Another entry in this year’s Midnight Madness slate, Congolese filmmaker Jean Luc Herbulot’s Saloum is a confident genre mashup. Part Spaghetti Western, part crime thriller, part folk horror, the film packs a potent cocktail of tones within its brisk 84-minute runtime. With tinges of Robert Rodriguez and John Carpenter, coupled with a crackling performance from Yann Gael, Saloum is a lean, breakneck journey into the terrifying unknown and the wildest surprise at TIFF this year. Minor spoilers ahead…

Kicking off TIFF’s documentary slate is Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi’s The Rescue, a deeper look at the daring mission to save 12 children and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand. A film naturally picking up the mantle of the filmmakers’ Oscar-winning Free Solo, it’s a rousing tale of humanity that crescendoes into an unbelievable climax of selfless individuals coming together.

I may be missing the big headliners of TIFF, but that only gives me more time to cover Midnight Madness and the festival’s less splashy titles. My first review roundup from this year’s TIFF includes an alien invasion road trip with Riz Ahmed, Jake Gyllenaal in a remake of a Danish hidden gem, and Naomi Watts in a misguided school shooting thriller. Here are the capsule reviews for Encounter, The Guilty, and Lakewood…

My TIFF 2021 coverage starts here! Kicking off this year’s Midnight Madness slate is Rob Savage’s followup to his 2020 “screenlife” hit, Host. Extrapolating COVID found footage beyond just a Zoom lobby, DASHCAM doubles down on pandemic horror to very mixed results. Ramping up the scope and intricacy - but not the ingenuity - of Host, the film gets wildly uneven mileage out of its grating protagonist and its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink terrors. Minor spoilers ahead…

This marks my second year attending Toronto International Film Festival virtually. And while I won’t be able to access some of the biggest screenings - here’s looking at you, Dune, Last Night in Soho, Spencer, and Power of the Dog - this allows me to cover a wide range of smaller films, and my favorite slate of TIFF: Midnight Madness. Some of my planned coverage includes Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the Danish thriller The Guilty, Jimmy Chin and Chai Vaserhelyi’s cave rescue doc The Rescue, and Rob Savage’s second pandemic-era horror film DASHCAM. All reviews in viewing order…

More Saw and Dead Silence than The Conjuring and Insidious, James Wan’s Malignant takes a gruesome detour from mass appeal horror back into the land of subversive terror. A Frankenstein’s amalgam of giallo, camp, and body horror, Wan’s latest takes pages from Argento, Cronenberg, and even De Palma to deliver the wildest of gory rides. Nothing will really prepare you for the nasty surprises Malignant has in store for you. Minor spoilers ahead…

Junta Yamaguchi’s brilliantly clever Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is my favorite film of Fantasia 2021 so far. A high-concept, single-take masterwork that melds small stakes sci-fi with lighthearted sweetness, it spins intricate gears inside a deceptively simple framework. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes pushes lo-fi, low-budget filmmaking to its absolute limit. Minor spoilers ahead…

A cynical, rage-fueled film carried by its no-holds-barred violence, gore, and depravity, Rob Jabbaz’s The Sadness is the most difficult watch of 2021’s Fantasia Festival. Crossing lines and spilling copious amounts of blood, Jabbaz’s feature-length debut strikes at the heart of our depraved, animal nature. For better or worse, The Sadness is like no zombie movie you’ve seen before. Minor spoilers ahead…

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is as fresh as Marvel has been in years. A moving tragedy about fathers, sons, and the crushing weight of filial expectations, director Daniel Destin Cretton wraps affecting drama within an effortlessly cool superhero origin story. The MCU’s first film with an Asian lead doesn’t disappoint - even with its muddy, CGI soup third act, there’s a voice within Shang-Chi’s kinetic action, and a powerful performance from screen legend Tony Leung as one of the MCU’s best villains. Minor spoilers ahead…

The Night House flips the script on haunted abodes with chilling efficiency. Powered by a singular, wrenching performance from Rebecca Hall, director David Bruckner’s latest explores the spaces between terrifying, grief-fueled dreamscapes. Minor spoilers ahead…

My 2021 Fantasia Festival coverage begins here! Hong Kong action maestro Benny Chan’s final film, Raging Fire, kicks things off with an injection of adrenaline. The tale of two men on opposite sides of the law barreling towards a bloody, knives-out confrontation, Chan’s swan song is a throwback to old-school action cinema - even its rote story and sleepy lead performance can’t stop the barrage of brutal, steel-fisted violence. Minor spoilers ahead…

Once again, I have the privilege of being invited as accredited press to Fantasia Festival, North America’s largest genre film festival. With a larger focus on Asian genre cinema and some eye-popping premieres, this year’s festival will undoubtedly be a cinematic feast. This page will be your portal to my coverage, a full list of all of my Fantasia Festival 2021 film reviews. All reviews in viewing order…

The Suicide Squad is comics legend John Ostrander personified through James Gunn’s brazen sensibilities. Surprising heart wrapped in ultra-violence, it’s the Task Force X I’ve always wanted to see, and it mines incredible fun from being brutally unkind to its “heroes.” Jettisoning the turgid continuity of its 2016 predecessor, The Suicide Squad dispenses with edgelord theatrics and gets straight to the dangerous fun. Minor spoilers ahead…

Nerds of fantasy and Arthurian lore rejoice, David Lowery’s latest film is a sumptuous translation of the anonymous Pearl Poet’s chivalric romance into visual splendor. A medieval epic unlike any other, The Green Knight grapples with the tensions between Christian honor and primordial pagan magic amidst a hero’s journey. Deliberate, visceral, and cerebral, the film rises above its sword and sorcery as true poetry in motion. Minor spoilers ahead…

M. Night Shyamalan revisits the stylings of The Happening with his rapid-aging horror thriller, Old. A labored reach for existential poignancy undone by an absurd, awkward, and alien script, Shyamalan’s latest is a far cry from the halcyon days of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village. Even with some great horror beats, your mileage will depend entirely on just how much you can stomach Shyamalan’s particular brand of unironically stilted messes. Minor spoilers ahead…

Gateway horror icon R.L. Stine’s marginally graduated Goosebumps predecessor is brought to bloody life in Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy. A series of three films -1994, 1978, and 1666 - Fear Street pulls an uneven potpourri of influences together with a familiar aesthetic, but the whole ends up being a surprisingly potent tapestry of terror, perfect for gorehounds and horror neophytes alike. Minor spoilers ahead…

Star power and the best street-level action this side of The Winter Soldier do a lot of the heavy lifting for the long-awaited, long-overdue Black Widow. Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh shine in Natasha Romanoff’s solo outing, but in the wake of Avengers: Endgame, it all feels a little inconsequential and oddly timed; what should be a moving swan song and a passing of the baton instead feels like a fleeting adventure straight out of the MCU’s early days. Nevertheless, Black Widow will delight fans of the character while simultaneously paving a bright future for the mantle. Minor spoilers ahead…

Taking a step back from swing-for-the-fences epics, Pixar’s Luca tells a tale about courage, acceptance, and friendship through a pasta-chomping triathlon. The Italian Riviera comes to rousing life in Disney’s newest animated adventure, celebrating the underdog with joyful performances and playful animation. Where Onward and Soul perhaps bit off a little more than they could chew, Luca lives comfortably in its charming, small-scale journey. Minor spoilers ahead…