TADFF 2022: Canadian Shorts After Dark

The Flying Sailor (2022)

Directors (and writers): Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby

Inspired by true events, the highly anticipated new film by Oscar-nominated duo Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis is a meditation on a sailor’s unexpected voyage. – IMDB

The Flying Sailor tells the tale of a sailor that flies out after two ships collide near the harbor and ends up rumbling and tumbling through the sky and into outer space before falling back onto Earth. In the process, he reflects on his life in flashbacks which blend both animation and real life.

There’s a lot to love about The Flying Sailor aside from watching a man fly through the sky completely naked right down to private part flapping around in all directions. Of course, that is besides the point but its a compliment on the attention to detail. In the process of flying through the sky, its flashbacks that bring him back to where he is now. While the process itself feels like it does flash by rather quickly, it still carries a ton of creativity. There’s a wonderful use of colors and the beautifully drawn visuals of the animation element. While its inspired by true events, there has to obviously be an exaggeration of the situation.

Black Forest Sanitorium (2020)

Director (and writer): Diana Thorneycroft

Starving for companionship, Quinn pursues an unorthodox approach to resolving her intense loneliness. – Letterboxd

Black Forest Sanitorium is a stop motion animation which follows a creature that moves around a sanitorium with a cart and stops to explore the patients. Perhaps the plot itself if I hadn’t read it in advance would be rather confusing. The big reveal does piece together what Quinn had planned for this visit. Perhaps its the stop motion animation element but the story never feels very creepy, maybe macabre and bizarre might be more correct to describe it. The different creatures that are in the sanitorium for the nature of the location definitely feels fitting and what Quinn sees suitable is also rather specific.

The Temple (Le Temple)

Director: Alain Fournier

The Temple is an animated short film about the crew of a German U-boat that sinks into the depths to avoid an enemy attack when they realize they can no longer go back up to the surface. As the U-boat drops into the depths, madness strikes the staff until he drops to the bottom and sees a temple.

The Temple is a really well-done short. The story it tells at the beginning with the war and attack creates a good start for the story. It combines both a narrative style and dialogue between conversations. As they sink lower underground, the imagery that is shown is pretty good since they start seeing all kinds of creepy thing, much like how the crew also slowly falls into their own craziness. The titular Temple isn’t really part of the film but rather shows up very late in the film and yet, it manages to feel meaningful to the story and the purpose. The animation, the visual, the premise: The Temple does a really good job in all these elements to create a memorable film experience.

The Fore-Men (2022)

Director (and writer): Adrian Bobb

Weeks after a mysterious time-compression event violently splices environments from the past and future into the present, two survivors encounter the foreboding figures responsible for the event and experience firsthand their sinister nature. – IMDB

The Fore-Men is one of the more mind-bending and future apocalypse sort of feeling to the whole story. It follows a woman who is a researcher to see what the world has suddenly become and what lurks in the land creating this new environment. Its one of the shorts that feel like its a snippet of a much bigger scope and world building which would be suitable to expand into something much bigger to explore. This world is rather fascinating. At parts feeling a little like the enchantment of Annihilation with its big snails and creatures hanging around while there is something much more dangerous lurking around and while that form seems to be made up of many table lamps combined together, it still has this interesting imagery at the last scene when the camera pulls away that is very neat.

Nude (Nu, 2022)

Director (and writer): Olivier Labonté-LeMoyne

Nude is a French Canadian short that follows a couple driving into the woods looking for a secluded spot to make love. When they finally feel like they have found it, they start to realize they are being watched.

Nude is an odd and creepy short. In some ways, the couple themselves have some interesting dialogue but once things start getting weird the story gets a little creepy. There are some unsettling moments as what the man is worried about comes true in abundance. Not to mention, as they try to escape, the whole process has a certain creepy element to it. The film does jump from daytime to evening very quickly which is something that feels a tad odd in terms of flow of events but overall, the story itself while doesn’t quite explain what happens in the end, it gives room for the audience to draw their own conclusions (unless its just me not getting the point). However, the atmosphere is well created that the shadows and darkness are used to their advantage.

The Trunk

Director: Travis Laidlaw

The Trunk is a short about a father and daughter who finds a chained up trunk in the woods and brings it home to see what valuables are inside. Right from the poster above, you can tell that what they found is not valuable and pretty horrific in general. While its never quite explained, it sure feels like what they unleashed is some kind of witch (or something along those lines).

The Trunk is an interesting one to talk about. While the premise of the trunk and the unknown of what’s inside is what creates a lot of mystery especially against the dark backdrop as its set at night. The story does have a certain level of predictability especially when it comes to what appears in the trunk is sinister and what happens afterwards to the father and daughter.

