Tag: Horror

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2026. Five Essential Top Picks and The ScareScore Experiment! Do We Really Need It?

For those folks able to attend Toronto After Dark Film Festival, it’s time to power up those smartwatches!

Toronto After Dark Film FestivalToronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF) officially announced its lineup for its 19th year. And although Casey Walker’s films (Home Bodies and Ithaqua) are suspiciously missing from this year’s lineup, there’s no need to be concerned. His work will be playing somewhere as the cold chill strikes Canada. In this case, though, what will befall Cineplex Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond St W) and CineCycle (129 Spadina Ave)? The event takes place from October 14 to 18, 2026, and this year’s event is unique, which I will talk about later.

What has my attention this year are works that showcase what Austin Abrams can truly do rather than simply running around and doing nothing. The festival kicks off with the Canadian Premiere of Brian Duffield’s Whalefall. A tense and emotionally charged survival thriller starring Austin Abrams (Resident Evil) and Josh Brolin (Weapons), the film depicts the harrowing story of a scuba diver (Abrams) who finds himself swallowed whole by a sperm whale and trapped inside the animal’s stomach. With a dwindling supply of oxygen in his tank, the young man turns to the nautical and life lessons his father passed on to him in a desperate bid to survive. Jonah’s Whale this tale is not, and honestly, who doesn’t want to check this out?

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Ten Scary Halloween Themed Comic Books to Read This October!

This year’s lineup of Halloween themed comic books is sure to please readers young and old, and not skip a beat for what’s important for fans of long running franchises (or authors of the macabre) too!

Chibi Ed reading comics resizedThis year marks the return of Hellraiser, and for some of us, that is already enough reason to crack open a new comic book. BOOM! Studios is heading back into Clive Barker’s Cenobite-filled nightmare, and that will be looked at in a separate article. Meanwhile, this year’s Halloween themed comic books offer plenty of room for haunted kids’ clubs, cosmic horror and a few monsters who deserve more than one October night for a reader like me to absorb them all.

This list excludes established annuals like Hello Halloween and Scream! Halloween Special. Sadly, it seems Dark Horse Comics is not continuing with what they tried to establish from a few years ago. After Headless Horseman 2023, and 2024, and 2025 having come and gone, it’s a shame this spirit has lost his mojo. Instead, what we got is Mad Cave Studios’ Terrorbytes Halloween Annual. But with this being its first issue, it’s too early to assume it will become an annual tradition.

So what I got on my pile of books to read are the following. Some works are already out and others waiting to be picked up!

A Ghost Arm Made of Angry Ghosts

A GHOST ARM MADE OF ANGRY GHOSTS _1354x2048Release Date: September 2, 2026
Publisher: Oni Press

Sixteen-year-old Ari Ackerman has just witnessed a murder, or perhaps two. He is not entirely sure, and that uncertainty is only one more strange thing to process while his cancer-stricken father repeatedly hovers near death. Ari would rather lose himself in Washington, D.C.’s punk scene with his best friend Maya Meng, especially if it means seeing Jawbox at the Black Cat, but unexplained deaths have a way of wrecking even the best plans.

That mix of grief, adolescent confusion and peculiar supernatural trouble makes this sound like more than a standard ghost story. The comparison list, which ranges from Love and Rockets and David Lynch to Agatha Christie and Fugazi, suggests a book with its own scruffy rhythm. Readers who like their horror a little offbeat, personal and steeped in music-scene energy should give this one a look.

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A Killer 10 Year Reunion: Deathgasm II Goremageddon’s Metal Mayhem Is Just That!

Deathgasm II Goremageddon reunites Brodie with his bandmates from beyond the grave in a louder, bloodier sequel. Its romance keeps the chaos grounded, though newcomers will need to see the first film to follow along.

