THE INTERIOR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - "Office Space" Meets "Deliverance" Meets "Repulsion" Meets "Willow Creek" Meets "Fight Club" Meets "Repo Man" Meets "Billy Liar" Meets "O Lucky Man!" in this creepy, hilarious, terrifying, original & potential cult classic, a very promising Canuck First-Feature by Trevor Juras - TADFF 2015

Hope springs eternal in the young man's breast.
New Beginnings. New Job. New Boss. New Horizons.

The Interior (2015)
Dir. Trevor Juras
Prd. Peter Kuplowsky
Starring: Patrick McFadden, Delphine Roussel, Hyun-Jin Kim, Andrew Hayes,
Lucas Mailing, Ryan Austin, Shaina Silver-Baird, Jake Beczala

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I hope not to oversell the subtle, albeit glorious charms of The Interior, but when I see a movie as bold and original as this one, it's hard not to. Let me say, right off the bat, though, that writer-director Trevor Juras has broken a big rule in storytelling that not only works beautifully, but warms the cockles of my heart because this particular approach is so rooted to my personal peccadilloes as both a critic and film producer. For anyone who cares, my production of Guy Maddin's Careful had a deliciously insane narrative rule-breaker (among a shitload, really) that's not unlike the one employed by Juras in this brilliant black comedy/horror thriller.

Though I was pleased this film reminded me of several films, this is not to say Juras employs by-rote geek-homages, but that his film made me think positively about it in the historical context of such disparate items as Office Space/Silicon Valley (knee-slappingly funny white-collar shenanigans), Deliverance (creepy-ass shit in the deep woods), Repulsion/The Tenant (loneliness and insanity converging to create horror), Willow Creek (sheer terror in a tent), Fight Club (eating food with one's digits directly from the fridge), Repo Man (a mordantly hilarious and realistic blend of workplace strangeness with, uh, just plain cult-movie strangeness), Billy Liar (the famous Brit New Wave rendering of a young man with "fantasies") and O Lucky Man! (the bizarre adventures of a coffee salesman played by Malcolm McDowell).

For a first feature to get an old curmudgeon like me to put its director's name, Trevor Juras, in a pantheon that includes Guy Maddin, Mike Judge, John Boorman, Roman Polanski, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Fincher, Alex Cox, John Schlesinger and Lindsay Anderson, is indeed a heart-felt pleasure.

How's that for an oversell?

Well, screw it. This movie gave me so much pleasure, I can't help myself.

Things get off to a rip-snortingly deadpan start. Yes, "rip-snortingly deadpan" might seem like an oxymoron, but that's just the kind of picture The Interior is. It's a leave it or lump it affair, but if you leave it, you lose (and potentially display your crappy taste, lack of cinema literacy and sense of humour).

Under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, we first meet a handsome, cleanly, but conservatively attired James (Patrick McFadden in an astonishingly great performance, an amalgam of Emilio Estevez in Repo Man and Buster Keaton in anything). He betrays little emotion as he rigidly drills his eyes downward into nothingness whilst the angry thumping of a rap song pulsates on the soundtrack. Given the composition and lighting, as well as what little of the set we see, his emotion-bereft reverie could well be in the copier room of some white collar offices as he daydreams in place of his gaze upon the progress of the copy machine.

The reverie is broken. The door opens. An exotically attractive woman with high cheekbones that never end, inviting eyes, a gorgeously buffed aquiline profile and adorned in medical-white attire, enters and grabs a chart near the door. We realize there's no copy machine and that James is actually in a doctor's office.

This opening shot and subsequent shots during the rest of the scene is a terrific indicator of what's to follow - rigid, well-composed tableaux which appear to be something other than they actually are. This is a consistent attribute of Juras's direction within the film as a whole. It's not just an effective visual flourish, but is rooted in the movie's structure, narrative and thematic core - that nothing is ever as it seems, but, uh, maybe it is, like, after all, but, like, who the fuck really knows in this cold world of contemporary ennui. I loved this point of view which permeates The Interior with the force and consistency of a master, yet possibly only achievable in an artist's earliest work (only to grow and morph with maturity and subsequent pictures).

During this thorough exam, James reveals a number of troubling symptoms which have the doctor quite concerned. She orders an MRI, passes him some documentation, then watches as he strangely keeps missing the insertion-target of his shirt pocket. She delicately expresses more concern. James has a roach twixt his fingers and has clearly been puffing on a joint whilst waiting for the doctor to come into the room.

This is our perfect entry point into the seemingly empty life of James. He works as a low level executive in an advertising agency run by a complete asshole (Andrew Hayes), spending much time gazing into a bathroom mirror, having a myriad of daydreams and eventually pulling a weirdly brilliant and hilarious stunt which gets him fired. He eventually applies for a new job, expressing his need to the proprietor (Ryan "Please Let This Man Be In More Movies" Austin) that he wishes to work with his hands. His interview is a success, he's hired by MAXI-VAC, an air duct cleaning firm, gets a shocking medical prognosis, breaks up with his girlfriend (Shaina Silver-Baird) without even looking her in the eye and then, finally decides that TRUE change is in order.

Two things were clear to me on a first helping of The Interior and remain with me after subsequent helpings. First of all, during this opening section, I howled with laughter so hysterically that I induced a few unwanted dribblings twixt my loins. Secondly, this first chunk of the movie features the funniest job interview scene that I've ever seen. EVER. NO KIDDING. Much of this is thanks to Juras's terrific writing, but also the insanely hysterical performance by Ryan Austin.

As the film, by this point, felt like James would indeed plunge into the "big change", I realized that after almost 30 minutes of screen time, something was missing. Seconds after this thought scuttled across my cerebellum, the film's title finally appeared on-screen.

Excellent.

No more noggin-scratching on my part and the title also announces that our hapless city-dweller is now in The Interior.

