The Madness, Sketched!

All Cheerleaders Die

Francis Foster made some very nice sketches of the 2013 Midnight Madness program at his Tumblr page, Sketchy Musings. Click through to see reviews of the films and more sketches every day.  

All Cheerleaders Die

The Green Inferno

The Station / Der Blutgletscher

Afflicted

Oculus

Almost Human

Rigor Mortis

R100

Why Don't You Play In Hell?

THE STATION: Creature Designs, Part II

Just a few more of TOMAK's design sketches for the creatures of The Station. Usually, we'd include captions, but they're just too nice for any rascalry. (See Part I here).

Find more by and about TOMAK here.

THE STATION Screening Times:

Friday, Sept 13th, 9:15 PM SCOTIABANK 9

THE STATION: Creature Designs, Part I

THE STATION director Marvin Kren kindly passed along these gorgeous creature designs by TOMAK.

 We offer them without captions, because they're just do damn gorgeous for any shenanigans from us.

You can see more of TOMAK's work here.  See Part II here.

THE STATION Screening Times:

Friday, Sept 13th, 9:15 PM SCOTIABANK 9

TIFF Midnight Madness 25th Anniversary T-Shirts Now Available!

For the past 24 years of the Midnight Madness program, if you wanted to be able to identify a fellow Midnight Madness devotee during the day, unless they were wearing a horror or action movie shirt, your odds of guessing weren't very good.

This year, TIFF is removing the guess work and have put out an official Midnight Madness 25th Anniversary t-shirt, designed by Kagan McLeod. You might know Kagan's work from his kung-fu comic book epic, Infinite Kung-Fu, or from his many illustration work that he's done for The National Post, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, and The Hollywood Reporter.

As of Tuesday, these beautiful navy blue t-shirts are available in unisex t-shirt sizes XS - XXL in a limited edition for $30 (+ tax) at the TIFF Shop (at TIFF Bell Lightbox) and at the TIFF Shop pop up location at the Festival Box Office at Metro Centre.

Look how dashing you're going to look in your new Midnight Madness shirt!!

The Devil's in the details.

So pick up your shirt and let everyone at that 9AM screening know that you're running on less than 5 hours of sleep.

HELLBENDERS Postcards!

Bloody Disgusting has a gallery of Hellbenders postcards. Click through, ye faithful, for more colorful talk from men and women of the cloth.

And gather ye together in the Ryereson Theatre for the premiere of Hellbenders tonight!

HELLBENDERS 3D screening times:
Sun., Sept. 9th, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Tue., Sept. 11th, 7:00 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 7
Sat., Sept. 15th, 9:15 PM SCOTIABANK 2

Is THE BAY Packing Major Carnage?

The Bay is one of the more mysterious titles in this year's programme. We have no frame of reference for director Barry Levinson as a horror filmmaker. We've seen very few images from the film. The synopses let on a little bit about eco-horror themes, parasitic infections, and found-footage format, but they generally don't indicate how grisly the film gets. We can, however, get some sense of it from these gory concept images created for the filmmakers by artist Daniel Colón. You can view the entire gallery here.

Looks pretty juicy.

THE BAY
Wed., Sept. 12th, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Thurs., Sept. 13th, 2:45 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 6

Happy Belated Birthday, Jack "King" Kirby!

via Newsarama

This week marks the 95th anniversary of Jack Kirby's birth. Working as an artist, writer, editor and even in film, animation and television from the 1930s through the 1990s, Kirby's impact and influence are inestimable.  He created or co-created countless characters, including Captain America, The X-Men The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, The Silver Surfer and Galactus, and possibly my favorite, Victor von Doom, as well as his cosmic Fourth World--heroes like Big Barda, Mister Miracle/Scott Free, Orion and villains like the master of Apokolips, Darkseid.

via materioptikon

Make sure to check out David Brothers' tribute to Jack Kirby and how Kirby switched the focus of heroic stories from good vs. evil to "freedom vs. slavery."

Kirby redefined good not as a moral issue, but one of freedom. The freedom to love, laugh, share, create, and more. There's the potential for harm, and many of the New Gods struggle with that potential, but just having that potential is vital. It needs to be there. Being able to choose to do wrong is greater than being forced to do good. Free will is everything. The Life Equation is everything beautiful, warts and all.

And feast your everlovin' eyes on The Kirby Museum's amazing gallery of Kirby's art as well as their YouTube Channel, which includes this 1982 Entertainment Tonight interview with Kirby.  Warning: Liberal use of sound zany effects.

Alternate Poster for SOLOMON KANE!

A wicked alternate poster for Solomon Kane, which brought a supernatural action splendor to Midnight Madness 2009.

(image via Monster Island Resort Podcast)

JOHN DIES AT THE END: Poster Gallery!

 On its journey from digital horror novel to film adaptation, from SXSW and Sundance to reaching its perfect audience in closing out Midnight Madness, Don Coscarelli's John Dies At The End has accumulated a whack of poster art, including some weapons--The Bible Belter above and the Paintball and Propane Flamethrower below.

 (This individual kindly demonstrates the importance of wearing safety equipment)

The poster promoting the South By Southwest screening.

And here are two covers for David Wong's original novel. 

(via Creative Book Design)

(via City on Fire)

JOHN DIES AT THE END screening times:

Sat., Sept. 15, 11:59PM:  RYERSON  

Sun., Sept. 16, 5PM:  CINEPLEX YONGE AND DUNDAS

NO ONE LIVES Posters!

With a filmography that includes stylish flicks like Versus and the greatest-titled film of all time Midnight Meat Train, it's fitting that a slick filmmaker like Ryuhei Kitamura would end up with an equally slick poster for his latest, No One Lives.

And for you completests out there, check out the equally moody international one sheet just below.

NO ONE LIVES

Sat., Sep. 8, 11:59pm: RYERSON

Mon., Sep. 10, 9:45pm: CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 7

Fri., Sep. 14, 4:45pm: CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 6

LORDS OF SALEM Posters!

There are a slew of sick images for Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem at Zombie's Facebook page, including these excellently wicked teaser posters.

Though this one seems a little more winsome than wicked.

LORDS OF SALEM
Mon., Sept. 10, 11:59pm:  RYERSON
Wed., Sept. 12, 5pm:  CINEPLEX YONGE AND DUNDAS 6

LIVID: The Old Dark House

From the design sketches for Livid, it looks like there's a new house in the neighborhood of creepy or just plain haunted cinematic houses.

Artists from James Whale and Shirley Jackson to Charles Addams and Alfred Hitchcock knew that a house is just as important as any of the characters in their stories.

Norman's mothers house in Psycho.

Mom's not home...

The Addams Family house at 1313 Mockingbird Lane. (I took the picture from this blog post that looks at the interior and exterior of the house).

aka, casa de I want to live there.

Roderick Usher's house in Roger Corman's The Fall of the House of Usher.

I have lived in a poorly wired house like this one.

 The Amityville Horror's jack-o-lanterny house.

"Happy Halloween--Now get out!"

The just plain wrong house of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. The only movie version that I acknowledge is The Haunting (1963).

The Haunting 1999 never happened.

Karen Black and Oliver Reed's dream house in Burnt Offerings. Well, more Karen Black's dream house than Oliver Reed's.

"I'm sure nothing could go wrong in this creepy old house..."

And a little more of the sweet design art of the house in Livid.

Catch Livid's premiere tonight!

LIVID

Sun., Sept. 11th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Tues., Sept. 13th, 5:00PM, AMC 7