The Toronto After Dark Film Festival runs from October 14th-18th, celebrating horror and genre films. This year they are screening 14 feature films and over 30 shorts. Jeff Bulmer shares three films he is excited and curious about. Stay tuned for reviews from the festival.
Whalefall
Directed By: Brian Duffield
Starring: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue
Synopsis: Jay dives into the ocean looking for his father’s remains, only to be accidentally swallowed by a sperm whale. With a dwindling supply of air left in his oxygen tank, he must remember all of the lessons his father taught him to survive.
Why I’m Excited: From the fish that swallowed Jonah, to Monstro in Pinocchio, humans have long been fascinated by the idea of being stranded not simply in the presence of the largest creatures to swim the seas, but inside them. The belly of the beast calls to us the same way a cave does: we long to find out what’s in there, and that voice somewhere in the back of our head tells us that if we could just get inside, we’d be the first ones to return and tell the tale.
Most of the time, the character who gets trapped inside a fish does so as an allegory for something else, but author Daniel Kraus wasn’t satisfied with a purely metaphorical approach. In his 2023 novel Whalefall, Kraus explored what it would mean for someone to actually get trapped inside a whale. He picked the only whale that could conceivably swallow someone (a sperm whale), engineered a situation in which a person could be swallowed (eaten alongside a giant squid), and then gave his poor protagonist an hour to escape.
Collaborating with Brian Duffield – the screenwriter and director behind Spontaneous, Love and Monsters, and The BabySitter – Kraus co-wrote the film adaptation which has its Canadian premiere at Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Whalefall takes a situation already deadly in its literary and biblical incarnations and turns it into a thrilling and grounded race against the clock – something Weapons and Resident Evil star Austin Abrams should be used to by now.
5 More Minutes
Directed By: Javier Ruiz Caldera
Starring: Berto Romero, Belén Cuesta, Javier Cámara
Synopsis: With the whole world thrust into an endlessly-repeating 5 minute loop, one bickering couple must navigate their way home while the consequences of their increasingly destructive decisions carry forth into each of the time loop’s subsequent permutations.
Why I’m Excited: I never get tired of time loop films. The loop as a narrative device lends itself so well to action (Edge of Tomorrow, All You Need is Kill), romantic comedy (Palm Springs, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time), horror (Happy Death Day, Triangle), and of course more philosophical sci-fi exploring the idea of time, permanence, and fate itself (Predestination, Coherence).
But my favourite takes on time loops are the ones that really squeeze the most out of a single location, small cast, and short loop interval. 2023’s River (read Jeff’s review) stands out with its 2-minute loop, meticulously rehearsed and repeated dozens of times, each one in a single take, resulting in a series of events almost as maddening to watch as they would be to experience. When a filmmaker can create a reality so detailed and precise that the audience feels like a participant, that’s where the genre really shines.
Five More Minutes, fittingly, features a five-minute loop, each promised to be rendered as a single long-take. It’s the same promise as River, and one that’s hard to pull off. When done properly though, it can make for an unforgettable five minutes, eighteen times over.
DRAG
Directed By: Raviv Ullman, Greg Yagolnitzer
Starring: Lizzy Caplan, Lucy DeVito, John Stamos
Synopsis: Two sisters break into the secluded home of a wealthy artist for a simple robbery. When one throws out her back, escape becomes a hilarious challenge for the feuding sisters. The terror truly begins when the artist comes home early with a guest.
Why I’m Excited: The feature debut of Greg Yagolnitzer and Raviv Ullman (Phil from Phil of the Future), DRAG is pitched as a heist thriller that doubles as a slapstick comedy. The third movie on this list to feature a time limit (and the second to feature a bickering lead duo), DRAG gets its high stakes from a more relatable place than a time loop or a hungry whale: back pain.
Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls, Now You See Me) and John Stamos (They Came Together, Full House) have the comedy chops to make a movie about a thief being dragged out of a house exciting, while the horror angle is endlessly intriguing.
With no trailer out yet, TADFF final day premiere DRAG is one of the bigger unknowns of the festival, but with its hilarious premise and great cast, it’s also one of the most exciting!
