Midnight Madness Blog

- 2008
- 2007
Archival footage
Chocolate Intro & Q&A;
Two Girls, One Movie
CITYNews Does Midnight Madness
J.T. Petty Holding A Large Dog!
Before the Bargin Bin There Was BloodSport

Biography
Blogging By The Numbers
Movie Theatre Memories
Geeking Out At Not Quite Hollywood (warning: Leprechaun inside)
"He has his own music"

Celebrities
JCVD's New Film - "FULL LOVE"
Sexykiller and The Horror Mashup
Who is Macarena Gómez?
Meet The Ladies Of Martyrs
JCVD, JT and the "Re-Emergence" Film

Cinematography
Orphans - The Lost Films of Midnight Madness 2008
FLASH POINT: Who is Donnie Yen?

Directors
JCVD's New Film - "FULL LOVE"
Sexykiller and The Horror Mashup
Genre Down Under: An Email Roundtable
"The Burrowers" Joins Revisionist Canon
"Ozploitation": A Model for Canada?

Distribution
"Ozploitation": A Model for Canada?
Deposit More Coins!
So THAT's How Much a Zombie Costs...
MM Flashback: ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE

Free Speech
THE CIRCUIT - Film Festival Reviews From Space
Conversation From The Line Reaction to Deadgirl
In The Rush Line For JCVD

Humour
Love and Madness
"He has his own music"
Training like a MADMAN!!!
We Love You Too, Suzie.

Memories
Midnight Madness: Year One
Day Ten
Sexykiller and The Horror Mashup
More Conversations From The Line
Detroit Metal City and Japanese Duality

Music
Cue Theme Music
What's That Sound?

Panels
Devil's Chair video
Sukiyaki opening!

Parties
The Burrowers Intro & Q&A;
Deadgirl Intro & Q&A;
Detroit Metal City Intro & Q&A;
JCVD Intros & Q&As;
Flash Point: no longer just an overlooked Rolling Stones live album

Picks
Tear the roof off the suckah
What to doin the event a giant bouncing, squeezing baby eyeball attacks your city
And now for something completely different...
And that was the best beating I've ever seen
Catch That Rave!

Politics
"Ozploitation": A Model for Canada?
Detroit Metal City and Japanese Duality
Horror as a Political Platform

War & Conflict
Detroit Metal City and Japanese Duality

Filtered by Topic: Memories
September 18, 2021
Midnight Madness: Year One
Posted By Eric Veillette At 4:34 AM
File under: Memories
While writing about Deadgirl last week, I mentioned how much I valued 'zines while growing up. Infiltration was at the top of the list, as were a slew of punk, goth, and horror 'zines from around Toronto and Montreal whose titles I can't even remember. It made growing up in the barren winterland of Northern Ontario a slightly less isolating experience. One of the 'zines I wish I'd known about at the time was The Trash Compactor. It was a genre film fan's dream...

(more...)
• Comments (0)
September 13, 2021
Day Ten
Posted By Sachin Hingoo At 12:25 PM
File under: Memories
Ah, day 10 of the Festival. That day where you fill every possible second of your day by rushing movies you wouldn't consider seeing otherwise. Case in point: I'm typing this from the cheap seats at the AMC where I am about to watch Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms. The fact that I'm here without a four-year-old in tow (like everyone else apparently) is a testament to...Well, I'm not really sure what it says about me at this point, except perhaps that it's indicative of a desire to see, on film, the disco-dancing earthworms that I've...

(more...)
• Comments (0)

Sexykiller and The Horror Mashup
Posted By Sachin Hingoo At 8:45 AM
File under: Celebrities, Directors, Memories
Anyone in attendance at last night's screening of Sexykiller was privy to, in my opinon, the most unbelievably fun movie (with the possible exception of last Friday's Detroit Metal City) of this year's Midnight Madness programme. In true Midnight Madness fashion, the beach balls were busted out and there was no shortage of zombies on hand to liven up the red carpet! Sexykiller was truly an overture of love from director Miguel Marti to his favourite horror films....

