TIFF Q&A: Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky on replicating the madness at home, and answering our Get The Hell Out review
By Thom Ernst
Prior to the festival, I was asked—as is most everyone attending the festival whether journalist or patron—to select my top three most anticipated films.
The task is not so simple. Not because there are so many films to choose from—although, there are, even in this year’s reduced selection—but because the films I inevitably look forward to are Midnight Madness films. But unless you’re Chris Alexander (ex-editor-in-chief of Fangoria) or Kelly Michael Stewart (Blood in the Snow festival founder), you’re unlikely to limit your choices to genre films no matter how strong the temptation.
A scene from the TIFF Midnight Madness movie Get The Hell Out.
Sure, the artistic and cultural relevance Midnight Madness movies may or may not have can vary from the ridiculous to the subversive. But there is no experience that can match the energy of a revved-up Midnight Madness crowd, a community of passionate weirdos like me, stoked for the bizarre, outrageous and extreme. It’s at Midnight Madness screenings that I have the most fun.
But can the madness movies, without the midnight crowd (or at least with a drastically revised version of the madness crowd), inspire the kind of wild-ride insanity I’ve experienced over the past 30 years of covering the festival?
To answer, I sent off a few brief questions to Midnight Madness programmer, Peter Kuplowsky. Peter took no time in getting back to me. Peter sets the record straight, setting aside my fears, and, in one case, makes a damn good argument for a film that just left me tired and baffled.
ORIGINAL-CIN: I imagine you being driven close to madness yourself, having to drastically limit the number of films you invite. How did you feel about the selection process this year?
PETER KUPLOWSKY: “It was a little intimidating, especially as it's important for me to assemble a lineup that captures transgressive and genre cinema from across the globe.
Peter Kuplowsky
“I always start from a massive tracking list of over 300 titles. And it's a bit like sculpting, where I am constantly edging out candidates from the final lineup, until I arrive at the final selection.
“Given the reduction, it did get a little more agonizing, but I always erred on the side of ensuring that what I would select would offer a unique experience. One of the most important qualities for me in a Midnight film is the element of surprise and unpredictability. I want these films to rattle an audience's sensibilities, to upset their expectations and forge new directions.
“As I described the section at a screening last year, Midnight Madness is not about checking boxes, it's adding new ones.”
OC: Without the midnight crowds and the MM party atmosphere, will MM be able to uphold its reputation as TIFF’s wild child?
KUPLOWSKY: “I am certainly injecting my introductions with the same enthusiasm and theatrical flair, whether it's a socially distanced crowd, a row of cars, or an online audience.
“For the drive-in premiere of Shadow In The Cloud (I addressed) the crowd in a flight-suit (complete with aviator goggles), and I heard word of a creature stalking the drive-in late at night. So, I think audiences still expect an unconventional festival experience.
“Also, for at least two of the pre-recorded Q&As, I've staged some surprise guests that I think bring a certain Midnight spontaneity to those proceedings.
“Furthermore, the movies are certainly unhinged in their own right, albeit in distinct ways. So, while I do think some would have been especially fun to watch in a crowd, I do think they still shake, rattle and roll the audience watching at home.
“Also, I've already heard reports of those watching at home shouting like pirates during the sponsor pre-roll, so the rituals live on.”
OC: I have seen (the Taiwanese zombie film) Get The Hell Out and am baffled – actually, baffled and exhausted by the film. With such few films to select, what about this film grabbed your favour?
KUPLOWSKY: “It was hard to resist how much the film inadvertently, but eerily reflects our contemporary reality. And I also very much appreciated how it recalled an old-school Midnight Madness sensibility reminiscent of Alex Winter's Freaked, or Tetsuro Takeuchi's Guitar Wolf, both alumni that are propelled on an infectious chaotic ingenuity.
“Its political dimension has all the subtlety of a Scanners-style head-explosion. But I found its deployment of a zombie premise against the backdrop of Taiwanese parliamentary brawls to be both clever and an original source of slapstick spectacle. I relished how committed the zombie extras were to throwing themselves around the frame.
“It's such a dense camp and it moves at the speed of a social media chat thread. But I observed a lot of intelligence under its irreverence and self-aware silliness. It's far less random than it appears and much of it can be traced to uniquely Taiwanese cultural and political references
“Finally, I am a big fan of whenever a first-time feature filmmaker takes such a big swing. And I.-Fan Wang's form and style really impressed me here. It recalled early Sion Sono (another Midnight Madness institution), Edgar Wright of course, and Stephen Chow.
“When I caught up with his short film Temple of Devilbuster, it only solidified that despite Get The Hell Out’s amusingly puerile humour, this was a filmmaker with serious formal intelligence.
“I think the film's War History Gallery brawl is one of the year's most accomplished action sequences, particularly for its inspired implementation of wrestling moves in its manic choreography. I think the moment where two characters exchanged a bloody high-five, that weaponized their palms into zombie-killing weapons, was when I was pretty sure I wanted to share this with Midnighters in September.”
(Postscript from Thom Ernst: Some rituals deserve to die out, like the pirate arghh during the sponsor reel. Although, putting that in print is bound to fuel the determination of those who love it.)