Deathgasm II Goremageddon
Also available to stream on Apple TV beginning Oct 13

It’s been eleven long years since Deathgasm hit screens, and since then, the film has earned legendary cult status. For some fans, they wanted more and despite a long wait, we finally have a sequel. When Deathgasm II Goremageddon was made a little over a year ago and released to its crowdfunding backers, I’m sure those of us who missed out were sad. But I come bering good news: this movie is getting special screenings across Canada and the USA this week! We can all scream out a famous a catch-phrase from long ago: “It’s a good rockin’ tonight!”

With a film fine tuned for the masses, it’s louder, cruder and perhaps even bloodier than I remember. Admittedly, I had to rewatch the first film before seeing this one, and I can confirm a lot has changed. Everyone’s grown older, greyer and maybe fatter.

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When The Bells Toll in Resident Evil 2026, Who’s Next To Die?

The big question I have here is whether Resident Evil is still Resident Evil, or is it The Dunwich Horror in disguise?

Resident Evil 2026 PosterThe Resident Evil franchise is one of those oddities that refuses to die, no matter who is showrunning or leading the latest reboot attempt. I enjoyed the early videogames and left it at that rather than pursue every iteration. Whether they are interpreted as a comic book, novelization or film, the premise will never change: can I (as a player rather than character) figure out what is happening in the location I’m at and stop the zombie apocalypse?

As other chapters unfold introducing operatives like Leon Kennedy and a survivor of day zero, namely Jill Valentine, the fondness depends on whether the character involved is likeable or not. If I had to say which film is the better of the two “reboots,” I prefer Welcome to Raccoon City more. There’s more personalities, and plus, Neal McDonough is in it!

In the latest cinematic adaptation, Bryan (Austin Abrams) is kind of like Ferris Bueller. He gets wrapped up in the shenanigans and chaos as he wanders from one situation to another. All he wants to do is simply transport another package to the city, and go home so he and his partner can figure out what to do next in their relationship. He’s avoiding responsibility, and that plot element is what keeps this film engaging. No matter how hard he’s trying to do good, things go from bad to worse, since nobody expected a zombie pandemic to strike!

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Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival Conjures a Killer First Wave for 2026

Celebrating Halloween with the Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival can’t look any better with Michael Dougherty in attendance!

Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival
Runs Oct 14–18 at the Cineplex Cinemas International Village and The Rio. Photographer Credit Emmett Race

The Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival returns for its ninth year, and its first wave has a fine Halloween-season hook: a 19th anniversary screening of Trick ’r Treat with writer-director Michael Dougherty in attendance. The presentation also includes a new 4K restoration of Season’s Greetings, the animated short that first introduced Sam before he became one of modern horror’s best-known little monsters.

Four features have been announced so far. Hammer Films brings Ithaqua to B.C. audiences, with Luke Hemsworth starring in a frozen 19th-century Canadian outpost besieged by hunger, cold and an ancient flesh-eating evil. It marks Hammer’s first original monster in 60 years. You can read our review here, as we got an early look during London’s Fright Fest. An interview with director Casey Walker can be read here.

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When Mathieu Fortin’s The Parrot Isn’t Squawking Release Me, Release Me….

…that’s because it’s being held captive by Bell Media! It’s not a bad thing, but when The Parrot needs to spread his wings, and tell all, let’s hope this producer has plans to expand this bird’s reach.

The Unearthly Notes The Parrot PosterBefore reviewing Mathieu Fortin’s The Parrot, and again afterwards, I had to search online and hunt through my various books examining the themes common in H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction. I wanted to see if there was any mention of talking birds revealing the secrets of forgotten cults before moving forward. I knew this filmmaker’s idea came from The Notes and Commonplace Book of H.P. Lovecraft. While there are no specific mentions of a parrot in the book, the ideas are certainly there.

The most telling lines from the public-domain scan are the following. On page three, it reads: “As dinosaurs were once surpassed by mammals, so will man-mammal be surpassed by insect or bird—fall of man before the new race.” Page eight offers two tantalizing clues. The line that inspired this work reads, “[A] talking bird of great longevity—tells secret long afterward,” but I suspect Fortin drew upon more than that single note. Another speaks of “Ancient and unknown ruins—strange and immortal bird who speaks in a language horrifying and revelatory to the explorers.”

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