Directors Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero were in the house on Tuesday for the spine-chilling premiere of [REC]2! While I'm sure they'd agree that they're no Megan Fox, photographer Ian Goring managed to get some shots of the guys as they presented what promised to be the scariest film in this year's Midnight Madness lineup!

 

You can catch [REC]2 again on Saturday the 19th at 6:15 at AMC! Don't miss it! 

Yet another set of Midnight Madness picks, courtesy of Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting:

 

Another year, another 10 incredible genre film selections, Midnight Madness is the pinnacle of my year. Forget any other film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival is so jammed-packed that even the MM line-up overflows into the full festival. One of most exciting parts of our coverage is that every year Colin asks me to tell him my 3 most anticipated films and why, which leaves me staring blankly at the full line-up for about an hour trying to make up my mind. While each and every film has a special something about it, there were three films this year that stood out from the pack and are a MUST for ol’ Bloody Disgusting.  More...

More Madness picks, this time from Tim League, founder of Fantastic Fest and the Alamo Drafthouse!

A Town Called Panic

I became a fan of the Belgian TV version of this show since I first heard of it on Twitch. Watch a few of the original language episodes online and this will only marginally prepare you for the manic, surreal adventure that awaits. This stuff is pure brilliance.

Symbol

Japanese TV comedy legend Hitoshi Matsumoto's BIG MAN JAPAN was one of my favorite films from 2 years ago at midnight madness and he's back with more jaw-dropping insanity with SYMBOL. You will never guess where this outlandishly bizarre film will lead.

REC 2

Spanish directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza blazed onto the scene in 2007 with the knuckle-biting, lo-fi zombie mock-doc REC. I've yet to see the full film, but the operatic trailer literally raised goose-bumps on my arms when I first saw it. I can't wait to check it out.

 “Sequel” is a bit of a dirty word when it comes to films because they're rarely better than the films they follow. A sequel to a profitable film is a safer investment than a film based on an original script though, so more tend to get made than are needed. That said, two films in this year's Midnight Madness program ([REC]2 and Ong Bak 2: The Beginning) are sequels, and both in my opinion are needed. If you haven't seen the original Ong Bak or [REC] films, don't worry. They're both sort of special sequels in that you don't necessarily need to have seen the first films before seeing them.

Ong Bak 2 has no connection whatsoever to Ong Bak aside from it starring Tony Jaa. So if you haven't seen Ong Bak yet, you can wait until TIFF is over to rent it.

[REC]2's a slightly stranger case. [REC]2 takes place fifteen minutes after the end of [REC], so it's ideal if you've seen the original film but if you haven't... Have you seen Quarantine? Quarantine is an American remake of [REC] (and a pretty faithful one at that) so if you've seen it, you're set. Be the envy of all your Quarantine-loving friends and find out what happens next. Hint: A badass SWAT team with big guns enter the building to evict the building's remaining tenants.

[Rec]2 screenings:

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning screenings: 

Saturday September 19	09:45AM	SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2
Saturday September 19	11:59PM	RYERSON

More Madness Picks -- this time from Rue Morgue Magazine's Managing Editor Dave Alexander. He programs Rue Morgue's monthly Cinemacabre screenings at the Bloor Cinema and also runs MSN's Blogtastic Voyage, where he just ripped Halloween II a new one.

"I guess I just can’t get enough of the undead, because this year’s Midnight Madness line-up has me excited about zombies and vampires:

George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead

You aren’t much of a horror fan if you aren’t excited about the idea of a new George A. Romero zombie movie, and, following the Toronto-shot Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead (another MM premiere, of course), Survival drops the first-person camera conceit of Diary but remains set in the same world. Sounds good to me.

As a huge fan of dusters (J.T. Petty’s horror-western hybrid The Burrowers was one of my favourite MM movies), I’m particularly intrigued by this one because Romero has described as being basically “a western.” Horses, gut-munching, headshots and cowboy hats – giddy-up!

[REC 2]

Even when his films don’t completely work for me (I’m thinking of Darkness and Fragile), there are still fantastic moments in Jaume Balagueró’s movies – usually ones where terrifying things are creeping around in the dark.

When he teamed up with Paco Plaza to make [REC] everything seemed to fall into place and the result was a tight little zombie movie with loads of tension and claustrophobic scares. I’m up for round two of that, especially with a midnight crowd.

(And, if you want to see some of the best stuff that both of these guys have done, I recommend 6 Films to Keep You Awake, which is sort of the Spanish version of Masters of Horror – each of them has a fun horror film in the series.)

Daybreakers

Australia’s Sperig Twins made a name for themselves with 2003’s Undead, a zombie movie with big ideas and a polished look that was much bigger than their budget would suggest. Now they’ve got a more dough, more experience and stars such as Ethan Hawke, Willem DaFoe and Sam Neill, so it’s time to what they can do after six year of working on the project.

Plot-wise, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi vampire movie about humans as endangered species in a society where bloodsuckers run the show has loads of possibility. And the twins aren’t afraid to get gory, so at the very least I expect to see some gratuitous bloodshed and exploding vamps."