The story structure might feel wonky to some, but in reality, it's rooted in the very nature of what James has had to face all along. Going from a black comedy about urban emptiness to what becomes a chilling exploration of a man facing his own demons and maybe some real ones in nature, is so simple and powerful.

It helps that Juras is blessed with the cinematography of Othello J. Ubalde (who deserves some kind of award for the name most resembling a giallo lenser). Ubalde exposes gorgeously, mostly with natural light and light sources, his compositions are exquisite and his moves like the golden ooze of honey. Juras, for his part, wisely and bravely trusts in the power of the tableau, allowing one to take in every detail - no matter how beautiful, scary or mundane.

And yes, with a knapsack on his back, James has left cold, soul-bereft Toronto behind and is now in the middle of deep bush in British Columbia's dense, lush and unpopulated hinterlands. He breaks into a cottage, already shuttered for the season, helps himself to a nice bottle of wine and leaves this vestige of civilization behind.

Once ensconced in nature's loving embrace with his tent erected and his cooler hung high above on a tree so critters won't get at it, he seems, content. Now, here is where audiences must display a smidgen of patience. If they do, it will be rewarded a thousand-fold.

Mr. Juras shifts gears into borderline neorealism as we experience every simple, mundane act anyone might perform alone in deep bush. This includes eating, tent-erection, napping, reading, exploring, napping, eating, reading, sleeping soundly into the deep night and finally - YES! FINALLY! - taking a most leisurely dump in the woods. Heaven on Earth!

And then, whilst enjoying his bowel movement in the fresh air of the outdoors:

James sees someone.

Here, The Interior moves into an even slower crawl - never boring, but even more time for every twig snap to take on substantial, shuddering power. Not only does Juras spend time to establish the rhythm of time in nature, the often glorious feeling of being cozily blanketed in a tent in the deep night, but he slowly lures us into the creepy crawly terror of a man in a red jacket (Jake Beczala), seen only fleetingly, often at night, but eventually daring to lurk outside of the tent Jason is bundled in. Soon, the man even pushes against the nylon, ever-so gently, just enough to let James know he's there.

Juras uses a skillfully crafted sound design which captures the sounds of "silence" beautifully. His editing is a thing of beauty. His visual design is such that when a cut comes, it's not only absolutely necessary at just the right beat, but also allows for occasional cuts to simply take your breath away.

Curiously, the film often feels like a silent movie - that wonderful period of film history when both narrative and emotion had to be conveyed by picture and music (always live - sometimes with an orchestra and often with a lone piano or organ). There's one "scare" sequence where the blacks are deep and we catch fleeting brightly lit irises of James's horrified face as he moves through the dark in sickeningly horrifying slow motion as a simple Chopin piano solo carries us away with its haunting accompaniment.

This is the cinema of gooseflesh.

There are, of course, quite a few terrifying set pieces which are as scary as anything I've seen recently - not in cheap, obvious ways, but the kind of "scary" that gets deep in your bones. Most extraordinarily, Juras captures the joy and terror of nature, but does so by using his seemingly slender narrative, measured pace and attention to detail to explore that horrifying feeling that maybe, just maybe, all your senses play tricks on you, but then, as quickly as you settle into the notion that it's all a figment of loneliness, the realities rear their ugly heads and within no time, imagination and nightmare become one with reality.

And you know, this is what really fucking curdles your blood.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

The Interior enjoyed its Toronto Premiere at TADFF 2015.

BACKTRACK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Predictable supernatural thriller - TADFF 2015

Adrien Brody registers some autopilot anguish for us.

Backtrack (2015)
Dir. Michael Petroni
Starring: Adrien Brody, Sam Neill, Bruce Spence,
Robin McLeavy, Malcolm Kennard, Jenni Baird

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Man, when Adrien Brody is playing a character in anguish, nobody can reproduce this single note with more autopilot consistency than he can. In this wannabe "thoughtful" Aussie thriller, Brody plays a psychiatrist grieving over the death of his child - all the more so since he believes her demise was his fault. In spite of this, he's decided to ease back into his practice in order to give psychiatric care to others even though he's hardly healed from his own wounds.

Luckily, Brody has an old pal and mentor in the form of stalwart Sam Neill to see him through the rough patches and the two of them have plenty of opportunities to talk things out. Brody maintains his grimace of anguish in these scenes whilst Neill is plastered with a virtually Botoxed visage of concern.

Anguish is Botoxed into Adrian Brody's face
as he commingles with a ghost.

In no time at all, one of Brody's clients, a mysterious little girl, proves to be a ghost.

Or is she a figment of his overheated anguish and despair?

Well, it matters not since he's being haunted either way.

Not surprisingly, Brody needs to eventually engage himself in the Backtrack of the film's title in order to retrace a few steps from his deep, distant past in his old small-town. He reconnects with his alcoholic Dad, a retired policeman with his own deep, dark secrets and a plucky young policewoman who begins to smell a rat.

And a smelly, hoary old rat it turns out to be.

Sam Neill registers concern.
Brody registers ('natch) anguish.

Eventually, all this plays out as predictably as one would expect in a film which purports to be above the tropes of its genre, but is, in fact, replete with and dependent upon them.

There's a veneer of competence here which means the film can't be totally flushed down the toilet, but the picture is ultimately as dull as it is derivative and infused with the kind of mock-intelligence which bamboozles some (including, presumably, its makers) into assuming the movie is far more lofty than it is.

Still, one cannot deny how great Adrien Brody is at conveying anguish.

In Backtrack, his entire persona proves to be an immoveable feast.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half-Stars

Backtrack enjoys is Canadian premiere at TADFF 2015.

SHUT IN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Misogynistic home invasion thriller - TADFF 2015

Shut In (2015)
Dir. Adam Schindler
Scr. T.J. Cimfel, David White
Starring: Beth Riesgraf, Rory Culkin, Martin Starr,
Jack Kesy, Joshua Mikel, Timothy T. McKinney, Leticia Jimenez

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's very little reason to justify the existence of this appalling, morally repugnant thriller which details how an agoraphobic young woman defends herself against a brutal home invasion. Though one cannot fault the cast, all of whom valiantly offer solid performances, this is a film that's directed with a cold, efficient competence from a screenplay which skillfully creates one sordid twist after another, but in so doing, does not take away from the fact that nothing can absolve the entire enterprise of its mean-spiritedness.

