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Locations: Bloor Cinema and Annex Wreck Room Toronto After Dark is a film festival showing horror films from around the world. There are horror fans who actually line up to view them and get scared. Based on some of the sold out screenings such as "Let the Right One In" and "Repo the Genetic Opera", and how even those with pre-sold VIP Passes were turned away, the horror film has come a long way. There are box office hits such as The Exorcist, The Omen, The Shining, Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th, Blair Witch Project and old Hitchcock movies, etc. from Hollywood but now even foreign subtitled independent small-budget horror films are getting line-ups and rave reviews! Why do people want to watch and get scared? It does not make sense why people are attracted or is it repulsed by horror that they would pay to see one. If any of those horror movies became real life experiences for the viewers, most would be running away from them not towards them. Who wants to see vampires, zombies, murder and blood, ghosts, violent psychos, possessed children, monsters, in reality? No one. Yet in a film, people seem to be entranced or mesmerized by these creatures and horrible incidents. The Halloween month of October is an appropriate month to host this festival so people can dress up in either a horrid ugly costume or one of beauty and fantasy. The Zombie Walk held at Trinity Bellwoods had many young adults dressed in tattered or strange costumes with white pan makeup and blood smeared on their faces while walking around downtown and heading for the park grounds. They walked around the grass and trees while still photo and video cameras shot snaps and footage of them for publicity. They then proceeded to Bloor Cinema to watch a double feature from the Toronto After Dark festival. Subcultures such as this somehow blend in with the Canadian mainstream culture which is tolerant and even encourages imagination and play-acting of characters. Millions of dollars fund festivals to promote imagination and cultural celebration. It is part of human nature to have both practical and fantasy blended in. Films are the best expression of this mixing of fantasy with reality. Our 5 physical senses: taste through our tongues, sight through our eyes, smell our noses, sound through ears, touch through hands and skin contact keep us realistic but the 6th sense brings in the mysterious, the invisible, the unknown... Perhaps horror movies make our hearts pound faster and our 6th sense sharper, albeit filtered through our limited 5 senses. We are curious about what we do not know nor understand and so to find out more, some go searching for answers about the after-life. Horror movies make us fear what comes after death yet because we have souls which are harmless, we can watch fearlessly. Some of the sold out films are now playing in the other theaters after their premiere screen in the festival. Now the mainstream general public can watch what horror fans have seen in advance. When we are born and when we die, we will then know what we only speculated on while alive. Those who walk around Toronto after dark has fallen may then step out to catch one of this festival's films and explore the unknown safely in a theater, until death can provide the answers of the after-life, which keeps our souls searching.
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