because he can't stand them. And neither could I since all three of them are almost unwatchable. Of course, the characters are supposed to be too stupid and crazy for their father to trust, but it kills any of the enjoyment of watching them argue and sing. Played by Bill Moseley, Paris Hilton and ex-Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre, the characters lack any subtlety, are downright annoying and have forgettable songs.




And speaking of the music, it never felt totally integrated into the story. As a matter of fact, I didn't find that it ever really drove the narrative. Most of the story was done through exposition between songs or via individual sung/spoken lines that didn't seem to tie into any of the melodies of the main songs. As for the melodies themselves I really can't say that many were memorable. There's indeed some riffs that had some potential and a couple of songs had some call and response that seemed to briefly work, but there were far too many moments of singers singing, no scratch that, screaming themselves over each other. So perhaps there was more narrative drive in the songs - it's just that I couldn't make out the lyrics to know that.

I do have to say that Sarah Brightman was one of the highlights. Even with her spooky CGI eyes, she's quite the stunning woman with a strong presence and of course a massive voice. Anthony Stewart Head also embraces his role for all its worth - as a doctor protecting his teenage daughter from the outside world due to her rare blood disease. Two other things I liked: the animated sections that covered the history of GeneCo plus character back stories and some of the colourful lighting schemes (as you can see from the screenshots). I wish they had really focused on keeping bright colours across all the scenes, but it wasn't consistent and there were plenty of other moments that were just visually ugly with set design seeming to be all over the place.

In the end, the film simply failed to be any fun at all. I can't help but feel that this film desperately wants (and I think even expects) to be the next Rocky Horror Picture Show, but in the guise of a Rock Opera. I wish that it could be, but this isn't the film to do that. Not at all.





The evening wasn't a loss though. And that's due to the absolutely wonderful two minutes of "The Flower" - the Short that started things off. I don't need to say anything else except that there were actually people guffawing due to it. Yep, guffaws...Just watch it here:

Toronto After Dark 2008 - "MirageMan"

While out walking late at night, club bouncer and martial arts enthusiast Maco comes across a home invasion in progress. He knocks out one of the thieves, takes his mask and disables the rest of them, saving a number of women inside the house from further torture. One of these women is news reporter Carol Valdivieso and she creates a bit of a sensation by filing a report about her experience and the masked man who selflessly saved her. Maco's traumatized young brother responds well to the news that a hero is roaming the city, so Maco decides to continue his crime fighting ways.

Why is MirageMan, with its rather minimal plot and ultra low budget, possibly my favourite film of Toronto After Dark?


1) The fight scenes in the film are extraordinarily fun to watch. As Todd Brown from Twitch mentioned before the film, there are no wires or CGI in the entire movie - so when you see these guys beating each other up, they are really beating each other up. Huge roundhouse kicks to the head, body slamming kicks to the mid-section and all manner of hand-to-hand combat. Star Marko Zaror (who has been the stunt double for The Rock) is supremely skilled and you can believe it when he takes on an entire gang of 20 and pummels them all.


2) The spoofing of the super hero genre is absolutely dead-on, but it's also pretty gentle. The guys who made the film are obviously fans of the genre, but they certainly don't mind taking its conventions down a notch or two. For example, MirageMan discovers that creating the right outfit is time consuming (he makes lists with items like "light slippers" and "flexible pants") and that it may not lend itself to quick changes in public. And there's a wannabe sidekick who calls himself PseudoRobin that emails him constantly. There's even a few intertitles like:

Mission 1: MirageMan vs. The Gang Of Bilbao

3) The music is 70s waka-chaka waka-chaka funk-tastic! Check it out in the trailer:




4) The direction for such a low-budget film is very well done and incorporates a lot of the style of 70s action films by using quick zooms in and out and other techniques.


5) I love that "hands like knives" pose. Especially when he runs that way.



The darker tone of the film in the last 20 minutes or so doesn't completely work though - when your unstoppable hand-to-hand combat super hero starts using a gun, it lessens the enjoyment. However, there's an undercurrent of commentary of the state of violence found in many of the large South American cities - the home invasions, kidnappings, etc. If that shift in tone may not match up perfectly with the first hour or so of the film, it likely has a solid reason to be there. I can't say whether the filmmakers believe that vigilantism is a good thing, but if the climate in the cities is bad enough where you can envision vigilantes doing good, then perhaps there's a wider problem.

But as a shared film experience that first hour is still a terrifically fun time that garnered some of the best audience reactions of the festival.