(more...)
• Comments (2)
September 6, 2021
More Conversations From The Line
Posted By Robert Mitchell At 6:06 PM
File under: Memories
One of my favorite aspects of attending Midnight Madness and waiting in line for the audience to be let in is meeting my fellow audience members. All year I talk to friends or colleagues at work about great films I have seen such as L'Interieur and I get a blank eyed stare, shrugged shoulders, "that's really great Rob" or "that woman tried to do what to a pregnant woman? And you actually watched this and liked it?!"However for ten days in September I like many other moths drawn to the flame line...

(more...)
• Comments (1)

Detroit Metal City and Japanese Duality
Posted By Steve D'Alimonte At 12:44 PM
File under: Memories, Politics, War & Conflict
Japanese society has evolved in leaps in bounds since the end of World War II (arguably more than most nations). It has gone from a culture based strictly on tradition with very few outside influences, to one of the world’s most robust economic powerhouses with American influences proliferating. Being only able to speculate, I believe this transformation has never been fully accepted by mainstream Japanese society, and in many ways is still being dealt with. For better or worse, American influence will not be leaving Japan anytime...

(more...)
• Comments (3)
August 29, 2021
Top Ten Midnight Madness Moments of ALL TIME! (Part 2)
Posted By Sanjay Rajput At 10:34 PM
File under: Memories
Now that the server isn't being slammed from across the globe here is the long awaited top 5 (part 1 is located here)5 & 4. Happy Birthday Dario! Last year’s opener was Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears and it happened to be Dario’s Birthday. So Colin led the crowd in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday. And during the film, the fire alarm went off! Rather than streaming out of the theater like Midnight Maniacs everyone stayed firmly in place. Mainly because most of us thought it was part of the score. Eventually someone yelled “TURN...

(more...)
• Comments (2)
August 26, 2021
Noah Cowan: The Father of Midnight Madness Speaks!
Posted By Jeff Wright At 7:39 PM
File under: Memories
The Midnight Madness program was started and programed by Noah Cowan in 1988.  Cowan programed Midnight Madness until 1997 when he brought aboard current MM programmer Colin Geddes to co-program and then take over the program the next year.  Cowan climbed the TIFF ladder to the position of co-director, and as of this year is now the artistic director of the Bell Lightbox.   I excitedly asked Noah some questions about the origins of Midnight Madness, its growth, his favourite MM memories, AND MORE.  Check out the interview below.   JW = Jeff Wright NC = Noah Cowan ...

(more...)
• Comments (2)
August 25, 2021
Top Ten Midnight Madness Moments of ALL TIME! (Part 1)
Posted By Sanjay Rajput At 7:00 PM
File under: Memories
If you're reading this then the server hasn't crashed as millions of film fans furiously attempt to access this stellar blog post... Or the schedule just went live. What follows is part 1 of the top 10 Midnight Madness moments in the history of time. Unless someone comments otherwise, consider this list DEFINITIVE (Yeah, that’s a challenge folks, the gauntlet has been thrown!) Part 2 will follow soon... 10. Andrew Howard creeps himself out. About 3 minutes into the Q&A for last year’s The Devil’s Chair the star/villain assumed a squatting position...

(more...)
• Comments (5)
August 21, 2021
THE GREAT PSYCHO OF THEM ALL!: Thrill, Speed, and Stupid Zombies.
Posted By Jeff Wright At 8:48 AM
File under: Memories
For my money, the best Midnight Madness screening happened in the Uptown 1 on September 16th, 2000.  Note: Any date that I write in my blog posts will have been researched.  I’m not the rain man of Midnight Madness.  I didn’t know much about the film in advance.  I knew that it was a Japanese film by a first time director with a background in music videos.  I knew it featured a rock band called Guitar...