In The Shadows (Dans l’ombre)

Director (and co-writer): David Emond-Ferrat

Melanie, a newly separated mother, is spending a weekend at her mother’s house with Tom, her 8-year-old son who is still unaware of the breakup. In the shadows, a creature in search of fresh flesh lies in wait for them, examines them and searches for their loophole in order to lure them into its lair. – IMDB

No doubt the best short of the entire program. Dans L’Ombre packed in some well-executed horror moments and had a really good flow to their story and its pacing. For a short, it had a solid narrative structure and a few nice tricks up its sleeve that made it truly stand out. There were some decent unsettling and creepy moments and some other moments, the atmosphere had this dread and impending danger feeling throughout. The use of the danger that lurks in the shadows created some nice scary moments as well. Well-executed, well-acted and a good story: Dans l’Ombre is an exceptional horror short.

The Community

Director: Milos Mitrovic

The Community is about two men who go to find a secret in the woods which goes a bit against their expectation when they end up finding something else more than they expected in the process.

The Community is a comedy short. It tries to build up some mystery as to what they are looking for in the woods which basically has its big reveal when they meet other people in the woods doing a similar act. What they find is a community as the titles hints at of a group of men having a shared hobby together. You go and piece together what the possibilities are. This one’s downright silly and not exactly my type of humor but that’s just how it is with comedy, it just doesn’t work for everyone.

TADFF 2021: Canadian Shorts After Dark

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2021 goes completely virtual this year as it kicks off its 15th annual edition milestone filling five days of horror, sci-fi and action films from October 13th to 17th. If you are in Canada, film festival access is nationwide so you probably don’t want to miss out! You can find the schedule line-up HERE.

Kicking off the festival on Day 1 to start off in a little bit of a unique way and probably the way I’m used to previously covering TADFF is with its short films selections. Nothing like some Canadian Shorts to kick things off with 9 short films in the Canadian Shorts After Dark showcase. There’s a few that I have seen before in film festivals but the majority are first time watches.

Morbus (2020)

Director: Kerim Banka
Cast: Nicole Hrgetic, Benjamin Liddell, Konstantina Mantelos

Morbus is a second watch and one that I remembered fairly well except I can’t remember from which festival I first saw it and then didn’t end up reviewing. However, better late than never as Morbus does have a rather intriguing premise.

Morbus tells the story of a young couple that is halted on an isolated country road by blocked cars in their path. When they get out to investigate, the woman notices something in the distance and they follow in pursuit to find a woman in the woods who has some weird growths and attacks them.

There’s so much to love about this. The isolated road is a fantastic setting. There’s a lot of mystery with this type of body horror-esque phenomenon where its not certain what is going on but yet, it shows the signs of humanity of the woman’s infection causes the man to react in his own ways. As much as its horrific and a tad disgusting in terms of the whole body changing, there’s also a human element at play that gives the story a little more depth. Its only a short and yet, there’s so many things to explore with this one.

Le Reflet (The Reflection) (2018)

Director: Louis-David Jutras
Cast: Laurence Anais Belleville

Alone in her apartment, Anais realizes that something is wrong with her reflection. Trapped, she tries to escape this entity that manifests itself only through reflection. – IMDB

Reflections and mirrors are such a great tool when it comes to horror films. Le Reflet does a great job and using its sound design, a lot of quiet moments and the different reflective surfaces to play with this reflection premise. While some of the scares are rather predictable, it all depends on the timing and anticipation that it manages to ramp up before executing the scare that makes it rather effective. Plus, it creates this unknown of why this is happening.

I’m a big fan of films with this sort of horror style which is much more subtle and atmospheric. For myself, this short was absolutely outstanding. Plus, it leaves such a mystery that it feels like the premise could be expanded into a full film and potentially be a rather fun horror experience.

Maybe You Should Be Careful (2021)

Director (and writer): Megan Robinson
Cast: Dan Beirne, Brittany Rae Robinson, Kelly McNamee

Maybe You Should Be Careful is about a young couple trying to reignite their passion and intimacy when the boyfriend finds a post about a female killer in the neighborhood that is shockingly similar to his girlfriend and starts building paranoia and fear towards her in his mind.

Paranoia and fear is such a great pair to use when doing a horror film that it adds this whole psychological element to it that works incredibly well especially in this case. This is a quirky little short. There’s a weird dynamic between the couple but then the suspicions start to form, its quite fun to see how it progresses. In many ways, its simply a miscommunication between the two and a different type of focus during the entire encounter that drives to a finale that is fairly expected once it happens but does leave a lot of space during the entire short of whether the girlfriend is or is not the killer preying on the men in their neighborhood.

Family (2020)

Director (and writer): Mark Pariselli
Cast: Neil Paterson, Tarick Glancy, Peter Campbell, Tracy Woods

An accident on the way to the cottage has horrifying consequences for an interracial gay couple contemplating parenthood. – IMDB

The elements of the road trip are pretty well set up at the beginning from the relationship between the two and their many stops which fit this season especially with pumpkin stalls and corn mazes. Plus, for those familiar with the dark country roads, there’s really nothing quite as spooky as its only lit up by the car headlights making what’s ahead a complete mystery. The mood is set up really great with the isolation and quiet rural area while adding in this dire accident which needs to be taken care of. It takes quite the alarming twist as the film progresses which is a pretty neat turning point. For gamers like myself, it might actually feel very familiar giving hints of Resident Evil 7 especially with a dialogue. I’m not sure whether that is deliberate or just a coincidence but its pretty fun.

