We are just about three weeks away from the start of the Toronto After Dark film festival. The full film list is set to be revealed later today and we can get ready for some genre film goodness in late October. It’s probably no secret that Toronto After Dark was inspired in part by the Midnight Madness programme that plays during the Toronto International Film Festival. Some may argue that Toronto After Dark is in fact in competition with Midnight Madness to acquire the most high profile genre films around. While I’m sure that there’s plenty of genre films to go around, there have been some cases of one seemingly scooping the other. Thanks to the magic of Twitter, here are two separate case of inquiring fans being disappointed to find out that a film they were expecting to play at one festival instead played at the other. In July, Toronto After Dark held their first ever summer screenings series. The series was headlined by the Canadian premiere of the found-footage anthology film V/H/S, which sold out the Bloor Cinema with over 700 in attendance. Shortly afterwards, the line-up for this year’s Midnight Madness line-up was going to be announced on Twitter. One fan ended up disappointed about what was NOT in the line-up:
Nope. It played here 2 weeks agowhere were u? 🙁 RT @marcusbarrie: @mmadnesstiff I wonder if V/H/S will be at Midnight Madness. #TIFF12— MidnightMadness@TIFF (@mmadnesstiff) July 30, 2012
Packed house at the Bloor. Follow @tadfilmfest! RT @marcusbarrie: @mmadnesstiff What?! I’m bummed I missed it 🙁 Playing anytime soon again?— MidnightMadness@TIFF (@mmadnesstiff) July 30, 2012
As it turned out, Midnight Madness actually one-upped V/H/S somewhat by featuring the 26-director anthology film The ABCs of Death. Apparently there was at least one fan who didn’t get the memo:
@justforflicks ABC’S OF DEATH screens at #TIFF12 this w/end as part of @mmadnesstiff ! Info & tix: bit.ly/tiff-abcs— Toronto After Dark (@TADFilmFest) September 12, 2012
@justforflicks Sorry, it won’t be playing in October.— Toronto After Dark (@TADFilmFest) September 12, 2012
Is there truly competition between Toronto After Dark and Midnight Madness? Probably not, but these tweets are sure fun to think about.