Stitched Illustrations

You’ve really got to check out Peter Crawley‘s stitched illustration series. They are exactly what they sound like; he illustrates line drawings by stitching with thread. He has quite a body of work on his site and its well worth...

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010: Black Death

I’ve got to admit, I thought I was in for something completely different when I walked into Christopher Smith’s Black Death. I was originally pumped for this film because I’m a huge fan of his other horror effort, Severance, which is one of the best blends of horror and comedy I’ve seen. Black Death, however, is as dark as the title suggests. There are short moments of levity but by and...

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010: The Last Exorcism

First things first – whoever put together the trailer for the Eli Roth-produced exorcism tale, The Last Exorcism needs to get their head straight. Whether painting the film as a scare-a-minute Exorcist retread was the work of a promo team or was the result of an overzealous studio, let me assure you – THEY’RE DOING IT WRONG. The Last Exorcism is a very different kind of exorcism tale than the...

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010: High School

In what’s surely to be one of the most out-of-left-field movies in a festival that resides squarely in the left field, High School brings together a bizarre, very eclectic cast and a screenplay that should be framed on your dealer’s wall.

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010: The Last Lovecraft, Relic of Cthuhlu

The Last Lovecraft is a tough movie to review - on one hand, it seems to have been shot on a budget of about $75 (with $74 reserved for visual effects). Director Henry Saine has devised a tale that will positively infuriate fans of H.P. Lovecraft’s work, transforming Lovecraft’s mythical octopoid alien god Cthuhlu into a badly-rendered tentacle-laden blob (that is, when you finally do see it). On the other hand, the film is quite enjoyable to watch and is, at least, somewhat self-aware. Saine chooses to direct the humour at the characters, rather than the Cthuhlu mythos or Lovecraft himself, and this works at least half the time.