The short film of the screening was Experimental with a capital 'E'. Called "Hydro-Levesque" (all the shorts before the features are Canadian in origin by the way - Bravo to the fest for doing that and getting wider exposure for them), it intertwines the fortunes of Quebec and Manitoba (specifically Winnipeg) with the power generation stations in the North. I was 11 around the time of some of the newsreel footage used in the film (e.g. the November 1976 provincial election victory by the separatist Parti-Quebecois), so it brought back very strong feelings - not all of them good. Say what you want about Rene Levesque though, the man could certainly convey passion. If I didn't quite get what the filmmaker was trying to do in this wildly edited short, I kinda enjoyed spending the time trying to figure it out...

Toronto After Dark 2008 - "Idiots And Angels"

When I initially viewed the trailer for Bill Plympton's wordless animated feature "Idiots And Angels", I thought that it might be a difficult task making it all the way through its roughly 80 minute run time. The style of animation and muted palette indicated that it might wear on my senses after awhile and without any dialogue I expected a long road ahead. Within the first 5 minutes however, my expectations were totally turned around...

With all due respect to Pixar and Studio Ghibli, I would love to see a film of this variety at least get nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film if not win it outright (simply because it would bring more attention to a wider audience). There is a constant high level of inventiveness throughout the film that not only helps create some odd but interesting characters and situations, but plays with different angles, perspectives and transitions between scenes. There's no need for dialogue in the film - not only because you are continually sucked into these wonderful bits of animation (water drops from a shower that morph into a toothbrush which then morphs into a cereal spoon; the dancing barmaid who loves the Spanish music TV station; etc.), but simply because the story and characters are so well laid out.




The story isn't really overly complicated though...Every morning a very angry man wakes up, throws his alarm clock at a chirping bird and grumbles his way through his day which seems to mostly include enjoying the misfortunes of others and drinking at a local bar. Then one morning he wakes up to discover two small wings growing out of his back. He removes them, but they grow back, reach fully grown size and his life begins to change. The bar patrons laugh at his new appendages, but there is jealousy as well since these wings can be used for a variety of purposes. The biggest change though is that this angry man is prevented by the wings from committing any further evil or nasty acts.

There's a wide variety of human behaviour that the film taps into, but it seems to settle mostly on the consequences of good and evil actions. Even though selfless acts with good intentions can immediately be of worth to others, the personal benefits may not be as obvious to the one performing them. So why do people choose to behave in certain ways? The film doesn't necessarily attempt to answer that specific question, but it does show that there are several ways of earning your wings.

Plympton has been nominated twice for an Oscar for Best Animated Short, but I'd love to see him move up to the long form class this year. The animation speaks for itself.





Without a doubt one of the best looking and most professional of this year's short films is David Birnbaum's Found Objects. Set who-knows-where and who-knows-when, the kids of an apartment building are trying out for some kind of musical production and are being assigned a variety of instruments. Meanwhile, bombs are exploding non-stop outside the building. There's no explanation for any of this (as with the feature, there's no dialogue) and while I'll admit I didn't fully understand what the film was trying to do, it absolutely succeeded in creating a unique environment and atmosphere.

Toronto After Dark 2008 - "Let The Right One In"

If there's one thing I learned pretty early on as a parent it's that boys and girls are different. Not in the obvious stereotypical compartmentalized ways that our culture has defined them, but just in how they approach things. Whether it's tackling a problem, reacting to a situation or just playing with friends, there are some marked disparities between two kids of the opposite gender. That becomes even more pronounced if one of them happens to be a centuries old blood-sucking beast.

Sweden's "Let The Right One In" has won numerous awards at various festivals and has received a great deal of press - many describing it as among the best vampire films ever made. Thing is, it isn't really a vampire film...It's much more the story of a young 12 year old boy learning how to relate to the people around him (his mother who smothers him, his father who wants to be buddies, the bullies at school, etc.) and in particular his new neighbour Eli who is also 12 and a girl. Well, on the outside anyway...

Oskar receives advice from her to fight back against those bullies at school and their relationship grows from there in a gentle, slow and very sweet way. Eli controls the pace of this burgeoning friendship/love between her and Oskar while he just tries to figure her out. Her "issues" just help to further show the differences between them - he lacks the capacity to recognize subtlety or to know when to quite teasing, she shows a greater maturity, etc. These scenes were the heart of the film for me and because of this (and the stillness that many of their scenes together have), when the violence occurs it's given a much bigger impact.




But even with a few scenes of bloodletting and the vampire attacks, it isn't a gorefest...Director Tomas Alfredson uses a very washed out palette of colours on screen and even the red of the blood appears more like dark rust. Brighter reds do appear throughout the film, but mostly as pieces of furniture or even clothing worn by the characters. By not over emphasizing the specifics of the attacks, Alfredson makes the viewer fill in the gaps which allows for even more horrific images to come to mind.

