The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho is broken down and analyzed in 78/52. Created with 78 set-ups and 52 shots, the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has become one of the most iconic sequences of film history. With its use of quick cuts and suggested nudity and violence, the scene broke many taboos from the…
A woman and her daughter encounter a paranormal force during the Iran-Iraq war in Under the Shadow. Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is a woman living in a Tehran apartment complex with her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) and young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). As Iran’s war with Iraq begins to heat up, Iraj is drafted to the frontlines…
Kristen Stewart reunites with filmmaker Olivier Assayas in the artful ghost story Personal Shopper. Maureen (Stewart) is a young woman, whose job it is to do all the clothes shopping for Paris socialite Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten). Maureen is also a medium and she has been trying to make contact with her twin brother Lewis, who recently…
The ever-changing world of monster special effect is examined in Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex. The love of monsters comes from a deep seeded fear of the unknown, which is with us from our earliest memories. From the early works of Lon Chaney and Jack P. Pierce to the 1980s “rock stars” of Stan Winston, Rick…
A young woman who sees ghosts becomes enamoured with a mysterious aristocrat in Crimson Peak. Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is an aspiring author, who has seen ghosts since she was a child, particularly the spirit of her dead mother, who warns Edith to “Beware of Crimson Peak.” Edith meets Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his…
A couple try to protect their child from malevolent fairy folk in the woods in The Hallow. British conservationist Adam Hitchens (Joseph Mawle) and his wife Claire (Bojana Novakovic) and baby son Finn have traveled from London to a small Irish town to mark down trees in a local forest for removal. This upsets the townsfolk, particularly…
Following his 2010 debut feature Monsters, director Gareth Edwards moves on to the greatest monster of all, with this new reboot of Godzilla. Following the meltdown of the Janjira Nuclear Plant near Tokyo, plant supervisor Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) becomes paranoid that the meltdown was created by something other than an earthquake, as claimed by…
After five years of mostly producing/writing gigs, Guillermo del Toro returns with his latest directorial effort in the form the “monsters vs. robots” epic Pacific Rim. A breach has opened deep within the Pacific ocean, which has given rise to waves of reptilian monsters, known as Kaiju. When the monsters become too numerous for traditional…
If there is one thing I can say about the ghost story Mama, it’s that the film’s heart was in the right place. I could see why, executive producer, Guillermo del Toro would want to put his support behind the film, since it was the kind of story that would attract him. However, that couldn’t…
In addition to the 20 feature films, there was also 29 short films that screened at Toronto After Dark. The shorts were divided into two separate programmes: Canada After Dark consisted of 20 Canadian shorts films, which played before each of the features. Then there was the Shorts After Dark showcase, which screened 9 international…
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