In essence, a lot of skill has been poured into a work which purports to be both entertaining and provocative, but is finally, little more than a grotesque wad of misogynistic filth with blurry lines of morality throughout.

The filmmakers want to have their cake and eat it too. The first third of the movie is comprised of various acts of physical and psychological terror perpetrated against the young woman who has not left her home for some ten years. The final hour involves a reversal of fortunes wherein she taunts her aggressors and kills them one by one.

Sadly, the film resorts to utilizing rape and incest as a backdrop to the woman's fury, doing so by creating a backstory which justifies her behaviour in a sickening, knuckle-draggingly exploitative manner.

The filmmakers no doubt think they're very clever by hiding the fact that the woman was a longtime victim of her late father's repeated sexual abuse and that she's outfitted the old house with a series of secret rooms, passageways, booby traps and audio visual equipment, all once used to execute rapists, pedophiles and other criminally deviant scumbags.

However, the filmmakers don't hide it well enough. Almost from the beginning we know, from the broad-stroked hints, that her Pappy was fiddling with her as a child. As the film progresses, the house's accoutrements of incarceration and pain are revealed to suggest what she was up to and how she's a powerful enough adversary against the clutch of inbred home invaders.

That the film uses her perpetration of violence as the thing which cures and cleanses her isn't problematic per se, but rather the fact that it chooses to create a character whose sexual assaults at the hands of her Daddy are the thing which instigate her actions, all accompanied by some mild tut-tutting on the part of the filmmakers and ultimately, acceptance.

God knows I love a great thriller and horror film which can explore all manner of deviance, even if it resorts to tropes, but this is something else altogether. Shut In is the most horrendous example of a movie that exploits incest and rape to parcel out its "clever' story twists and dubious morality.

It's a movie that would better serve as incineration fodder.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Shut In has its Canadian premiere at TADFF 2015.

A CHRISTMAS HORROR STORY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canucks Unleash Grim, Ghoulish, Darkly Hilarious Yuletide Omnibus Horror Picture - 2015 Toronto After Dark Film Festival

Is William Shatner the GREATEST Canadian Actor?
Is he the GREATEST ACTOR, like, ever? Period!!!
Well, he sure fits his alcoholic radio D.J. role like a glove.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
Dir. Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Scr. James Kee, Sarah Larsen, Doug Taylor, Pascal Trottier
Starring: William Shatner, George Buza, Zoé De Grand Maison, Michelle Nolden,
Amy Forsyth, Oluniké Adeliyi, Adrian Holmes, Jeff Clarke, Julian Richings,
Alex Ozerov, Shannon Kook, Corinne Conley, Debra McCabe, Jessica Clement

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A Christmas Horror Story is so much damn fun, I feel like the Grinch for needing to employ the simple, but necessary act of wanting to like it so much better than I did. So fuck it, let me be Cindy Lou Who for awhile.

This Canadian Yuletide horror treat has many things going for it. The picture bestows the twelve following gifts over the twelve, so to speak, days of Christmas:

a. Babes
b. Elves who turn into the living dead
c. Santa Claus battling dwarf zombies and Krampus
d. Krampus
e. Babes
f. Changelings
g. William Shatner as an alcoholic graveyard shift D.J.
h. Blood, viscera and more blood
i. Hostage-taking in a mall
j. MILFS
k. Have I mentioned babes yet?
l. Happy shoppers and clerks mass-murdered in mall

These elements are clearly undeniable and go a long way in masking the film's flaws whilst accentuating several positive attributes that will delight and tantalize.

Though clearly a horror omnibus picture with four grisly tales plus a wraparound story, the filmmakers have made one near-fatal error. Instead of relying upon the tried and true, established so many decades ago in Dead of Night from the legendary Ealing Studios, they've attempted to mush everything together as if it were a multi-charactered drama set in the same locale (the fictional locale "Bailey Downs" of Ginger Snaps and Orphan Black fame) and on the same day.

Alas, it doesn't quite work and has a tendency to queerly bog down the pace and add an occasionally confusing herky-jerky feeling to the whole thing.

The four stories involve some fairly tried and true elements.

KRAMPUS, SANTA & BABES
'Tis the season to be DEADLY!!!

First and foremost, we get to meet Santa in his magical workshop as he preps for a night on his sleigh dispensing gifts. Alas, a virus begins to affect the elves and soon, the North Pole is turning into George Romero's Pittsburgh.

Another story involves a cop on mental health leave after discovering a gruesome murder in the local high school the previous Christmas. He wants his wife and child to enjoy a quiet old fashioned Christmas and takes them out to cut down their own tree. Unfortunately, he chooses to trespass on someone else's land which results in an unholy possession consuming the couple's child.

Somewhat related to the aforementioned, we follow a group of teens into the very same high school as they attempt to get to the bottom of the murders, which were never solved. Once in the bowels of the old building, they discover some truly gruesome secrets which go beyond their wildest expectations and result in an orgy of blood, sex and Cronenberg-like viscous explosion.

Finally, a greedy family attempts to bamboozle an old, rich aunt into forking over wads of cash. Their actions release the horrifying demon, Krampus (a kind of antichrist figure to Santa Claus). This is not a good thing - for anyone in Bailey Downs.

The wraparound involves William Shatner pulling graveyard duties on his annual all-night Christmas broadcast on the radio, getting progressively sauced as he tries to report on a hostage-taking during a charity drive at the local mall.

This all sounds like fun, right? Well, it is, but only to a point. By throwing the omnibus structure to the wind results in a movie that constantly feels like its struggling against itself and as such, has a tendency to exhaust you rather than thrill you. This is a shame since there's a lot of fine genre writing in the piece, wonderful special effects and not a single performance is any less than delightful within the context of the picture's qualities of insanity.

