Midnight Madness Reviews... eventually.

I had intended to write reviews of the TIFF films I've seen at Midnight Madness the day following each screening, but I've been too preoccupied with other things (work, school and zombie games). I think, therefore, I shall just do a quick summary after the festival is over, highlighting what to see and what to avoid. So far it looks like most of what's been shown has been picked up for distribution. Or I might not. No one reads this stuff anyways.

The Raid

Who'd have thought that an Indonesian film directed by a Welshman would turn out to be one of the greatest pieces of action cinema I've ever seen? Honestly this film has some of the most fluid and kinetic violence ever put on celluloid, at least in my experience. The gunplay is brutal, but the martial arts are better. I think Roddy Piper might have competition for longest brawl.

From what I understand it's one of the only films ever made to feature Indonesian Silat martial arts. I won't even attempt to describe the fighting style, but suffice to say it looks frightening in motion. All I can really say is that if you like action films, do whatever you can to see The Raid.

Midnight Madness Begins!

Thought I'd test out the new iOS Blogger app with a post from the first screening of TIFF Midnight Madness at Ryerson Theatre. First up? The Raid. Like almost every other MM film, I have no idea what this one is about except that some guy in line said it had crazy martial arts. Bring it on.

Review - Atrocious

While I very well could just let the title speak for itself as to the quality of this film, I thought I might take a few sentences to explain why Fernando Barreda Luna's Atrocious is, well, just that.

Ok, perhaps that's being a little harsh, this wasn't the worst horror film I've seen in the last while, but it certainly doesn't have much going for it either. For starters, I must make clear that I have nothing inherently against the "found footage" genre, made famous by The Blair Witch Project. It seems to get a lot of hate from some people, despite the fact that Paranormal Activity and REC were fairly entertaining. Yes, the camera is going to be shaky. Yes, the camera is going to be on at times when no normal person would be recording. Yes, at some point someone will inevitably use the night vision mode to see in the dark. And of course YES, someone is probably going to point the camera at themselves and sob in a very unattractive closeup. But like slasher films have their tropes, so does this genre. Complaining about any of these aspects is like complaining that the killer used a big kitchen knife or that he's wearing a spooky mask.

So why does Atrocious fail? It starts out well enough, introducing a brother and sister that are film fans and like to make short films about urban legends. Not a bad premise, and it explains why they have nice looking cameras that they carry around with them all the time (Note: I think the version I saw was cropped to 4:3, as the promo materials I've seen show 16:9 images). It then tells us that they're visiting a house that has been empty for ten years (and that they used to visit when they were kids - a fact that has NO relevance to the plot apparently), which supposedly has an urban legend attached to the surrounding area. A spooky legend about a girl who helps lost children find their way out of a spooky hedge maze (that just happens to be on the house property). Could be worse, right? Sure it could. The first part of the film actually does a good job building tension. They interview someone about different versions of the legend, they have some creepy night footage of the dog barking at the chained up gate to the maze and they're forbidden from entering the maze by their father. Then, having set things up effectively enough, it's as if the director suddenly realized he had to fill the remaining 30 minutes of the very short 70 minute runtime with, you know, content.

Wow, this is the exact same gesture I was making for the
last third of this film....

And according to Luna, content is 25 uneventful minutes of running through a hedge maze in night vision, screaming and then crying. What potentially could have been a tight, frightening 10 minute sequence quickly (or should I saw slowly) drags out into a boring, and then frustrating, experience. Building anticipation is one thing, but then failing so incredibly to offer ANY sort of payoff is another. I jest not when I say I resorted to fast-forwarding through a good portion of this section, hoping that something scary might make me want to rewind. Nope. Sure, a few things happen in the maze, but they ultimately seem silly rather than terrifying. The action eventually returns to the house where there is one semi-inspired jolt scare followed by more VERY long, boring and decidedly un-frightening shots.  Things then conclude with an out-of-the-blue "superincrediblecrazywowshockingIcan'tbelieveit" twist ending. I know a twist ending is almost to be expected nowadays, but come on, shouldn't it have SOMETHING to do with the rest of the film? The best twists have either a deep connection to the body of the film, or if not, at least are so incredible that they demand respect (Miike, I'm looking at you and Dead or Alive). The ending to Atrocious can be likened to the ending of The Sixth Sense if some random character introduced in the last 10 seconds of that film was actually the ghost instead of Bruce Willis.

Anyways, don't waste your time should this ever get released in North America. It seems to be getting mostly positive reviews on the festival circuit, and I can't understand why. Standards must have become universally lowered while I wasn't paying attention.

Nightmare on Elm Street 3D "Poster"

Nightmare on Elm Street 3D poster by McFarlane Toys

I've been looking for one of these "posters" for YEARS now, but always hesitated to buy one because shipping from the States was nuts. Low and behold I walk into Silver Snail (which is quickly becoming one of my favourite geeky spots in Toronto) and there were a couple of them right at the front for just $12! It's not so big (12 3/4" x 8 1/2"), but it's more of a 3D model than a flat poster, but it's well made and pretty damned awesome if you ask me (with one of my favourite horror tag lines of all time). Now all I have to do is track down the Alien one, which has a light up egg... let the search begin!

Woman in Black - New Teaser Trailer

I posted something about this ages ago, but now there's a better quality teaser out. I have to say I'm a bit puzzled as to why the girl's voiceover has an American accent and not a British one, but I'll just hope that's a trailer-only thing. I'm certain it's still set in England... Interested to see how it compares to the BBC production.

Knights of Badassdom

A busy, busy schedule has kept me away for a while, but I'm back! Thought I'd quickly plug this film, even though I haven't seen it. Geek culture is on the rise and it's nice to see a film that aims to respect it and take the piss out of it at the same. In my opinion, films in the vein of Scary Movie and Meet the Spartans have done nothing but damage the genres they try and spoof. For every clever joke (and those are few and very far between), there are dozens of juvenile sex and body humour jokes that seem below even the lowest common denominator of filmgoer. Studios seem less and less likely to take a chance on something different now that they've successfully conditioned teenaged audiences to flock to "hilarious" crap and generic, recycled garbage.

True, I'm basing my entire opinion of the film on this lone trailer, but it seems like The Knights of Badassdom has some heart to it as well, on top of humour, horror and geek references. Plus the cast is pretty great. Steve Zahn has really impressed me on Treme recently, and Summer Glau is... well... Summer Glau. Plus it has Danny Pudi (Community), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Jimmi Simpson (Always Sunny) and the always fantastic Peter Dinklage to round it out.

I'm not a role-playing kinda guy, but I think this film has a lot of potential to be wildly entertaining. I've attached the trailer below. Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt!