Well, TIFF might be over but those of us in Toronto aren’t ready to quit burning our reddened retinas in darkened cinemas late into the night. On top of the many, many releases in the regular multiplex, my favourite fall film tradition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival is ready to unleash five nights of mayhem in one of their biggest lineups in years. 14 feature film premieres and 33 short films will grace the screens at Toronto’s Scotiabank and Cinecycle theatres this October 14-18, and, oh, what sights they have to show you…
Starting off this year’s edition of After Dark is one of the most anticipated horrors of the year, Brian Duffield’s WHALEFALL. If you didn’t get enough of Austin Abrams in Resident Evil, he’s back here as a scuba diver that is swallowed up by a sperm whale and has to survive in its stomach. Oxygen’s running low and, presumably, the accommodations inside a whale are unlikely to score higher than 3 stars on Tripadvisor on the best day. Josh Brolin’s also in this one, unfortunately not playing the voice of the whale, so Broliacs will have something to chew on too.
You’ve heard of “two great tastes that taste great together,” but how about three? Combining Halloween horror with home invasion and post-apocalyptic hijinks, Ben Sottak’s first feature Hallowarrior offers exactly that. Starring Hereditary‘s Milly Shapiro as a young woman named (of course) Pumpkin who has to defend her home from some folks that are after more than a couple of fun-sized candy bars, this looks like a ton of fun.
Spook-a-doodles aren’t the only thing on the After Dark menu, as the festival serves up some serious sci-fi as well. Spain’s Javier Ruiz Caldera’s 5 Minutos Más (5 More Minutes) provides a fresh take on the time-loop film as a contentious, argumentative couple played by Berto Romero and Belén Cuesta get trapped in a 5-minute loop and their cascading and chaotic actions start to fold in on themselves and the world around them. This one sounds both conceptually interesting and compelling on a technical level as each loop consists of an unbroken long-take.
It’s back to horror, with a light sprinkling of humour with Marion Le Corroller’s Species (Sanguine) in which a new intern’s first day on the job in an emergency room becomes a nightmare of body horror as patients and then Margot herself start to exhibit some extremely stomach-turning symptoms.
If you can count on After Dark for anything, it’s at least one film (and usually a whole lineup) that defies labels and expectations. A truly subversive and DIY punk project, Chile’s Diego “Mapache” Fuentes brings us Matapanki. Described as a riff on the Marvel stories we all know and lo…well, know anyway, Fuentes uses those time-honoured and not at all stale superhero standards to bring attention and drop a pipe bomb on American interventionism in Chilean life and politics. Telling the story of Ricardo (played by Ramon Galvez) who uses his newfound powers to change the world, all while deploying a visual style unlike anything in the festival and definitely in the MCU, this one’s sure to surprise and delight the After Dark crowd.
Kicking off After Dark’s vampire night on Friday the 16th is the Australian and French co-production I Love Paris, which picked up the Gold Audience Award at Fantasia this year. Presented as a music documentary with a twist just under the skin, Nicky Murphy shows us that fame is fleeting and elusive, even for the undead. Aminata Thiboult ‘s performance as the fame-and-blood-thirsty Paris is sure to turn some heads in this wild ride.
Vampire night continues with Finland’s Red Snow (Punaista lunta), in which director Ilja Rautsi brings the bloodsucking to the holidays, possibly for the first time? You’ll be dying for the annoying Twilight-loving teens to invite this sinister Saint Nick through the door in this raucous rampage.
One of my most anticipated films of the festival is the catchy-titled My Love For You Is Deep But The Devil Loves Me Deeper from Casey Donahue in his feature debut. Tapping into the analog vibes of 80’s and 90’s Lynch and Cronenberg while riding the wave of Faustian chicanery brought on by Curry Barker’s Obsession, My Love For You… tells the story of a young woman (Emily Whittmore) who strikes a bargain with the devil to attract all the love in the world, only to get much much more than she expected. Playing at a midnight screening at Cinecycle, this is going to be a gorgeous fever dream in more ways than one.
Turn It Up! promises to bring rock music and horror together again with a Canadian flair as Sam Scott tells the story of a fledgling rock band unwittingly opening a portal to an unknown dimension after using a cursed melody. Featuring bombastic, head-popping effects and heart-racing humour, Turn It Up! looks to get the Scotiabank theatre and the After Dark audience rockin’ out.
Single-name director Edwin brings us some Indonesian flavour with Sleep No More (Monster Pabrik Rambut). Promising some more gnarly horror lovingly crafted with practical effects, this one’s about sisters Putri (Rachel Amanda) and Ida (Lutesha) who seek answers and possibly revenge for the death of their mother. Taking on jobs at the wig factory where she worked, the sisters discover that there is more than negligence afoot as they deconstruct the capitalist machine. I’m definitely ready for this one.
