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by Michael Neel & Greg Ansin

Sept.22 2009

Last week, we attended the Toronto International Film Festival. Wow, what an event. We saw over a dozen movies in the three days we were there.

Toronto International Film Festival

One of the programming highlights was the Midnight Madness film series, which show films from the terrifying to just downright strange.

In case you didn't know where we were.

We met a lot of great people - film fans, and a few filmmakers as well. Going to film festivals can be a good way to network. You never know who you will meet, and how they might be able to help you down the road. Sometimes the best connections come from the most unlikely people.

Here are some of the films that made the biggest impressions on us:

The Loved Ones: Winner of the Midnight Madness award. A fantastically disgusting, disturbing, and hilarious film from down under. Think Misery crossed with Pretty in Pink. Truly painful to watch. Dread Central on The Loved Ones (link)

The Disappearance of Alice Creed: A brilliant spine-tingling film from J. Blakeson (who is also a very nice guy). An airtight and economical script, and amazing performances. A must see for thriller nuts. And pretty bloody too. The Disappearance of Alice Creed on imdb (link)

The Hole: From film legend Joe Dante, the man who brought us Gremlins and The Howling, The Hole is a wild 3D ride with a pretty good amount of neat scares and creepy things. The master has still got it. The Hole on imdb (link)

Bunny and The Bull: A whimsical, funny, heartbreaking, and clever film about a road trip...that takes place inside a man's mind. You've never seen a road trip film like this before. Featuring eye-popping visuals in the style of The Science of Sleep, this film is a real treat. Bunny and the Bull on imdb (link)

[REC] 2: Definitely lived up to [REC], while taking the story in some new directions (which is no small feat). Filmmakers Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza gave a great Q and A after the screening. We can only hope that they make [REC] 3 in the near future.

Deep Sleep: This film wasn't in the festival, but was still one of the best we saw. We saw a screening by chance at a cafe, and we were very impressed. An excellent short film with good acting, script, and filmmaking technique. Deep Sleep's official website (link)

Trash Humpers: From the "What the hell in the world is this film?" department. Directed by Harmony Korine, director of Gummo and screenwriter of Kids. This film is not for everyone but trust us: you will never forget it. That might be bad thing - only time will tell.

This was the first Toronto International Film Festival for us, and it was a great experience. The city was beautiful. The people were nice. And the films were great.

Hopefully we will be there next year....

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