Halloween month of October 2019 was more fun than expected for many Torontonians.
Thousands attended The Toronto After Dark Film Festival that at the Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Toronto from Oct. 17 to Oct. 25.
Twenty horror, sci-fi and action films — both short and feature length —were offered over nine nights for all types of audiences at the festival.
“I’m always interested in horror movies, but having so many related genres available is what really caught my attention and brought me to the festival,” said film fan Manuel De la Peña on attending the Toronto After Dark Film Festival for the second year in a row.
Alex Lopez, founder and director of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, said he’s very happy over having the festival enter its 14th year.
“This is our seventh year here at Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Toronto — we made it our home,” Lopez said.
The audience did not have to worry about variety as they had access to at least two different films every night.
If they were looking for a zombie film, The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale was one of the most popular preferences at the festival. However, if they only wanted to hear some screams to prepare them for Halloween, The Wretched was the best option to choose. It won the festival’s “Most Scary” film award, chosen by the audience.
The Toronto After Dark Film Festival had six local feature films for the first time — all produced in Canada, and some specifically in Ontario.
“It’s been great to see more local filmmaker perform at the international stage.” Lopez said.
The festival has tried to include more female filmmakers over the years .
Alex Lopez said that for them it is very important to include the female voice at the festival.
“The last couple of years we’re happy to say we had at least one female feature filmmaker, we’d like to see more,” he said.
Some films at Toronto After Dark Film Festival have no other distribution. They’re independently released or produced films and the Scotiabank Theatre was the main place where people from Toronto could watch them.
Regular tickets at the festival were $14, and all-access passes were available for $159, so people could have an all-week experience at $8 per film.
The festival also invited its audience to The Office Pub, which is located just five minutes away from the movie theatre on John Street. At the pub, people could share their insights about the films and perhaps make some new film fan friends.
The festival was founded on 2006, and it’s coming back next October 2020 for its 15th edition, so film fans in Toronto, be ready to have a really dark and great experience.