The biggest disappointment is the big surprise at the end, which comes as no surprise at all, but is one of those annoying revelations you see coming early into the picture, but pray and hope that it won't come to pass. It does and your heart sinks. First of all, because it removes a gorgeous delightful sense of magic the film is imbued with and secondly, because it's a lost opportunity to go the distance into the truly perfect territory of genuine, horrific tastelessness. The movie had the potential to be an omnibus yuletide answer to such outrageously hilarious recent pictures as Bunny The Killer Thing and Canada's own High School Shooting - The Musical. Alas, it falls short.

Stylistically, the picture feels all over the place. With three directors handling the chores for the whole film, their voices (mostly) get lost in the proceedings; firstly because the picture tries to betray its omnibus roots, but secondly and most especially since the overall picture lacks the sustained vision of the Ealing Studio on Dead of Night, the directorial aplomb of Freddie Francis and Roy Ward Baker respectively for the Amicus productions of Tales from the Crypt and Asylum, then last, but not least, the very strong unifying vision of Axelle Carolyn in the flawed, but effective Tales of Halloween.

All this said, the story involving the kids in the school stands out as having the strongest sense of personal voice - the creepy, sexy and nasty qualities are inherent in the writing, but the story itself goes the added distance in terms of its stellar mise-en-scene and directorial proficiency above and beyond the call of duty.

A Christmas Horror Story is not without merit and is begging to be a franchise, but it's frustrating to watch a picture that has so much potential that's been unnecessarily buried; not allowed to blossom and breathe to the fullest extent.

For a much fuller description of omnibus horror cinema, feel free to read the first few paragraphs of the Tales of Halloween review HERE.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **½ Two-and-a-Half-Stars

A Christmas Horror Story, from e-One plays TADFF 2015

THE HALLOW - Review By Greg Klymkiw - In Ireland, there are animals in the woods. Terrifying, visceral first feature at Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2015): ***½

The Hallow (2015)
Dir. Corin Hardy
Scr. Hardy and Felipe Marino
Starring: Joseph Mawle, Bojana Novakovic, Michael McElhatton, Michael Smiley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

So you move into an old stone cottage in the middle of Inbredville, Ireland because your hubby (Joseph Mawle) has been hired by rich scumbag developers to survey a deep, gorgeous old forest for nefariously commercial purposes.

It should be plenty quaint. Hubby gets to tromp about the woods with his trusty dog and your cute baby stuffed into one of those handy Mountain Co-Op hiking carriers. You, the loyal wifey (Bojana Novakovic) will have plenty of time to putter about the sweetly idiosyncratic old house and gardens. One of the first orders of business is to remove all the unsightly steel bars which are mounted on every single window. This bit of home improvement is all well and good, but did you not think - if only for a second - why these bars have been affixed there in the first place?

Honey, there's always a good reason for steel bars on the windows.

To keep someone or something in? Or, maybe, just maybe, the bars are meant to keep something out - something lurking in the deep woods. In fact, a gun-toting local inbred (Michael McElhatton) repeatedly demands that hubby stop trespassing in the ancient heritage forest and furthermore suggests that you all should just plain LEAVE. GO. BUGGER OFF! NOW! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

This then is The Hallow, a film of mounting, creepy chills until it blasts into the stratosphere of utter, relentless terror. Frankly, there's absolutely no need to describe what is in those woods, but suffice to say it's shit-your-drawers ghastly and as an added bonus, rooted in not the most pleasant Irish folklore - no Darby O'Gill and the Little People here, folks. No fucking Gnome Mobile in sight. Just icky, sticky, oozing... uh, let's just say, things.

Though much of the screenplay is by the book structurally, it's rife with realistic dialogue (uttered with conviction by a first-rate cast) and plenty of local colour to keep one tantalized. The special effects are mostly of the non-digital variety and as such are a whopping jarful of maraschino cherries floating in viscous fluids and deposited in healthy dollops upon this most foul ice cream sundae of a movie.

Director Hardy demonstrates considerable skill and aplomb with this, his first feature film as a director. Though the picture's elements are familiar enough, his mise-en-scene is always several country miles ahead of most genre directors with its solid compositions, plenty of variation in performance and skillful coverage to allow for elegant cutting. The man has skill, but he also has a lot of style and he displays the strong early beginnings of a distinctive filmmaking voice.

The Hallow is that lovely pot at the end of the Irish rainbow, a pot overflowing with blood and plenty of gelatinous chunks of viscera.

One cannot argue with this.

The Film Corner Rating: ***½ 3-and-a Stars

The Hallow plays at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2015)

TALES OF HALLOWEEN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Mixed wheelbarrow full o'pumpkins, half of them are plump. ripe and juicy, the other half remaingreen and not fully grown - Toronto After Dark Film Festival - TADFF2015: ***

Amply endowed milk maid assailed by psycho.

Tales of Halloween (2015)
Dir. David Parker, Darren Lynn Bousman, Adam Gierasch, Axelle Carolyn,
Lucky McKee, Paul Solet, John Skipp, Andrew Kasch,
Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Neil Marshall
Starring: Barry Bostwick, Pat Healy, Booboo Stewart, Clare Kramer, Alex Essoe, Lin Shaye, John Landis, Caroline Williams, John Savage, Greg Grunberg, Barbara Crampton, Adrienne Barbeau, Grace Phipps, Kristina Klebe, John Savage, Keir Gilchrist, Sam Witwer, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Graham Skipper

Review By Greg Klymkiw

An omnibus film (a feature-length anthology) is only as good as its wraparound story (the tale that holds it all together). Tales of Halloween doesn't have one.

