Toronto After Dark Film Festival
There's nothing scarier than detention and videotape.
The Toronto After Dark Film Festival has its second and final night of programming this Wednesday at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, which is resuming its duties as the festival’s home following a brief detour to the Underground.
Following last week’s twofer of Juan of the Dead and The Pact, this week kicks off with music-video wiz (and Torque director, unfortunately) Joseph Kahn’s Detention, official selection at South by Southwest and Fantasia. Starring a pre–Hunger Games, post–The Kids Are All Right Josh Hutcherson, the film’s an ironic slasher of the Wes Craven variety about a group of detention-bound high schoolers (plus their principal, Dane Cook!) fending off a deranged killer.
Next up is the much-hyped V/H/S, receiving its Canadian premiere. Mumblecore’s been on a genre kick lately, between Brit Marling’s high-concept sci-fi outings, Joe Swanberg’s meta-werewolf movie Silver Bullets, and Ti West’s lo-fi ghost story The Inkeepers. West and Swanberg each contribute a short to this anthology film, along with frequent collaborator Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, and directorial collective Radio Silence. The story finds a pack of would-be burglars sampling a grotesque videotape they’ve been sent to nab from an abandoned house—original enough, as found-horror conceits go.
Fans can also stick around for the festival’s Pub After Dark, a post-film rendezvous at nearby Pauper’s Pub. No word on whether the prolific West and Swanberg (who hosted his own mini-fest and master class last month at Innis College) will turn up, but if they do, odds are they’re shooting their next film, and you’re in it.