Kweskowsiu (She Whistles) (2021)

Director (and writer): Thirza Cuthand
Cast: Sera-Lys McArthur, Aiden Devine, Sebastian Bertrand, Eileen Li

On the way to her girlfriend’s place, an Indigenous woman is assaulted by her cab driver. Amidst the struggle, she discovers a deadly supernatural power that may help solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance. – IMDB

There’s a lot to love about this short. For one, it dives into Native American beliefs and/or myths about the Northern Lights specifically regarding what happens when you whistle at it. Using this as not only a faux-pas in conversation but also afterwards, using it to the main girl’s advantage. Second is the familiar face of Sera-Lys McArthur who is really good here especially after seeing a good performance of hers earlier this year in Don’t Say Its Name (review). The conversation between the cab driver and her character during the taxi ride is actually rather unnerving especially awakening some fear about how much privacy is being pried but also touching on the prejudices towards Native Americans in the community as well.

Whether its the thriller element or the other messages portrayed in this short film, its a very intriguing one overall and one that opens up unfamiliar myths which adds to the intrigue and at least for myself, lead me to do a little more research.

Sang Jaune (Yellow Blood) (2019)

Director: Julie Roy
Cast: Catherine-Audrey Lachapelle

Sang Jaune crafts a story of Jenny whose life is relatively routine as it revolves around work and collecting sports cars. One day, she wakes up in a yellow field in the middle of nowhere when she starts realizing that her belly is growing abnormally and things start getting weirder after that.

Sang Jaune is a second watch for myself. I believe that I had seen it in Fantasia 2020 but never got around to reviewing it. There are some great ideas here which center around some kind of unknown creature or alien as a subcontext. It revolves around one character. The area and the premise is rather intriguing overall and leaves a lot of space to connect the dots. However, it is one that feels a little abstract at times.

The Silent Lay Steady (2020)

Director (and writer): Travis Laidlaw
Cast: Katrina Elmsley, Spencer Hanson, Justin Hay

A woman finds herself alone with the body after a funeral in her 1860’s farmhouse. – IMDB

The Silent Lay Steady is definitely one of the standout shorts in this programming. The premise and the story is very multilayer as it plays around with this starting point that loops back at the end. Its a rather fun play on the supernatural element and some shots actually remind me a little of The Haunting on Hill House (review). There’s a lot of different horror elements executed really well where there’s a bit focus on sound design to create the atmosphere.

The most outstanding element has to be its cinematography. Each shot is framed very uniquely that creates this different feeling, leaving some things hidden behind the walls. Whether the camera is following the character or its framed on one spot while the character moves in and out of rooms or keeping sounds and lighting coming from off screen, there’s a lot of really great visuals that make the whole short film even more engaging.

10-33

Director (and writer): Alexander Maxim Seltzer
Cast: Alison Louder, Andrew Chown

Ava’s quiet date night out at the cinema turns into a nightmare when she’s trapped in a toilet stall during an active shooting attack. With only a thin door separating her from the gunman, she is forced to confront him and try to find a way to survive. – 10-33 Website

Shootings anywhere is always a scary scenario to imagine. The films crafts it in one location when Ava is hiding into the toilet stall after hearing the other girls in the washroom being shot. As she tries to stay quiet, unnoticed and stay calm, things don’t go exactly as plan. The interaction between her and the gunman is through the stall door. Its a rather normal sort of conversation but reveals quite a bit about both Ava and the gunman which also works to build up the tension.

To be fair, the film premise and execution is overall very engaging. Ava’s fear and the gunman being an unknown factor other than his voice makes it all the more nervewrecking to watch. Whether its to show an aggression or frustration or to highlight the type of person the gunman is, the dialogue has a lot of f-bombs. At one point, it felt necessary but over time, it felt a little annoying as pushing something too much feels like an overuse. Its just a little observation for myself and very much nitpicking at the details since 10-33 really did standout a lot.

Crawl Space (2021)

Director (and writer): Andrew Ellinas
Cast: Andrew Ellinas

A man battles a giant spider in his garage. – IMDB

Wrapping up the Canadian Shorts After Dark is this creature feature which centers around this man finding this crawl space and digs through the spider webs to find a giant spider living in it and it ends up battling it. There’s a definite budget at play here that makes the spider a little funny-looking but spiders are really unnerving in general especially then its a big one. Its uses the things in the garage at hand for the fight and it is pretty fun overall in a silly sort of way.

Not exactly one that I’m especially impressed with but spiders as creature features seem to be wildly underused. I definitely appreciate that this one plays on that creature but also adds a little twist in the end.