The classic example of this structural necessity to the omnibus is the immortal 1945 shocker Dead of Night by the UK's legendary Ealing Studios. It introduces us to an architect who joins an assemblage of guests for some tea and crumpies in an old house in need of a structural makeover. He notes that all the guests mysteriously made appearances in his nightmare the previous evening. At their urging, he recounts the guests' respective roles from his trip to the Land of Nod.

One of the stories is the famous Cavalcanti-directed segment involving Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist having a nervous breakdown. Each of the recounted stories (save for one odd-duck in the Ealing comedy tradition) are absolutely chilling, but all the more so because of the wraparound story which, is cleverly integrated into the omnibus structure and as such turns out be the best of the lot (save for the bunyip puppet master and his creepy wooden dummy tale which, is utter perfection).

Joan Collins & Psycho Santa in
1972's "Tales from the Crypt"
Herbert Lom & deadly mechanical
alter-ego in 1972's "Asylum"
Michael Redgrave and dummy
in 1945's "Dead of Night"

In the 70s, the Amicus company began adapting E.C. comics as omnibus features. All these had wraparound stories. Tales From The Crypt (1972) by Freddie Francis was endowed with a simple, but effective wrap-tale involving the great Ralph Richardson as a mysterious crypt keeper. Roy Ward Baker's Asylum (also 1972) had a wrap, but it turns out to be so perfect that I'd argue it rivals Dead of Night in this respect.

In it, Robert Powell (Ken Russel's Mahler), plays a young psychiatrist applying for a position at an asylum. As part of the job interview process, he meets a number of inmates (including the stellar likes of Charlotte Rampling, Herbert Lom, etc.) and listens to their grotesque stories in order to provide his analyses. As the clever conceit of this wraparound continues, both it and the other tales get creepier and creepier. By the end, we've enjoyed an omnibus picture which really kicks some serious ass.

That Tales of Halloween does not bother with a traditional wraparound story for the ten Halloween-themed short chillers is, perhaps, the film's biggest mistake. Leading us through the proceedings is an All Hallows Eve radio D.J. (delightfully played by Adrienne Barbeau, in a reprise of her role in John Carpenter's The Fog). It's wonderful to have her in the picture, but narratively, she just doesn't seem all that integral to the whole and it certainly doesn't feel like there's anything here resembling a solid narrative attached to her character.

Being bereft of a proper wraparound story might be the most egregious offence, but Tales of Halloween has plenty of other problems wafting through it - notably, a number of the stories that are simply not up to snuff.

A Babe is stalked in "Tales of Halloween".

Basically, we get what the title, Tales of Halloween, tells us we'll get - E.C. Comics-like tales of madness, retribution, murder, myth and magic. Each tale has a different team of filmmakers, though in the feature's favour, the picture has an overall stylistic unity which keeps it from being a total patchwork quilt. This is due mainly to the work of creative producer Axelle Carolyn, horror-journalist-turned-horror-filmmaker, who was the driving force behind the overall concept and final product.

At the end of the witching hour, though, some tales are better than others. This is to be expected. Even the virtually perfect grandaddy of horror omnibus features, Dead of Night, has one dud. Tales of Halloween, has quite a few.

Let's concern ourselves with what works.

Some people need to wash up before they eat.

"Sweet Tooth", written and directed by Dave Parker is a solid opener dealing with a little boy teased by his baby sitter and her boyfriend about a demon that kills kids who don't share their candy. The monster not only eats what little candy might remain, but disembowels his greedy victim to eat the candy not yet putrified by the digestion process. Needles to say, this urban myth is for real, and it comes a calling. Lots of genuine tension, shocks, a great monster, a couple of babes (one of them a yummy mommy), copious amounts of blood and viscera, plus a delightful E.C. Comics-style button-snapper at the end.

"The Night Billy Raised Hell", directed with aplomb by Darren Lynn Bousman and superbly written by Clint Sears, is a dazzlingly joyous bit of mordant wit and mega-blood-letting. On All Hallows Eve, a little boy is shamed into pelting the house of a creepy, old recluse with an egg. The recipient of his aim is, uh, Satan (Barry Bostwick, "Brad" in Rocky Horror Picture Show) and our plucky little hero, under the expert tutelage of the Dark Lord himself, spends a glorious night committing mass murder and other heinous activities. This short film had me soaring like no other in this entire anthology. Too bad Bousman and Sears opted for a disappointingly safe (and predictable) twist at the end. Happily, it didn't detract from the overall sheer orgasmic pleasure I received whilst watching it and, just thinking about the high points of this segment, I get giddy.

"Grimm Grinning Ghost", written and directed by the feature's primary creative force Axelle Carolyn scared the crap out of me. Uh, kinda literally. We observe a young babe on her Halloween evening walk home as someone, or something is on her tail. The creep and suspense factors mount ever-so insidiously, eventually offering solace until… well, just wait and watch, making sure you're wearing adult diapers. Conjuring feelings similar to the walk-through-the-park sequence in Val Lewton's production of Jacques Tourneur's The Cat People is no mean feat. Ms. Carolyn pulls it off admirably.

Lucky McKee's "Ding Dong" sees the remarkably versatile mega-babe actress Pollyanna McIntosh as the "better half" of a childless couple who cruelly abuses her milquetoast husband and, one fateful Halloween, she experiences a completely psychotic nervous breakdown as neighbourhood children are visiting in record numbers to get their fair share of candy. We're either in a living hell or the real thing as McKee's grim tale dives into unexpected viscera.

The Descent's Neil Marshall serves up "Bad Seed" wherein a tough babe cop (Kristina Klebe) faces a most formidable adversary - a pumpkin which goes on a killing spree. This is one great short film - original, scary, funny and edge-of-the-seat suspenseful. Marshall tosses in one astounding visual frisson after another until the picture builds to one of the most gorgeous and horrifying images I've had the pleasure to experience in quite some time. It's dazzling!!!

Poor thing has escaped from Hell's petting zoo.

