Coming in hot from Toronto is the lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2024 Midnight Madness Programme. This lineup, as it does every year, features the hottest talent in horror, sci-fi, and offbeat cinema and sets the table for trends in all those genres, and film in general, for the upcoming year. This group of films features a little something for every sicko of every flavour out there, whether it’s ostentatious action, violent romance, side-splitting comedy, haunting supernatural vibes, or practically any combination of these. Here’s the skinny on everything Midnight Madness head honcho Peter Kuplowsky has in store!
Dead Mail Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy | USA
Canadian Premiere
Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy bring their genre-busting crime thriller from South By Southwest to TIFF. The stakes are (seemingly) high in this “synth-laden retro-thriller [that] details the sordid sequence of events that lands a blood-stained scrap of mail on the desk of a county post-office’s “dead letter” investigator, and its murderous repercussions.” This could be the biggest surprise out of the whole lineup of films at TIFF this year.
Dead Talents Society John Hsu | Taiwan
North American Premiere
If you missed John Hsu’s Detention (2019), based on the popular video game (and not to be confused with fellow Midnighter Joseph Kahn’s 2011 Detention – not confusing at all!) then shame on you. Hsu is back with a brand new horror comedy about “A meek and newly dead teen (Gingle Wang) [who] learns from an undead diva (Sandrine Pinna) how to haunt the living.” Perfect Midnight fare, and a very appropriate choice in a year where we’re set to resurrect Beetlejuice.
Else Thibault Emin | France/Belgium
World Premiere
This one promises to be tuned exactly to my tastes – sweet, romantic, meditative, and goopy and gross as all get-out. Emin’s debut feature is “a body-horror romance in the wake of a strange epidemic that causes the infected to melt into their surroundings.” Sign me right up, and here’s hoping this is the debut of a future powerhouse in the ambient horror space.
Escape from the 21st Century (Cong 21 shiji anquan cheli)
Yang Li | China
International Premiere
If action-comedy is more your speed, a new one from Yang Li (Lee’s Adventure) might be just the ticket. Getting big Everything Everywhere All At Once vibes from this “maximalist martial-arts time-travel caper” in which “three high-schoolers gain the ability to sneeze themselves 20 years into the future.”
Friendship Andrew DeYoung | USA
World Premiere
After all this horror and violence and mind-bending fare, sometimes you need a bit of comedy to break things up a bit. This one promises to bring the chair-squirmingly cringe vibes of ‘I Think You Should Leave’ to the big screen as “Tim Robinson portrays a suburban dad obsessively pursuing camaraderie with his charming neighbour (Paul Rudd).”
Ick Joseph Kahn | USA
World Premiere
Music video director Joseph Kahn returns to Midnight Madness after his rap battle epic Bodied rocked TIFF back in 2017 and picked up the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award that year. In his new sci-fi/horror satire, “a science teacher does battle with a parasitic alien entity, as well as the apathy of the small town it has been gradually absorbing.” Given Kahn’s track record, this should be a bombastic ride for the Midnight audience.
It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This Rachel Kempf, Nick Toti | USA
Canadian Premiere
Big Blair Witch Project vibes with this found footage nightmare that tore through the Found Footage Festival in San Francisco last year. We only know that this one’s about “an abandoned duplex with downright evil vibes” but that’s more than enough to me, especially given the spooky-as-hell trailer. This has a shot at being one of the scariest films of the year.
The Gesuidouz Kenichi Ugana | Japan
World Premiere
I became enamoured with the work of Kenichi Ugana and his decidedly sicko sensibilities with his ultra-gory short film Visitors (Complete Edition) last year, and I am overjoyed that he is bringing his new feature to TIFF and Midnight Madness this year. It feels like one of those film festival stories I love the most, with an unknown director submitting a short film that catches fire, then breaks onto the world stage with a feature. This punk rock horror about a “rock band [who] moves to the Japanese countryside to write the greatest punk anthem in the world” looks all the way insane and is sure to blow a couple speakers out at the old Royal Alexandra Theatre this September.
The Shadow Strays Timo Tjahjanto | Indonesia
World Premiere
If you know me, and I think by now you do, you’ll know that Timo Tjahjanto’s The Night Comes For Us is one of my favourite action movies of all time and practically justifies my entire Netflix subscription, despite their bullshit price hikes and ad-supported gimmicks, all on it’s own due to my repeated watches. In this new one, which purports to have all the violent action I (and the Midnight audience) crave, “a young assassin breaks rank from her clandestine organization to rescue a young boy from gangsters with ultra-violent repercussions.”
The Substance Coralie Fargeat | United Kingdom/USA/France
North American Premiere
Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?
You. Only better in every way.
Seriously.
You’ve got to try this new product. It’s called The Substance.
IT CHANGED MY LIFE.It generates another you.
A new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect, you.
And there’s only one rule: You share time.
One week for you. One week for the new you.
Seven days each. A perfect balance.
Easy. Right?
If you respect the balance… what could possibly go wrong?
After Longlegs and Nosferatu, there’s probably not a film – certainly a horror film – that I’ve been practically clawing at the walls to get my eyes on in 2024 than Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge blew me away when it premiered at Midnight Madness 2017, and I’ve been waiting with bated breath for her next project. Well, that day’s come, and The Substance, in which “Demi Moore portrays a fading Hollywood star feuding with the manifestation of her younger self (Margaret Qualley)” is primed to blow the skin off the Midnighters. This one’s already earned a ‘Best Screenplay’ award at Cannes this year. Kicking off Midnight Madness as it’s opening film, for me there isn’t a hotter ticket at the whole damn Festival.
The Toronto International Film Festival returns September 5 – 15, 2024 for its 49th edition. Ticket and scheduling information can be found over at TIFF.NET and you’ll find our coverage right here at Biff Bam Pop!