horror films
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The Hidden Playbook of the Modern Horror Film
Horror films are designed to maximize the experience of fear, terror and subjugation. They are unique among films in their physical impact on the audience: sending brains into a fight-flight response, resulting in muscles tensing, hair standing on end, screaming, and startled jerks and jumps. [1] How is this remarkable achievement accomplished? By following what might be called the “Horror Film Playbook,” which — once understood — becomes almost embarrassingly obvious in many popular modern horror films. More important is the sad fact that key components of the Playbook still rely heavily on misogynistic tropes, as filmmakers target the predominantly […]
by Joshua Nathan on Mar 11, 2016 -
“A Filmmaker Lives in a Suitcase”: Guillermo del “Toronto” Speaks During TIFF
At the end of a one-hour chat held on the first full day of TIFF, an audience member suggested that the Mexican director of Pan’s Labyrinth be renamed Guillermo del Toronto. The sentiment behind this fanciful idea lay in the fact that del Toro keeps returning to Toronto to film here, most recently the $250-million mega-actioner, Pacific Rim, and is now prepping the horror flick, Crimson Peak, before cameras roll next spring. “I’ve lived in L.A., Madrid, Budapest,” del Toro recalled before an invited audience at the Trump Hotel. “[A filmmaker] lives in a suitcase.” The Canuck version of the […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 15, 2013 -
Going 360 with Zombies on Hallowe’en
We file past a solemn priest down the stairs into the church basement. My friend and I excited.“There are the infected. There are the survivors. Then there is you.” That’s what the e-mail boasted when it arrived 30 hours earlier, promising a mix of live theatre and film called a 360 Screening. We were part of a sold-out audience of 200 that paid $60 apiece to see a film without knowing the title until the last minute. This was the third 360 Screening in Toronto and its first Hallowe’en edition. Tonight it was taking place in the old Berkeley Church […]
by Allan Tong on Oct 30, 2012