And there you have it - five terrific horror shorts amongst a total of ten. The cellar-dwelling remainders are simply just that. They're the dross we must sludge through to get to the gold, but it's an especially tough sludge to get to the good stuff. (One segment involving a large-breasted Dorothy-Gale-like milk-maid fighting a Jason-Voorhees-like killer has some amusement value, but wears out its welcome pretty quickly.)

Then there is the matter of the key missing element. Other than a few tiny, tenuous strands supposedly linking the anthology together (the best being Adrienne Barbeau), I'm still scratching my head over the choice not to include a solid wraparound story. Doing so would have probably inspired better work amongst all the short films, especially the ones infecting the whole film with the debilitating added burden of being well below the bar set by the films that work.

This has got "franchise" written all over it, but hopefully Tales 2 will endeavour to include itself amongst the very best. This, of course, means it will require a wraparound story as solid as all the others.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Tales of Halloween is an Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada picture which had its Toronto launch at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2015.

TAG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Sono Delivers Japanese schoolgirls in uniform, ultra-violent bloodletting, staggering imagery and Buddhism. Yes! Buddhism! TADFF 2015

Top: 3 of many instances wherein Matsuko is sprayed with blood.
Bottom: 3 of many causes for said blood being sprayed upon Matsuko.

Tag (2015)
Dir. Sion Sono
Starring: Reina Triendl, Yuki Sakai,
Mariko Shinoda, Erina Mano, Maryjun Takahashi, Sayaka Isoyama

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sion Sono's Tag opens with a sequence which, is not dissimilar to a two-by-four being slammed repeatedly into the audience's face. This is merely the beginning.

A schoolbus full of happy, smiling Japanese schoolgirls carries them to a resort for an extended field trip. They're chatty, giddy with excitement and even go so far as to engage in a glorious pillow fight. Ah, but there is always one who is left out of the frivolity. Matsuko (Reina Triendl) sits alone writing in a notebook.

She is, what our Japanese brothers and sisters refer to as a "Hafu" (half occidental, half oriental) and she is not only the butt of cruel, racist jokes from her classmates, but one of them tries to steal her notebook to read it. Matsuko wrestles it back, but her pen falls on the floor. She can't reach it, so she drops down to the ground to retrieve it.

Fate intercedes perfectly here, as she stays down to examine a beautiful white feather which, is lodged perfectly in the pen's lapel clip (the whole bus is full of white, fluffy down from the earlier frolics). Feathers, of course, will prove to be an important recurring image. Most of the time they're white, but sometimes they're blood-red.

What happens next is so jaw-dropping, sickeningly blood-drenched and terrifying that Matsuko's actions not only keep her alive, but her athletic prowess allows her to escape in a harrowing chase down a lonely country road littered with corpses and even more acts of carnage, in which our heroine escapes by ducking down to how she was posed in the bus.

Matsuko begins to run - harder and faster, it seems, than she's ever run in her life. Oh, and does she ever blast. Matsuko madly runs and runs and runs in a horrifying sequence which rivals that of Marilyn Burns being chased by Leatherface in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and even utilizing a similar nightmare logic to the material).

The movie never lets up. Even when things slow down to offer brief solace as well as very odd explanations as to what's happening, the idylls never last long before Sono throws a shocker at us and the characters - one shocker after another, increasing in intensity, imagination and originality. As scary as the movie gets, it's replete with a tremendous sense of dark humour - nothing tongue in cheek, but all rooted in the world of the picture.

I'm not familiar with the Japanese graphic novel "Tag". Nor, it seems, was Sion Sono when he chose to make Tag. He had a vague idea of what the manga was about and he liked the title. Seeing as he's one of the most original filmmakers in the world (Why Don't You Play in Hell?, Tokyo Tribe), the result of this approach has yielded one of the most insanely entertaining pictures of the year.

Matsuko is not a contestant on "Reach for the Top"

With its emphasis on alternate universes, Tag is not unlike a Sono-style version of Christopher ("One Idea") Nolan's Inception, or to a lesser extent the Wachowski's The Matrix, but with the added bonus of pretty Japanese schoolgirls in uniform, glorious bloodletting and none of the pretension of the aforementioned American titles. Tag is also vaguely Bunuelian, not just because of the satirical jabs at society and class, but Sono even goes so far as to introduce us to a strong main character, but he eventually gives her three faces, all played by three different actresses (That Obscure Object of Desire, anyone?).

To even begin summarizing the plot would be tantamount to an act of heretical selfishness. All one really needs to know is what's been divulged already: young schoolgirl escapes horrific death and breathlessly races forward for 85 minutes of screen time to avoid being caught and similarly decimated as everyone around her. I will reveal that there is a "game" aspect to the proceedings, if only to suggest what a terrific film Tag is, especially in comparison to something like the boneheaded disgrace of the The Hunger Games pictures.

For a film that is so infused with bloodletting, horror and nerve-jangling suspense, it is surprisingly dappled with sensitivity, deep friendship, love, soaring moments of joyous sentiment and even, I kid you not, the principles of Buddhism.

Matsuko's loyal friend Aki (Yuki Sakai) is always around to lend support and love. (The other girls tease the two, incessantly calling them dykes.) In fact, it is Aki who provides the simple, soothing words, "Life is surreal. Don't let it consume you." Most importantly, it is also Aki who tells Matsuko that no matter what happens, "Our destiny is decided. We're trapped within it," but adds the sage advice, "You can trick fate. Do something spontaneously that you'd never do." Eventually, this becomes Matsuko's greatest weapon against the horrors flung at her.

Sono's images are nothing less than spectacular - whether displaying horror, good humour, love and peace - he delivers compositions that are both breathtaking and rooted firmly in the film's tone and narrative.

Left: Director Sono finds an ideal angle to show us the schoolgirls' panties.
Right: Matsuko luxuriates in one of many alternative dimensions.

Oh, and in addition to everything but the kitchen sink, Sono gives us, the kitchen sink (with cherries on top). The kitchen sink turns out to be bone-crunchingly spectacular martial arts and the cherries on top are that all of the gorgeously choreographed kicks and thwacks are girl-on-girl.

