TIFF is shaping up to be one hell of a festival this year, which at this point seems to be the harbinger for the rest of the year’s line-up in general. With so many great directors churning out work and so many interesting projects surfacing in the latter half of 2012, it would be kind of hard not to program a wicked film festival, no?
In any event, TIFF has announced their midnight line-up of fims, which bring in some of the crazier, gorier, and outright weirder films that will join the already fantastic daytime line-up. The list features a wide variety of horror films, action spectaculars, as well as dark comedies, and save for the one film I’ve seen (John Dies At The End), I’d be excited to see each and every one of them. I am disappointed to hear the midnight schedule will close weakly with Don Coscarelli’s aforementioned mess, but there are admittedly some who enjoy John Dies At The End. I’m not sure why, but to each their own.
As for the rest- it will be fun to hear about Drafthouse’s insane anthology film The ABC’s Of Death, get a bead on what Eli Roth’s been up to down in Chile with Aftershock, and find out if Rob Zombie has changed things up as much as seems to be the case for Lords Of Salem. It won’t be all horror though, as Martin McDonagh’s exciting second film Seven Psychopaths will add a little bit of Gangster-based dark comedy into the mix.
Here’s the list (check the bottom for something interesting):
ABCs Of Death
It was a cinematic challenge like no other: twenty-six directors from around the world — all connected to fantastic or horror cinema — each shot a short film about death based on a word starting with a selected letter from the alphabet, showcasing death in all its vicious wonder and brutal beauty. Directors include the warped minds behind Hobo With a Shotgun, You’re Next, Tokyo Gore Police and A Serbian Film, to name just a few.
Aftershock
In the middle of a night of wild partying, a hapless American tourist (Hostel director Eli Roth) and his friends are suddenly plunged into a living hell when a powerful earthquake rips through the coastal town of Valparaiso, Chile.
The Bay
Acclaimed writer-director Barry Levinson gorily switches gears for this mock-doc eco-apocalypse thriller about a seaside town that becomes a breeding ground for a terrifying nest of parasites. (concept image below)
In a grim, dystopian future, ultimate lawman Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) takes on a vicious drug empress (Lena Headey), in this dark, visceral new screen version of the legendary British comic-book icon.
Hellbenders
The Hellbound Saints of Brooklyn Parish are a team of foul-mouthed, lewd and lecherous Catholic priests who you’ll need on your side if you want to survive an exorcism, in this outrageous horror comedy by JT Petty (The Burrowers, S&Man).
John Dies At The End
Ancient evils, trans-dimensional bugs, meat monsters and Clancy Brown are just a few of the freakish denizens of this phantasmagorical mindbender from the director of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep.
Lords Of Salem
Rock star-turned-horror maven Rob Zombie conjures up a nerve-wracking chiller about a Salem hard-rock radio DJ (Sherri Moon Zombie) whose playing of a sinister heavy metal song awakens a coven of witches from the 17th century.
No One Lives
The director of Versus and The Midnight Meat Train returns with this exuberantly gory thriller about a clan of backwoods road bandits whose latest victims are far less helpless than they seem.
Seven Psychopaths
An alcoholic screenwriter (Colin Farrell) struggling to write a serial-killer script gets more real-life inspiration than he can handle when a dognapping scheme gone awry brings a galaxy of crazies to his doorstep. A top-notch cult-movie cast — including Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton-anchors this wacky, blood-spattered commentary on the psycho-killer thriller from the writer-director of In Bruges.
…also, there’s not picture for it yet, but it seems the Spanish remake of Who Can Kill A Child? has reared its head, showing up on the line up with a modified title and Vanessa Shaw in a starring role.
Come Out And Play
A young couple expecting their first child must escape from an island overrun by legions of killer children, in this atmospheric thriller that turns a sandy, sun-bleached Mexican paradise blood red.