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Summer in Suburbia
The first film I watched at this year's Fantasia fest was RKSS's (the Canadian collective of Anouk & Yoann-Karl Whissell & François Simard) Summer of '84.An imaginative teen named Davey (Graham...
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Short of the Week #29: Limbo
Alas, I am back from Fantasia now, but more on that later. For now I wanted to post a short film that played there in 2016, Will Blank's Limbo.It is of significance because Sam Elliot was actually at...
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Fantasia 2018: Part One
All told I saw fifteen films this year at Fantasia, ranging from retro martial arts to Kiwi comedy to upcoming horrors. Here were some of the highlights in case you are keeping score at home.Probably...
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Fantasia 2018: Part Two
In amongst all the films, patio beers and fine foods, I was able to fit in several extracurricular activities, as well. You'd be surprised how much free time I had now that I wasn't constantly hunkered...
View ArticleShort of the Week #30: Hide
With the new Slender Man trailer haunting up the Web, I thought I'd post this 2016 creeper from director Evan Sweet called Hide: Bloody Mary. It is short and sweet (no pun intended) but also incredibly...
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Dog Days.
This week's VHS is Clyde Anderson aka Claudio Fragasso's 1984 effort Monster Dog.A pop star (Alice Cooper) returns to his hometown to shoot a music video only to find it has been overrun by wild dogs –...
View ArticleShort of the Week #31: A Troublesome View
This week I wanted to post a short I discovered while screening festival submissions in 2015. UK filmmaker Jack Levy's A Troublesome View is a wonderfully executed six-minute piece.This spiritual cross...
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All Aboard The Horror Express!
Last Saturday I took part in something really special, the inaugural voyage of The Horror Express. The brainchild of author, programmer & cinephile Kier-La Janisse and named after the 1972 film of...
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Hangin' Tough.
I think I forgot to mention before that the Horror Express tour ended at The Royal with a screening of Class of 1984 with Lisa Langlois in attendance. Just as an aside, if you ever want to hear an...
View ArticleShort of the Week #32: Skin Deep
It's time to jump back into present, as this week's short is Ryan Couldrey's Skin Deep. Featuring some badass gore from f/x artist Sara Feehan and the mother/daughter acting duo of Diana & Ali...
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Eighties Overload.
With my fellow Laser Blastersdiscovering – much to the adulation oftheWeb– the secret ending of Mac and Me last week, I decided to dig into my VHS collection and pull out the like-minded kids(?) movie...
View ArticleShort of the Week #33: Vicious
This week, I am posting one of my faves from 2015. Brit director Oliver Park's debut short film Vicious has chills in spades and conveys everything with almost no dialogue. But don't take my word for...
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Analog Archaeology.
The other day fellow cinephile Ryan Fowler from Facebook's Horror VHS Collectors Unite board graciously posted some pictures of his VHS tags - meaning the video store labels that were plastered on the...
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Dead On Arrival.
I've been on a pretty solid run of VHS titles recently so this time I picked something that was almost surely to be of questionable quality – Juan Mas'The Coroner from 1999.After narrowly escaping from...
View ArticleShort of the Week #34: The Lamp
This week I'm posting a homegrown effort from 2013 in Trevor Juras'The Lamp.I really love how the tension builds in this piece, as even something as innocuous and seemingly non-threatening as a shared...
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Don't. Just Don't.
This week I reached for one of my clamshells, my VHS of Carlo Ausino’s Don’t Look in the Attic from 1982.Several inheritants of an old mansion in Turin arrive only to realize that it includes a curse...
View ArticleShort of the Week #35: Harvey's Dream
With Castle Rock now well into his first season, I thought I'd post of my favourite Stephen King dollar baby short films, Alex Von Hoffman's Harvey's Dream.Harvey's Dream first appeared in The New...
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TIFF 2018!
Hey everyone, it's TIFF time again. I don't know how many films I'll be posting about in the coming week, but I'd be surprised if I don't have at least a few thoughts on the new Halloween film. I'll...
View Article100 Midnights!
I'm hitting a milestone tonight folks. This evening's TIFF premiere of Emma Tammi's The Wind will be my one-hundredth Midnight Madness screening. The amount of memories I have amassed over the last...
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H40
It has taken me a week to let things percolate and now that this year's TIFF is behind me, here's what I thought of David Gordon Green's interpretation of the Halloweenmythos.Set forty years after the...
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