Yes, ladies and gents, cat fights.

Tag is proof positive that contemporary Asian cinema in all forms continues to make pretty much most everything else, especially from the American studio system, pale in comparison. Chances are good that we'll eventually get an American remake and one can predict even money odds on the inevitability of it being dreadful.

The picture is a dazzler, as are all of Sion Sono's films, but this might well be my favourite of them all. Frankly, you do yourself a disservice to not see it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Tag plays at Toronto After Dark (TADFF 2015).

THE DEMOLISHER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - If you can imagine acommingling of the aesthetic DNA twixt the ennui of Atom Egoyan & 80sschlockmeister James (The Exterminator) Glickenhaus, then you're inluck. The Toronto Premiere is at TADFF and it's looming large -COUNTDOWN TO TADFF 2015

My countdown to the 2015 Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2015) will feature a variety of pieces on great genre work in the tradition of this terrific film festival which occurs in Toronto, Canada, Oct. 15-23, 2015. Let this countdown serve as a buffet of delectably exotic appetizers before the Big Meal Deal of my festival coverage.

COUNTDOWN TO TADFF 2015 #4 is in honour of THE DEMOLISHER a very disturbing twist on vigilante film which first enjoyed its world premiere at the 2015 edition of the FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal and will be unleashed upon Toronto at TADFF 2015. Here's Greg Klymkiw's review (with a few new hidden morsels of copy since its original date of publication.)

The Demolisher (2015)
Dir. Gabriel Carrer
Starring: Ry Barrett, Tianna Nori, Jessica Vano

Review By Greg Klymkiw

After policewoman Samantha (Tianna Nori) suffers a near-fatal attack (after attempting to rescue a baby in the midst of a devil worship ceremony, no less), she's crippled for life and forced to haul about in a wheelchair. Her angry hubby Bruce (Ry Barrett), a cable repair technician goes completely bunyip. (Where have we heard about el-sicko cable guys before?)

Night after night, our understandably dour and obsessed gent dons mega-protective armour, nicely accoutred with an ultra-cool helmet and shading his mean-ass visage with a creepily stylish visor. Armed with a nice selection of weaponry, he stalks the late-night streets looking for scumbags - any scumbags - that he can take down and send straight to Hell.

Seems reasonable enough, yes?

Eventually, however, it becomes obvious that Bruce is no longer bunyip for mere revenge, he's just plain bunyip and desires to kill, period. After getting a taste of murder pure and simple (an enjoyable murder as it's perfectly justified), he targets Marie (Jessica Vano), an innocent young jogger who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Thus begins a terrifying night for her as she's stalked by a madman bent upon snuffing her lights out - uh, pretty much for no reason, or, shall we suggest, the most meagre and vaguely dubious reason roiling about in his diseased mind, but mostly because he's really flipped his gourd.

Okay, so The Demolisher is clearly one of the strangest, most perverse vigilante movies I've seen in quite some time, possibly ever to be honest. Audiences looking for carnage will get more than their fair share, but I suspect that the only killing they'll enjoy in any sort of traditional Death Wish or Walking Tall manner is the one horrific murder of someone who is not a criminal (though like I said earlier, the fuckwad clearly deserves it).

Audiences will also be surprised and most probably delighted with all the clear thought that's gone into the screenplay in terms of examining a mind steadily rotting under pressure. There are clearly and deliberately paced moments within the oddball domestic set-up which proceeds with very little dialogue and mostly some extremely effective looks and silences. This is probably a good thing since some of the dialogue proves a bit clunky in these moments, the lion's share of clunkiness wafting out of poor Samantha's mouth and occasionally affecting Tianna Nori's otherwise good work.

There's also one ludicrous scene where crippled Samantha manages to crawl into the bathtub with her brooding hubby. In theory, I'm all there. In practise, not so much. If you're going to have a babe join her hubby in the tubby, why the fuck would she be wearing her goddamn nightie? I can understand not getting a nice glimpse of dick, though I'd have been most appreciative of the view myself, but seriously, to not have the hot cripple doff her garments for a loll-about in the tub is tantamount to B-Movie heresy. (And frankly, seeing anyone in a bathtub with clothes on is just plain dumb.)

My fetishes aside, Ry Barrett is effectively stalwart and brooding throughout and what can be said about Jessica Vano other than her fine performance? Well, uh, she's, like, a babe, and we get to see her running around in fear for half the movie. Vano's hot dashing-about-madly-for-her-life rivals that of Penelope Ann Miller tear-assing through the dank caverns of an old museum in The Relic.

That takes some doing.

Seriously, hot chicks running around in terror is a blessing, not a curse. Ain't nothing sexier than that. But enough of my fetishes.

I loved the look of this movie. It's just plain ugly for much of its running time, but intentionally so. Cinematographer Martin Buzora's exquisitely evocative retro lighting and compositions expertly capture both the seediness of the superbly selected/utilized locations as well as the cold, impersonal, almost dank qualities of the interiors. The score by Glen Nicholls is especially dynamite, evoking an eerie blend of 80s funk-drone with just plain effective thriller cues.

And there is a definite 80s feel to the picture (for some, this is better, for others, it'll be worse), but I found the entire tone of the movie fascinating. Once again we have a Canadian genre film with its own distinct indigenous style. Yes, it's clearly inspired by an American tradition of such pictures, but its narrative, look and pace are Canadian in all the best ways - proving again that having a diametrically opposed north of the 49th parallel aesthetic allows for a wholly unique take on genre cinema.

Director Gabriel Carrer might have pulled off the near impossible here by creating a film that shares aesthetic DNA twixt the sad ennui of Atom Egoyan's best work and famed 80s schlockmeister James (The Exterminator) Glickenhaus. It's a film that revels in its exploitative roots whilst examining them also, but without being moralistic.

Only in Canada, you say? That's a good thing!

