Zombie Short Film Festival

A lot of you seem to think that selling advanced tickets to our screening is a good idea.  We agee!

You can purchase advanced tickets right here, on our website for $12.50 (CAD).  Or you can wait and purchase them at the door for $15.

The Revue Cinema doesn’t have an advanced ticket buying system, so we’re going to do it ourselves, right here on our website, using our Paypal button.

After you’ve purchased your ticket, please send us an email to let us know your name, so we can put you on our list.

Thanks, and see you at the festival!

Well folks, we’re two weeks away from the big night, and we’ve gone through each and every submission.  It was an incredible crop of films for our first festival, from cities around the world.  We’d like to thank everyone who took the time to send us their zombie shorts.  It was a very difficult process, with a lot of hemming and hawing…but we’ve narrowed the field down to ten finalists!  Here they are below in no particular order:

1.  Keg of the Dead:  Jim Dirschberger & Paul Schilens

2.  The Zombie:  April Campbell (featuring Randy Smith)

3.  Deadspiel:  Pat Corcoran & Jay Molloy

4.  The Skin of Your Teeth:  Dan Gingold

5.  They Shall Pay With Rivers of Blood:  Travis Hopkins, Matthew Badiali, and Kristina Anstiss

6.  The Lift:  Mark McCarthy, Fintan Karney

7.  ZZZZOMBIES:  David King

8.  Housewarming:  Lee Marquardt

9.  ZOMBEER:  Marjan Westbrock

10. Bum of the Dead:  Geoff Whitman, Trevor Townsend, Connie Daye, and Rich Bisquera

These are the ten films that we will be featuring on the night of our screening.  And our jury’s just gettin’ started!  From these ten, they will select a top three.  Then it will be up to our audience to choose (by applause) the very first winner of $500 and the coveted Zomb D’or!

Best of luck to all our finalists.  And thank you to everyone who submitted!

The submissions are in, and they’re fantastic!  Now it’s time to introduce our esteemed jury members who will be watching each film and judging which one will be worthy of the coveted Z’omb D’or!

Rob Sacchetto

Rob Sacchetto been a freelance artist for almost 25 years. He is the Original Zombie Portraits artist behind www.zombieportraits.com. To date he has done over 640 paintings worldwide, since launching his site in Nov ‘06..He also has an online sketchbook, with a new illustration and painting posted daily: www.zombiedaily.com which includes podcasts and tutorials for zombie illustrations. The site now features over 400 original drawings.  Last year, he wrote and illustrated The Zombie Handbook: How to identify the living dead and survive the coming zombie apocalypse (pub. Ulysses Press, Berkely, CA)which features some 250 illustrations.  The book is being distributed throughout North America. He has recently signed a contract for a second zombie themed illustrated book due out next summer.

Mike “Nug” Nahrgang

Nug is very happy to be judging you all… the audience as well as the films.  Nug was most recently seen as “Good Ol’ Reliable Jake” in Evil Dead: The Musical, as well as in the horror films Cube:Zero and Men With Brooms. Currently, Nug hosts SHOWGAME!, a live game show which runs monthly at The Rivoli.  He hopes that these films don’t give him nightmares, but knows better.

Alyson Court

Alyson is a Canadian stage, screen, and voice actress living and working in Toronto.  She is the voice of Claire Redfield in the Resident Evil video game series, as well as the CG animation movie Resident Evil:  Degeneration. She will soon reprise her role as Claire Redfield in the upcoming Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii.

A huge thank you to our jury members for voluteering their time and energy to our festival.  Stay tuned!  Our finalists will be announced soon!

You can’t swing a chainsaw in Toronto without hitting a zombie, or zombie-related event!

In addition to our beloved little short film festival, fans of zombie lore can get more than their fill of undead flesh during the month of October.  Before making your way to the Revue Cinema, on Oct. 30, you might want whet your ghoulish appetite at the following events.

The Toronto Zombie Walk

The seventh annual Toronto Zombie Walk will be taking place on Saturday, October 24, at 3:00 PM.

This is your chance to dress in your favorite fiendish finery, slap on some stage blood, and shamble down the street with your fellow deadheads.  Last year’s attendance topped 3000 zombies!  Let’s try to break the record!

For more information on the Toronto Zombie Walk, check out their website:

www.torontozombiewalk.ca

Halloween Screening & Double Bill

On Thursday, October 29, head down to the Royal Cinema (608 College St. West) for a double bill of two fascinating and spooky documentaries.

The first film, The Houdini Code, is not about zombies, but it does deal with a subject from beyond the grave.  When Harry Houdini died, in 1926, he was determined to try to send a message through to his wife from the other side of the mortal plane.  Did he succeed?  Watch the film, and find out for yourself.

The second film, Zombies: When the Dead Walk deals with zombies, their place in the culture of Haiti, the practice of Voodoo, and the famous case of Clairvius Narcisse: the Haitian man who died and was buried in 1962…only to resurface again in 1980.  This film also follows the work of Wade Davis and his investigations into the mysterious “zombie poison” of Haiti.  Remember the Wes Craven film The Serpent and the Rainbow.  Well that movie was based on Davis’ work.

Compelling stuff.

Show time for the double bill is 7:00.  If you’d like to see the trailer for Zombies: When the Dead Walk, click here.

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And speaking of movies, Hollywood has, once again, delved into the world of the undead with the release of Zombieland, which can be seen in theatres worldwide.  The folks at Sony Pictures were kind enough to donate some swag to our festival to commemorate the release of this film, so keep your heads up during our screening.  There might be a t-shirt or ball cap flying your way!

Today was the last day for submissions, and I have to say, we’ve got some seriously great short films to screen!  Stay tuned for more information, including bios of our esteemed jury, in the next couple of days.