The film was also very effective at pulling the viewer into Oskar's life and predicament. When he first fights back against one of the bullies there was a spontaneous round of applause from the crowd (a sell-out by the way - the first for the After Dark festival) and that's probably a good sign that the audience has developed an emotional tie to the character. Though the vampire element of the story is not the core of the film, I found it incorporated its mythic elements (eternal life, avoiding sunlight, etc.) very well into the characters and the main story.

Wider release of the film is expected in North America and I'll definitely catch this again. It's beautifully realized.





The short film that began the evening was the completely excellent "The Facts In The Case Of Mr. Hollow". In what appears as a single take, a roving camera crosses a single photograph and slowly picks up details about what has happened and gives you an idea about what likely is about to happen as well. As we zoom in and out of the foreground and background, it appears that time hasn't actually stopped in the picture since there are subtle changes to it (a match that wasn't lit at the beginning suddenly appears to have been struck, character expressions change, etc.). Directors Rodrigo Gudino and Vincent Marcone have created an absolute fabulous, not to mention unsettling, example of visual storytelling.

Basking In The Cesspool Of Filth #5 - The Revenge Of The Well-Rested!

Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying my October Horrorfest viewing? Well I am.

I do somewhat regret my choice of post titles though - not the cesspool thing, but the second part where I lamely try to ape those extended titles of horror sequels with descriptions matching my rather awful sleep patterns. It just ain't working...What the hell though, let's push on! More good stuff below:


Strait-Jacket (1964 - William Castle) - Huge thanks to Final Girl's Film Club pick last month, otherwise this one would've slipped by me. I didn't see it in time to post a review for the Club, but I think Stacie really captured everything about it in her review. I haven't had this much fun watching a movie all month (and I've had a good month!). Though likely classified as camp by many, it's not so over the top that you aren't held by the plot or characters. Joan Crawford actually reigns it in enough that you can feel sympathy for her even when she's going nuts - OK, there are a few bat-shit crazy scenes, but they are great! And when Joan strikes a match off a spinning record (combined with the sound affect of the needle jumping the grooves), I laughed out loud. Not at the film, but completely with it. And man does this thing look great in all its shadowy glory.









Watch Me When I Kill (1977 - Antonio Bido) - Likely seen as a lesser Giallo (at least it wasn't something that was actively on my radar), this turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. It has its share of weak moments and acting plus a convoluted plot, but the murder scenes were staged quite well and the quick cut-aways to those cat/fox eyes just before the kill were creepily effective. The soundtrack is mostly Goblin-lite, but it seems to work and helps add the proper amount of tension. I'm curious to see more of Bido's work...








Happy Birthday To Me (1981 - J. Lee Thompson) - One of the better known entries in the 80's class of slasher-seeks-revenge-on-old-friends films, this one stars Melissa Sue Anderson (coming off her stint on "Little House On The Prairie") and Glenn Ford. She's just coming off the years previous trauma of a car accident that injured her and took the life of her mother and he's the doctor that is supervising her progress. But as she reintegrates into her old school, her friends start disappearing. A big problem with some of these films is that the crowd of friends that gets bumped off are typically pretty annoying - that's good in that you don't care when they get killed, but that's bad in that...well, you don't care when they get killed. Same problem here. But there's a bit more effort put into making things flow and staging interesting, if not overly realistic, death scenes. My favourite being the guy lifting weights - dude, you could've just let them drop behind you!








Paranoiac (1963 - Freddie Francis) - Along with their classic Horror films, Hammer Studio's also released a number of suspense/thriller films that leaned closer to the feel of Psycho. This one still throws in a couple of good shocks though and it looks totally great...Not only is the black and white cinematography pretty stellar, but Francis really has an eye for staging a sequence, placing his actors and using the set decoration to his advantage. Oliver Reed is piles of fun here as the spoiled drunk heir who is concerned about losing part of his inheritance when his long lost younger brother (thought to be dead) shows up. The Hammer films set I have also has Francis' followup Nightmare and I can't wait to watch that one now...








I was going to wait to post this until I finished Mario Bava's Bay Of Blood, but with the Toronto After Dark Film Festival beginning tonight, the home viewing is going to drop off in favour of all the tasty cult-y goodness I can handle over the next week at the Bloor Theatre. Tonight's opening film is Let The Right One In which is an artful Swedish Vampire young love coming of age flick ("not another one of those!" I can hear you saying...). It's won a bunch of awards but also received a few so-so gradings from some bloggers I respect.

I'm looking forward to it hugely though and I'll be-heading there shortly...