Oct. 20–27, Toronto Underground Cinema.
Horror fans tend to be a conflicted bunch. No other kind of movie lover feels as torn between the desire to see traditions honoured and maintained, and the hunger for fresh thrills and unexpected innovations. Adding further complexity are the feelings of nostalgia for movies that once were groundbreaking but now seem tame thanks to the massive number of shameless imitations. Thus do yesteryear’s cinematic outrages become today’s comfort viewing.
The challenge for any genre festival is to somehow strike a balance between the fresh and the familiar. Now in its sixth year and in a new home at the Toronto Underground Cinema, Toronto After Dark does its best to satisfy all comers with a weeklong program of horror, action and science-fiction fare. Programmers have made sure to provide something for zombie obsessives (Exit Humanity and War of the Dead, which situate their human characters’ battles with the undead amid the bona-fide carnage of the U.S. Civil War and World War II), vampire lovers (Midnight Son, an American indie that’s already earned acclaim from genre-movie sites) and prospective survivalists eager to find out how they’d fare in a post-apocalyptic society (The Divide, an unremittingly grim
new film from French director Xavier Gens). Genre mash-ups are increasingly popular, too—a world premiere at After Dark, Vs. puts a violent Saw-like spin on the superhero flick with intriguing but ultimately paltry results.
As always, the most surprising movies are those that don’t easily conform to any conventions or blueprints. One such example is The Woman, an unrepentantly brutal film from horror writer Jack Ketchum and director Lucky McKee (it screens Oct. 27 at 7 p.m.). The story of a seemingly upstanding small-town family’s efforts to “civilize” the feral woman that Dad has chained up in the cellar, this bizarre variation on the Pygmalion story also operates as an allegory about man’s inhumanity to women. Subtle it ain’t, but The Woman’s would-be Henry Higgins (played by Sean Bridgers) rates as horror cinema’s creepiest patriarch since Terry O’Quinn’s real gone daddy in The Stepfather.
Far milder is the lead character in Some Guy Who Kills People, an imperfect but largely endearing attempt to mix up the gory and the goofy that was exec-produced by John Landis (it screens Oct. 23 at 1:30 p.m.). As played by Kevin Corrigan—a fine and reliable American actor most familiar from his appearances on Fringe and Community—Ken is a former mental patient now working in an ice cream parlour in the town where he grew up. When the bullies who tormented him in high school start meeting gruesome deaths, it’s only natural to wonder whether Ken is enacting his homicidal fantasies. Corrigan’s measured deadpan is effectively counterpointed by Barry Bostwick’s unhinged turn as a local lawman.
But whatever their respective merits, neither title will satisfy hardcore thrill-seekers as well as Redline (screening Oct. 22 at 4:15 p.m). This Japanese anime sensation eagerly exceeds any posted speed limits with its futuristic story of an interplanetary auto race full of competitors who make David Carradine’s hero in Death Race 2000 look like a candy-ass. Who cares if Redline doesn’t make any sense when it induces this kind of adrenaline rush?
