The good folks behind the inaugural Toronto After Dark Film Festival provided us with their initial list and description of the feature films that’ll bringing the noise to this fresh party. The festival will run October 20-24, 2006 and you can get all the info you need right here.
Now let’s look at what’s in store:
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon Scott Glosserman, USA
Toronto Premiere
“A masterpiece…the best horror movie to come by in years” – Film Threat
Set in an alternate reality where Jason Voerhees, Freddy Krueger, Mike Myers and all the great slasher icons of yore are real, actual people, Scott Glosserman’s darkly comic debut feature Behind the Mask introduces a new icon to the mix: Leslie Vernon. A troubled soul with a horrific past, Vernon is in training to join the ranks of the great slasher villains. Featuring references to numerous iconic horror and slasher movies, and even Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) in a key supporting role, Behind The Mask is a crowd-pleasing treat for film fans.
Shinobi Ten Shimoyama, Japan
Toronto Premiere
“Flat out gorgeous from beginning to end” – Twitchfilm
If there was a one-line synopsis for Shinobi, it might read Romeo and Juliet, with super-powered ninjas. Gifted with a fantastic cast, including Azumi’s Jo Odagiri and Versus’ Tak Sakaguchi, and a director in Ten Shimoyama, with an incredible eye for visuals, Shinobi is a stunning masterpiece that straddles both arthouse and popcorn action. The film may be beautifully shot, but once the swords come out it’s pure entertainment. Featuring a poisonous beauty, wires shooting from sleeves, shape shifting, time manipulation and a major character who is simply “not good at dying”, Shinobi is an always inventive, always entertaining ride.
Mad Cowgirl Greg Hatanaka, USA
Toronto Premiere
“There will not be another movie this year like Mad Cowgirl” – Village Voice
Sarah Lassez stars as Therese, a meat inspector with a failed marriage, a sexually charged relationship with her brother, a fixation on an aging televangelist (Walter Koenig from Star Trek), a brain tumour, quite possibly mad cow disease, and the growing conviction that she must kill the Ten Tigers From Kwangtung and become the Girl With The Thunderbolt Kick. Transgressive, hilarious, horrifying and loaded with loving shots of raw, bloody beef, you have never seen a film quite like Mad Cowgirl quite simply because there has never been a film like Mad Cowgirl.
Re-Cycle The Pang Brothers, Hong Kong
Toronto Premiere
“Incredibly creative…hypnotizing and daring” – Arrow In The Head
Angelica Lee (The Eye) stars as Tsui, a struggling young writer in this visually stunning dark new fantasy from Hong Kong’s acclaimed Pang Brothers (The Eye, Bangkok Dangerous). When Tsui discards the opening chapter to her latest work, she begins to be plagued with visions and events seemingly lifted from the pages of her rejected manuscript. It is not long before Tsui is drawn entirely into a strange other world, a nightmarish alternate reality that serves as a repository for everything discarded and forgotten in ours.
Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell Jonny Gillette and Kevin Wheatley, USA
Canadian Premiere
“One of those films that cult film fans love to discover” – Independentfilm.com
In the year 2097, twenty years after America’s destruction in a nuclear apocalypse, a group of survivors, led by JFK descendent Tex Kennedy (Kevin Wheatley) emerge from their bunkers and set off to found a new nation. And so a darkly comical and bloody epic voyage begins, with Tex and his two sidekick androids, encountering all sorts of dangers, including a number of would-be killers working for a rival party, and the Devil himself.
SL8N8 (Slaughter Night) Frank van Geloven and Edwin Visser, Holland
North American Premiere
“A string of terrific thrills and kills” – Toronto After Dark Film Festival
While Behind the Mask gleefully deconstructs the classic slasher film, this stylish debut from Dutch directors Frank van Geloven and Edwin Visser, dives headlong into the pool, with a string of terrific thrills and kills. Following the death of her father, teenaged Kristel, accompanied by a car load of her friends, sets off on a trip to gather her dad’s things at the abandoned mine where he was conducting research for his latest book: the biography of an occult obsessed serial killer condemned to death more than a century before. While touring the site, an experiment with a ouija board awakens the spirit of the killer, who believes collecting eight severed heads will free him from hell.
Night of the Living Dorks Mathias Dinter, Germany
Toronto Premiere
“A zombie comedy that knocks ’em dead” – Variety
“It’s not easy being a misfit at Fredrich Nietzsche High School. You’d think life would only be harsher if one were dead and somehow still in school. As three “nerds” discover, in many ways, it’s a hell of a better time! Complete with a German pop-punk soundtrack, this film is a ton of fun, and not remotely the Shaun of the Dead cash-in you might suspect upon initially hearing its title. It’s also weirdly naive, which adds considerably to the film’s goofball charm. An audience favourite wherever its been shown, Night of the Living Dorks is a whacked-out, feel-good flick that totally works.” – Mitch Davis, Fantasia Film Festival.
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