That said, if a movie is going to have some devil worship involving a baby as a sacrifice, could it not at least have the good taste to show the little nipper being hacked open? But, enough of my fetishes.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half Stars

The Demolisher enjoys its Toronto Premiere at the 2015 Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2015). For dates, times and tix, visit the festival website HERE. The Demolisher is represented for world wide sales by the visionary Canadian genre specialists Raven Banner.

WE ARE STILL HERE - DVD/BLU-RAY Review By Greg Klymkiw - Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada unleashes this Creepily Effective Old-Fashioned Haunted House Thriller on homevideo - COUNTDOWN TO TADFF 2015

My countdown to the 2015 Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2015) will feature a variety of pieces on great genre work in the tradition of this terrific film festival which occurs in Toronto, Canada, Oct. 15-23, 2015. Let this countdown serve as a buffet of delectably exotic appetizers before the Big Meal Deal of my festival coverage.

COUNTDOWN TO TADFF 15 #3 is in honour of Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada's recent BluRay/DVD release of Ted Geoghegan's We Are Still Here

We Are Still Here (2015)
Dir. Ted Geoghegan
Starring: Barbara Crampton,
Andrew Sensenig, Larry Fessenden, Lisa Marie, Monte Markham

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's always room for a solid "things that go bump in the night" haunted house picture, so long as the proceedings are handled with proficiency and a minimum degree of stupidity. Ted Geoghan's first feature film We Are Still Here succeeds on both counts.

Yes, we've been down this road before. The Sacchettis are an attractive, well-to-do couple still grieving from the accidental death of their only son. They've chosen flight from familiar surroundings to heal and move into a gorgeous, old house in the wide open spaces of Inbred-ville, New England. Situated on a gorgeous estate, isolated, but not too far away from a nearby village (full of inbreds), the couple appear to have nailed the real estate find of the century.

Uh-oh.

We all know that when an old, long-unoccupied house in the middle of nowhere goes for a steal, there's bound to be some ectoplasmic shenanigans going on. Luckily, we are not the Sacchettis. We are the audience. We know better, which is always a good deal for us, yes?

Anne (played by the always-delectable Barbara Crampton of Re-Animator fame) feels her son's spirit is still with them and that he's followed them to their new digs. Paul (Andrew Sensenig), being the lowly male of the equation is far more practical about such matters, but he sensitively humours her and agrees to a visit from their longtime spiritualist friends. May (played by the gorgeous Lisa Marie of Vampira fame in Ed Wood and unceremoniously booted by director Tim Burton in favour of the ratty-mopped Helena Bonham Carter) is psychic. Her hubby Jacob (the always wonderful character actor and Habit director Larry Fessenden, looking more like Jack Nicholson in The Shining with every picture) is a dope-smoking old hippie with new-agey powers in crystals and seances.

It's always convenient when bereaved couples know spiritualist couples. It makes horror movies so much more lively, yes?

Of course, what would a New England community of inbreds be without a couple of real whoppers of inbreds? Creepy old neighbour Dave McCabe (Monte Markham) and his nutty wife Maddie (Susan Gibney) pop by for a friendly visit wherein we get all the dope on the Sacchettis' new home.

It's an old funeral parlour, situated on unhallowed ground and formerly run by a family who pilfered bodies and sold them to a nearby medical college. Or so we're told.

Yes, it's always convenient when bereaved couples move into old funeral parlours on unhallowed ground formerly run by inbreds who sold bodies to be sliced and diced by med students. It's even more convenient that the inbreds might actually have been innocent of this crime and murdered by the inbred townspeople.

Are you with me? Good. This is what our impish filmmaker has laid out for the mega-scares to follow. Though screenwriter Geoghegan doesn't really go beyond the stock tropes of most ghostly melodramas, Geoghegan the director does go through some mighty impressive gymnastics of helmsmanship to knock us on our collective butts all the way through this effective chiller.

Babe-O-Licious Barbara Crampton as HOT now
as she was in 1985's RE-ANIMATOR. Hubba-Hubba!

The real star of the film is Canadian cinematographer Karim Hussain who superbly handles Geoghegan's morbidly creepy mise-en-scene with considerable aplomb. The camera feels like a character unto itself - its gorgeous compositions and lighting make us feel like something genuinely unholy is actively observing the proceedings whilst occasionally making us feel like we're seeing stuff that may or may not be there. Hussain moves the camera so deftly and subtly that we're often chilled to the bone - not just by the gorgeously captured winter climes surrounding the house, but by the manner in which it glides and/or settles upon the dank details of the house and especially, the basement. The chilling musical score and alternately shivery, heart-attack-inducing sound design are also brilliantly rendered, giving us ample creeps and shocks.

Especially in the basement.

Oh yes! 'Tis always convenient for a haunted house to have a clammy basement with a boiler on the fritz causing temperatures to rise and a strange wall that supposedly has nothing behind it.

Then, there are the ghastly apparitions and, the blood.

They are plenty ghastly.

And yes, there is plenty of blood. (And thanks to a lovely Straw Dogs-inspired climax, the picture racks up a very impressive body count.)

All that said, if you're looking for a bit more meat on the bones of the bereaved couple horror scenario, you're not going to find it here. There's potential to have steered the film into the complex, layered territory of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, but Geoghegan seems content to keep us in the shock-o-rama territory of his more clear influence, the grand Italian shock-meister Lucio (The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery) Fulci.

I accept this.

The movie forced me to soil myself on numerous occasions. Luckily, I've learned long ago to always wear adult diapers for my sojourns into the cinematic territory of haunted house thrillers. Thankfully, this one is up there with those pictures keen on skilfully delivering all the visceral thrills and chills which, ultimately, are the hallmark for all fine horror pictures.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-Half-Stars

We Are Still Here from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada and Raven Banner is now available on a superb Blu-Ray/DVD release which comes complete with extras including a superb commentary track from filmmaker Ted Geoghegan.