Day 7: I Heart a Good Scare

With Halloween well over a month away, audiences hungry for the gory and the ghoulish turn to TIFF’s Midnight Madness to tide them over till October when the nation’s theatre’s are taken over by fright night flicks. And while the dramatization of spilled blood in a Midnight Madness film is about as revolutionary as spilled tears in a British period drama, this year director Ed Sanchez (best know as the co-director of The Blair Witch Project) gifts the festival with the psychological drama Lovely Molly, a film that revitalizes the genre with a fresh take on first person horror, just as The Blair Witch Project did before it. “I wanted to make something that lingered,” says Sanchez of Lovely Molly, and linger — the uncertain terror — does. To kick off their festival, Sanchez, along with cast and crew including leads Alexandra Holden, Gretchen Lodge and Johnny Lewis gathered for an intimate pre-screening cocktail reception at Malena restaurant in Yorkville. Seeming to be totally relaxed as he joined in the many toasts for the film that evening, the director admits to having pre-screening jitters, saying “I would have more fun if it wasn’t my party.” Gauging from the excited and satisfied gasps of the audience at the premiere that night, Sanchez has once again proven himself the horror genre’s cowboy director, inventing the rules as he goes — injecting fear all the way.
Tip of the day: Always bring flats in your bag when going to a party, suggests Lovely Molly star Alexandra Holden as she changes into a pair herself while at the cocktail party.