Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2019: EXTRA ORDINARY, BLOOD MACHINES & JAMES VS HIS FUTURE SELF

To kick off the 14th annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival, I got the joy of viewing three incredible feature films with lots of heart, laughs, and adventure. If you have never heard of Toronto After Dark, it is an annual film festival that spans out over a week of horror, sci-fi and cult classics. Drawing Torontonians from near and far, TADFF is an excellent way to spend the chilly October nights leading up to Halloween.

Follow me as I recap the festival from ghoulish comedy to pure horror to gut-wrenching gore; this is Toronto After Dark!

Extra Ordinary: Supernaturally Spooktacular

Opening night featured a gala presentation directed by Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman entitled Extra Ordinary, a film from Ireland that leaves you in stitches, as well as pondering the very concept of virgin sacrifices. 

Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins), a driving instructor with a haunting past meets Martin Martin (yes that’s actually his name, gave everyone in the theatre a round of chuckles) played by Barry Ward, a wood smith who lives with his teenage daughter Sarah (Emma Coleman). Oh, and also his deceased wife. Turns out, Rose used to be involved with the paranormal, a partner to her late father, who passed in a freak accident involving a dog and a possessed puddle. Ya know, an average work accident. 

They are drawn together by Sarah’s demanding ultimatum to get rid of Bonnie’s spirit as she has an unhealthy hold over Martin. Rose and Martin’s meet-cute is absolutely adorable as they are both a tad awkward as if school children were crushing on one another. 

Martin asks for Rose’s help, but Rose refuses as she is still not ready to jump back into using her “talents” (a term used for those who can interact with the deceased). Stakes rise when Sarah is picked to be a virgin sacrifice for a satanic ritual by washed-out musician, Christian Winter, who has now devoted his life to worshipping the devil. With a nagging trophy wife and a flare for the dramatics, Winter’s character is a fumbling villain that you come to love to hate. 

With Sarah’s life on the line, Rose comes around just in time, overcoming her guilt over her father’s death in a wonderfully hilarious and sweet race against the clock to get as much ghost ectoplasm as possible to save Sarah. 

Throughout this frantic search, Rose and Martin grow closer as both partners and something more. With fun supporting characters such as Sailor, Rose’s pregnant sister and her boyfriend, the film does not disappoint in terms of relatable humour and ghostly gags. 

An aspect of Extra Ordinary that I adored was the incorporation of Rose’s father, Vincent Dooley’s comedic voice overs in a retro- style element of his guide to ghosts. The entire film itself follows a trend of fun witty banter and dabbles in finding the normal in paranormal. 

Blood Machines: A Cosmic Extravaganza 

The first of the double bill on Sci-Fi Night was a brilliant vision of an 80’s French comic book. Blood Machines, directed by Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard under the pseudonym, Seth Ickerman and scored by Carpenter Brut uses a plethora of imagery and colours to make you feel as if space has enveloped in front of you. 

Ickerman pairs a space odyssey mission with an empowering group of women on another planet. That, matched with the illuminating idea that machines have souls and can become a physical being, birthed from scrapped metal and oil, this film harnesses the cycle of life. 

We begin with a duo, Lago (Christian Erikson) and Vascan (Andres Heinrichsen). Space hunters with a common goal of destroying and claiming any planet they set their lasers on. Lago, an elderly man with a heart condition, is the handyman of the ship’s technology. Vascan is a pompous and c*cky individual who compensates for himself with a killer space gun. 

They invade a planet after shooting down a vessel. When Vascan steps foot onto the planet, he is met with a group of women with red-dyed hair and menacing auras. The women defend their land and the suffering machine damaged by the space hunters. 

Here is where we encounter the life behind the machine. The women hurry to save the ship’s life, and when that fails, they perform a ritual that initiations a woman to be born from the rubble. Corey (Elisa Lasowski), a strange priestess who performs this ceremony is captured by Vascan. 

A chase ensues, the hunters chasing this entity through space and time until a final battle of human vs machine. This concept is incredibly dynamic in my opinion, and the visuals only added to the overall viewing. Don’t even get me started on the score, excellently executed with 80’s inspired synth tracks and heart palpable beats. 

With an original twist, Ickerman pairs a music video, a snippet of the battle in space prior to the feature’s debut entitled Turbo Killer which was originally released in 2016. A high-speed car chase through streaking fluorescent lights and a flash dance of epic alien proportions. It teases the film, giving a taste of the complexity. 

Overall, Blood Machines produces a fast-paced animated comic book style display of a fascinating concept. Hypnotic aliens and space travel overlaying a myriad of colours and cosmic sounds? Count me in. 

James vs His Future Self: A Transitional Time Travel Tale

James vs His Future Self is an endearing self-actualization film with an overwhelming amount of penis-related humour, which left the crowd doubled over in their seats with laughter. Directed by Jeremy LaLonde and co-written by himself and Jonas Chernick, this film handles the trials of time travel with unrelenting grace.

James portrayed by Chernick, is a workaholic scientist who is obsessed with the theory of time travel, desperate to make his discovery. He’s got a caring sister and best friend (Courtney, portrayed by Cleopatra Coleman), who he takes advantage of in his obsessive efforts to crack the code of time travel, and that’s where Jimmy (Daniel Stern) comes in. 

James from the future, travels back in time to show James from the present, how much he’s screwing his life up. A classic time travel theme is blown apart by the notion that James thinks he can juggle everything, where he must learn to let the past go. May that be spreading his parents’ ashes or confessing his love to his best friend. 

As Jimmy teaches James how to let go and be in the moment, their chemistry is like dad and son. Which is odd, because they’re technically the same person. However, it’s still creative. The story has a strong plot-line and wonderful cast who portray their characters well for a heartfelt film based on discovering to spend your time in the present.

Find more information about Toronto After Dark Film Festival here. It’s taking place in Toronto, Canada between 17-25 October 2019.