Movies
‘Ichi The Killer’ 4K Hits Toronto As Part of KinoVortex Film Series!
After having a Premiere in the city back in 2001, Ichi The Killer returns to Toronto in 4K format this weekend for the start of a new monthly film screening! Get ready to feel the bite of KinoVortex from Colin Geddes. The Shudder curator returns to his Midnight Madness roots for a season of films at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Following Ichi (Feb 3rd 9PM) will be Mon Mon Mon Monsters (March 10, 10PM) and The Great Silence – Restored Digital Presentation (Saturday April 14, 9PM).
Wrap your eyeballs around the trailer for the series and RSVP here.
Saturday, February 3 @ 9pm Ichi the Killer. In the wake of Takashi Miike’s 100th film, Blade of the Immortal, we revisit one of the wildly prolific director’s most notorious works. After a yakuza boss disappears, his soldiers start carving a bloody path through the underworld to find out who was responsible. Headed by the grotesque, torture-loving jester Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), the investigation points to a reputedly unstoppable killing machine named Ichi. It goes without saying that this hide-your-eyes endurance test is not for the squeamish: TIFF thoughtfully dispensed vomit bags to the first-night audience when Ichi premiered at Midnight Madness in 2001.
Saturday, March 10 @ 10pm Mon Mon Mon Monsters – Toronto Premiere Looking for acceptance, a wimpy high-schooler is drawn into a group of handsome but borderline-sociopathic boys who constantly berate and abuse him. While “helping” seniors in a rundown tenement building, the troublemaking teens and their reluctant tagalong encounter a ravenous she-monster that has been preying on vagrants. Combining moral complexity with show-stopping scenes of bloodshed, the sophomore feature by Taiwanese director Giddens Ko will have you rooting for the sharp-toothed beasts over any of the human characters.
Saturday, April 14 @ 9pm The Great Silence Restored Digital Presentation! This astonishingly transgressive spaghetti western from director Sergio Corbucci (Django) stars Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist, Amour) and gonzo Herzog muse Klaus Kinski, with a score by Ennio Morricone. During Utah’s Great Blizzard of 1899, a greedy land developer hires a group of ruthless bounty hunters, led by “Loco” (Kinski), to kill Mormon settlers in the mountains. The widow of one of the men hires a mute gunslinger known only as “Silence” (Trintignant) to exact vengeance on the killers. Soon, rivers of blood will stain the snow, en route to one of the most stunning endings in genre history.
We learned earlier this week that “Hannibal” creator Bryan Fuller is no longer the showrunner of A24 and Peacock’s Friday the 13th TV series “Crystal Lake,” with A24 choosing to “go a different way with the material.” What does that mean? It means A24 is still planning on bringing a Friday the 13th series to life, but the overall vision will likely change.
Kevin Williamson (Scream, Sick) had been on board to write an episode of the “Crystal Lake” series, and Williamson took to Twitter today to tease some of those original plans.
Williamson writes, “Bummin’ hard, so sorry I won’t be a part of what would have been an epic Bryan Fuller show. Your pilot was so beautifully realized. A gorgeous portrait of a mother unraveling in her grief. Not to mention bloody horrific!”
He adds, “I was so looking forward to our hour long chase episode!“
Kevin Williamson is of course known for writing incredible slasher movie chase sequences, including the ones seen in the original Scream and Scream 2, as well as I Know What You Did Last Summer and last year’s Sick. It’s hard not to imagine how cool an hour-long Friday the 13th chase episode could be in Williamson’s hands, but alas, it’s not happening anymore.
The silver lining? Williamson is directing the next installment in the Scream franchise.
The director of Cube, Splice and several episodes of “Hannibal,” Vincenzo Natali also took to Twitter this weekend to give us a taste of the “Crystal Lake” series we’ll never see.
Natali tweets, “I have read the first two episodes. Bryan Fuller’s Crystal Lake was well on its way to becoming another Hannibal-level reinvention that was simultaneously beautiful, sad, poetic, funny and horrifying. I mourn its passing.”
A24 and Peacock are now searching for a new showrunner for the series. Stay tuned.
Peacock had given the project a straight-to-series order in 2022, with “Crystal Lake” being described as an “expanded prequel” to the original Friday the 13th franchise featuring both Jason Voorhees and his mother, Pamela Voorhees. Original Friday the 13th final girl Adrienne King had even signed on for a recurring role in the planned A24 television series.
Bummin’ hard, so sorry I won’t be a part of what would have been an epic Bryan Fuller show. Your pilot was so beautifully realized. A gorgeous portait of a mother unraveling in her grief. Not to mention bloody horrific! I was so looking forward to our hour long chase episode!
— Kevin Williamson (@kevwilliamson) May 11, 2024
I have read the first two episodes. @BryanFuller’s Crystal Lake was well on its way to becoming another Hannibal-level reinvention that was simultaneously beautiful, sad, poetic, funny and horrifying. I mourn its passing. https://t.co/ob0kF4MQHM
— Vincenzo Natali (@Vincenzo_Natali) May 11, 2024
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