Local Toronto filmmaker Luca D’Andrea brings us another offbeat midnight screening at Cinecycle with her queer, experimental No Longer Humans, which combines beautiful hand-drawn visuals with unique sound design and a story about lost love and connection. This first feature from D’Andrea brings us the darker side of immortality in the kind of experimental film that’s perfect for the wee hours of the morning. As a lifelong fan of Gregg Araki, No Longer Humans looks like it taps into that exact same vein.
I first got put onto the dark, storybook-comes-to-life vibes of The Fox after the too-soon passing of screen legend Sam Neill and a video was floating around of him doing voice work for the sarcastic, potty-mouthed crow in the film. Dario Russo’s film boasts an absolutely stacked cast even outside of the late (still hurts to say that) Neill, including Miranda Otto, Emily Browning, Olivia Colman (who plays the titular fox), Jai Courtney, and more. In the film, a mischievous fox convinces a hunter to take extreme measures against the wife he hates. This is one of my most anticipated movies of the year and I am absolutely tickled that it’s on the slate of films for After Dark.
In another star-laden film, Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer bring to the After Dark audience one of the most interesting pairings in a horror comedy this year. In DRAG, Lizzy Caplan and Lucy Devito play a pair of bickering sisters who plan to rob the house of a wealthy artist (played by the incomparable John Stamos) but are literally tripped up when one suffers an injury and has to escape without drawing his attention. Deliciously demented and gory as all get-out, this film, for which Danny Devito broke down and signed up for Instagram, is an unmissable selection for After Dark.
Closing out this year’s incredible slate of films is Anthony Cousins’ Frogman Returns. The wondrous, wild, and deeply, deeply weird cryptid from another dimension is back, in found footage form! But don’t worry if you haven’t seen the 2023 original, because ‘Returns’ is here to catch you up on all the froggy lore as one of the sole survivors from that film seeks the truth behind the mysterious, culty, cryptid community that surround the Frogman. I’m told that you’ll want to be here for the climax of this one as it builds to one of the standout moments of After Dark 2026.
But that’s not all, because if there’s one thing that After Dark and the legacy of my late friend Adam Lopez has enshrined, it’s a love and appreciation for the offbeat short film. Each feature screening is paired with a Canadian short film and there’s two dedicated short film showcase screenings – one for Canadian films and one for International Shorts – as well. Be one of the first to see a filmmaker before they make a feature in a future festival, and say “you knew them when…”!
Here’s the lineup of the shorts at After Dark this year:
- 1-800-TIME-TRAVEL | Michael Nusair | Canada
- A MIGHTY POISON | Kyle Marchen | Canada
- ACCISMUS | Brandy Marien | Canada
- BAD TOOTH | M. Dara Alavi | Canada
- BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS | Spencer Glassman | Canada
- THE CURSE OF DANNY RIZZO | Ievy Stamatov | Canada
- THE DESCENDANT | Ashley Welling | USA
- THE DOGLEG (WIRAŹ) | Piotr Szubra | Poland
- THE DOUBLE | Aljosha Klimov, Misha Sprits, Mitya Kokorin | Germany, Canada
- FESTER | Max Parr | Canada
- FREQUENCY | Lauren Andrews | Canada
- GRIM VS GREYS | Austin Birtch | Canada
- HABITUATION | Oskar Johansson | Sweden
- ICE COLD BEER | Devon Mussett, Joey Lopez | Canada
- IT HELPS | J. Zachary Thurman | USA
- LOOP (最後一單) | Chuan Lin | Taiwan
- MAN EATING PUSSY | Emily Lawson | Canada, USA
- MEATMYLK | Lucy Luscombe | United Kingdom
- MELT MUSIC | Evan Rivard | Canada
- MOIRA | Anastasia Mischenko | France
- MY DINNER WITH VICTOR | Andrew Chiu | Hong Kong, Canada
- THE OLD GODS | Noah Van Buhren | Canada
- PAPER CUTS | Ross Ozarka, Alice Gatland | New Zealand
- PERENNIAL | Eric Kingsbury | Canada
- PICK IT TILL IT BLEEDS | Christina Dovolis, Tavis Putnam | Canada
- THE PORTRAIT | Julia Hogg | Canada
- PURGE | Andrew Hamilton | Canada
- RUN FROM IT | Kory Kongsommart, Jun Jeung | Canada
- SHITTING A PENIS | Sam Morgan | Canada
- SLEEP THROUGH SUMMER | Erin Mick | Canada
- SOMETHING BORROWED | Findlay Ironside | Canada
- STUCK (VAST) | Jan van Gorkum | Netherlands
- THE THING INSIDE HER | Jacki Gunn and Della Haddock | Canada
That’s a lot of info, but I hope I’ve sparked some excitement for one of Toronto’s most special cinematic institutions and one of my favourite launchpads and incubators for horror and genre talent. See you After Dark!
To purchase passes or for additional festival information, head on over to www.torontoafterdark.com. You can also check out the full schedule, ticket info, and film details at this link!
And stay tuned to BBP for updates and coverage!