The Madness is Spreading!

When I first started attending and working with TIFF back in 2002, Midnight Madness was pretty much known as the darkened corner of the Festival, the miscreant programme that featured the types of films that the other programmes wouldn’t touch.

Since then, the monster factory has brought us directors like Johnnie To, who graced the Midnight Madness screen in 2000 and 2001 with The Mission and Full Time Killer respectively. This year, To’s Office is a part of the prestigious Special Presentations programme, and this action-musical hybrid set among cubicles in an office definitely brings a little Midnight flavour with it.

With Midnight curator Colin Geddes taking the reins of the Vanguard programme, many Midnight directors jump back and forth between the two with ease - exposing their often gory and extreme visions to an audience that may not be so inclined to stay up to the wee hours. Filmmakers like Alex De La Iglesia (My Great Night, 2015) and Takeshi Miike (Over Your Dead Body, 2014), both Midnight Madness mainstays, have had films in Vanguard in the last couple of years - along with Fabrice Du Welz, Mark Hartley and others.

One of the biggest ‘graduations’ from the Midnight programme this year has to be Sarah Silverman, whose 2005 comedy Jesus Is Magic wowed the Ryerson audience for her big TIFF debut.  Since then, Silverman has become an unlikely supporting and leading actor in more serious fare--namely, 2011’s Take This Waltz and this year’s I Smile Back.

And of course, Ben Wheatley, whose organic move through TIFF started with Midnight Madness in 2011 with Kill List, continued through Vanguard in 2012 with Sightseers, brings High Rise to the Platform programme this year. Platform is a juried programme that aims to spotlight and award films from lesser-known directors (though he's already well-known to us Midnighters)--similar to the prizes awarded in Cannes or Berlin. High Rise will compete with 11 other films for the Platform award, and recognition and a big bag of cash that comes with it.

These examples are hardly the first filmmakers that have broken out from the Midnight programme - remember that Midnight Madness boasts early work from Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, 1993), Peter Jackson (Braindead, 1992), and so many others. But there is a palpable tectonic shift in the sorts of films that are being programmed elsewhere in the Festival, with sci-fi, horror, and the downright surreal taking high-profile spots in the more mainstream programmes. It also means that the filmmakers you're watching this year at Midnight Madness might one day be a Platform nominee, or maybe even a People's Choice winner. I, for, one, hope that the not-yet-announced A Talking Isopod?! will someday take TIFF's top prize.

A TALKING ISOPOD?!?!?!?!

Day One with Kari's Scaries

Yesterday was my first full day at TIFF and my first Midnight Madness screening (thanks to the Kari's Scaries bursary program), and all I can say is this: If you love genre cinema, this is something you must experience at least once in your life.

We headed out of Possum Holler, Tennessee at insane o'clock on Thursday morning, rolling into Toronto fourteen hours later. In case you're curious, much of Canada looks like this:

Incidentally, this is a visual aesthetic that is shared my most of Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan, so the drive was grueling but somewhat less than stimulating. Happily, most of Toronto looks like this:

...and our hotel looks like this:

...and even this:

...so things certainly got way more interesting and lots fancier.

We kicked off our day with a screening of Ben Wheatley's Sightseers, which was terrific and absolutely supports my theory that romantic comedies set in the bucolic British countryside are much better when lots of people get their heads cracked open. After that was a press screening of Midnight Madness selection John Dies at the End, (directeed by the great Don Coscarelli), which was completely batshit and a lot of fun. Next up was Pusher at the newly renovated Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, followed by the high point of the entire day: the Midnight Madness screening of Seven Psychopaths.The experience was spectacular; I wish I could see every movie with a theater full of 1,200 cheering genre nerds and Christopher Walken.

We're off to a screening of Dredd 3D (we missed its Midnight Madness premiere, sadly), followed by whatever we can squeeze in between it and tonight's MM screening of No One Lives.

Many thanks to the family and friends of Kari Ramjattan, in whose honor Kari's Scaries was established, and to Colin Geddes and the rest of the TIFF crew. Our reception has been amazing, and they're taking great care of us. Off to Day Two!


Screening Times:

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS :
 Sat., Sept. 8th, 3:30 PM SCOTIABANK 1

NO ONE LIVES:
Sat., Sept 8th, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Mon., Sept 10th, 9:45 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 7
Fri., Sept 14th, 4:45 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 6 

PUSHER:
Sun., Sept. 9th, CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 10 12:00PM

SIGHTSEERS:
Tue., Sept. 11th, 9:00 PM RYERSON
Thurs., Sept. 13th, 12:00 PM RYERSON
Sun., Sept. 16th, 7:00 PM BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

JOHN DIES AT THE END:
Sat., Sept. 15, 11:59pm:  RYERSON
Sun., Sept. 16, 5pm:   CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 2

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 10: Kill List!

Matt Price of MAMO asks Colin Geddes for his thoughts on this year's very different, very satisfying slate of films. Plus, the gang sees Ben Wheatley's Kill List, which you will either love or hate, as it turns out. We're sad to see you go, TIFF Midnight Madness 2011, but thesubstream.com salutes you - thanks for all the fun!

KILL LIST Screens at Midnight Madness!

Kill List plays Midnight Madness tonight!. What seems like a straight up genre piece becomes something else entirely in this movie about a hitman who accepts a job from some shadowy clients.

Kill List is directed by Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace) and stars Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Harry Simpson and Michael Smiley.

KILL LIST screening times:

Sat., Sept. 17th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sun., Sept. 18th, 3:15PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

KILL LIST Director, Ben Wheatley's No Budget Film School

There are still 3 more films at Midnight Madness before we get there, but Saturday night brings the Canadian Premiere of Ben Wheatley's Kill List to close out the Midnight Madness program. I was lucky (and impatient) enough to see an advance screening of it yesterday and I absolutely loved it! If I were to recommend one film for the remainder of the festival, it would be Kill List. The less you know, the better, but I knew a bit more than I'd wanted to going into it and still adored it.

Kill List is Wheatley's second feature film after his six thousand pounds budgeted dark and violent mob family dramedy, Down Terrace (which you should seek out immediately if you haven't seen it). The London Evening Standard recently interviewed Wheatley about making a no-budget feature. Aspiring filmmakers, take note!

Ben Wheatley's No Budget Film School

Trailer:


Kill List screens:
Saturday September 17 11:59:00 PM RYERSON
Sunday September 18 3:15:00 PM SCOTIABANK THEATER 4

The Guardian (UK) gives KILL LIST 4/5 Stars!

Lots of good press for Ben Wheatley's Kill List around the web lately, with the newest addition to the love-in being a 4-star review from The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. In the review, Bradshaw claims that "[a]s far as British horror goes right now, Kill List is pretty much top of the range". Hard to argue with that kind of praise! Personally, the Midnight Madness closing film for this year is right at the top of my most-anticipated of the lineup. Don't miss out!

Mr Bradshaw's review has also just introduced me to the unequivocally whoopass term, 'infra-retch'. Stealing it!

Kill List screening times:

Saturday September 17 11:59pm Ryerson

Sunday September 18 3:15pm Scotiabank Theatre 4