(more...)
• Comments (1)
August 18, 2021
What's the big deal about Tony Jaa?
Posted By Sanjay Rajput At 11:59 PM
File under: Memories
            Some of you might be wondering what all the fuss over Tony Jaa is about so let’s set the wayback machine to 2003 shall we. It was Friday, September 6th and my buddy and I had just seen 5 stellar films: Matchstick Men, Zatoichi, I Love Your Work, Alien, Bright Future and the last film of the day was Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior. We were pretty fried but Colin got everyone pumped up and set the bar pretty high by claiming that Tony Jaa was going to make Jet Li & Jackie Chan look like...

(more...)
• Comments (1)
September 25, 2021
FRONTIERE(S) X 3!!!!!!
Posted By Colin Geddes At 4:50 PM
File under: Memories
Here are the vids for the intro & Q&A of the world premiere screening of Xavier Gens FRONTIERE(S) and also the Q&A for the second non-midnight time slot screening. We love

(more...)
• Comments (0)
September 13, 2021
The Devil's Chair is really about neither the devil nor a chair, discuss.
Posted By Shane McNeil At 12:09 PM
File under: Memories
So, here's a quick rundown on The Devil's Chair screening last night. 10 Things we've learned from The Devil's Chair: 10. It's funny to make fun of the Lord of the Rings:  not so much because it's cool, but because it makes you think of people that really think the movies are. 9. Anyone named Rachel probably didn't get much sleep last night. 8. Q&A, presence is necessary... standing, optional. 7. In horror movies, the blonde is always infinitely more trustworthy than the sluttier brunette. 6. Garbage bags, even those containing the mangled souls of the damned,...

(more...)
• Comments (4)

If we had ever actually run a contest...
Posted By Shane McNeil At 11:21 AM
File under: Memories
...This video surely would have won. Sheleigh Bober got wicked creative with us and not only made sure the song "George Romero" by the Sprites was heard at this year's Midnight Madness, but took it a step further and actually made it the soundtrack to a short film about their own trip to the Diary of the Dead screening. We'll find a way to reward you for your hard work, somehow. For now, here's an imaginary gold star.  Way to

(more...)
• Comments (0)
September 11, 2021
Diary of a Photo Montage
Posted By Shane McNeil At 9:27 AM
File under: Memories
You guys are really outdoing yourselves. Thanks for all the photos, videos and presents you guys are sending us.  We're doing our best to get as much of it up as possible.  The above clever montage from the Diary of the Dead premiere comes to us courtesy of Sarah Gopaul. We'll keep posting these things as we get them, so shoot our proverbial zombie heads off with your camera shotguns as much as you possibly can. Pictures below are courtesy of Mark McAlpine, Jesse Hill and Salar Madadi repectively.                   ...

(more...)
• Comments (0)
September 8, 2021
Read it in the Papers
Posted By Shane McNeil At 2:45 PM
File under: Memories
Well, it seems like everyone loves us today.  Both the National Post and the Toronto Star ran nice, long, features on the history and development of Midnight Madness after 20 years with TIFF. Both articles entertain for different reasons, so be sure to give both a look.  The Post works like more of a history of the program and comes from lots of perspectives, giving tonnes of perspectives on all the elements that make our midnights mad.  Everything from joint smoking and fireworks outside...

(more...)
• Comments (0)
July 23, 2021
Get ready for the Madness!
Posted By Colin Geddes At 1:09 AM
File under: Memories, Picks
Get ready to pop some caffeine pills and call in sick for the next ten days of work because the Midnight Madness, the popular and iconoclastic film series at the Toronto International Film Festival, is around the corner! This year marks twentieth anniversary of Midnight Madness. No big cakes or candles for us though, we prefer to rip it up on a more auspicious date, maybe our 21st, just to keep folks on their toes… However, we still plan to celebrate by planting a few speed bumps on...

(more...)
• Comments (7)