FEBRUARY: Director Profile: 5 Questions for Oz Perkins

Premiering at TIFF tonight, February tells the story of three young girls who are intertwined by a dark, malevolent spirit that is plaguing them. Kat (Kiernan Shipka) is a quiet young girl who has been left at her prep school because her parents mysteriously never showed up, but she makes due by trying to befriend the elusive (and good-smellin') Rose (Lucy Boynton). Far away is Joan (Emma Roberts) who commences a blood soaked voyage to the school, with her motives unclear to the audience until the very end.

February is the debut feature for writer-director Oz Perkins, who although has never sat in the director's chair before, is no stranger to the film industry, working as a writer, actor and editor on several different pieces. I got the chance to chat with him about horror, movies and writing horror movies. (It's really all that I ever concern myself with.)

Richelle Charkot: What attracts you to horror? 

Oz Perkins: The dark glamour; the raw emotion. The fact that horror is all about that which is hidden from us which is far more interesting to me than all that we can see and know and understand. 

RC: What were some of the challenges with shooting February?

OP: It was extremely cold, with a two week prep. 

RC: Who are some of your favourite creepy girls in horror movies? 

OP: Sissy Spacek in Carrie, Eli from Let the Right One In and Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion.

RC: If you were in charge of a late night double-feature at a theatre, what two movies would you play?

OP: Eraserhead and Don't Look Now. 

RC: Can you name some films that first attracted you to the idea of writing and directing a horror film?

OP: The Shining, Let the Right One In, Don't Look Now, Rosemary's Baby, The Strangers, Psycho, Repulsion.

FEBRUARY screening times:

Monday, Sept. 14th, 6:45 PM SCOTIABANK 9
Friday, Sept. 18th, 6:45 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

ROOM 237: Final Screening!

If you weren't able to make it to the earlier screenings of Room 237, there's one more left. And what better way to spend lunch time than by delving into the manic conspiracy theories based on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. This documentary is truly compelling and will have you shaking your head at some of the more "out there" ideas. Our personal favourite is The Window. (The window! The window! It's practically a character in itself! The windowwwww!) And don't worry if you haven't seen The Shining in a while--this author still hasn't seen it at all (ugh, totally unacceptable, right?), but she's seen Room 237 twice now and has enjoyed every crazed moment of it.

ROOM 237  Sun., Sept. 16th, 12:00 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 3

ROOM 237: Decrypting The Shining

Those bookshelves are filled with theories about The Shining. Okay, not really.

You were probably scared the first time you watched Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. (If not, then what's wrong with you?) Or maybe, like me, you read Stephen King's book first, couldn't sleep with the lights off for weeks, and THEN watched the movie, but you were still scared.

But how many times have you watched The Shining? Enough to think that it is a parable for Nazi Germany? Native genocide? Kubrick's admission that he helped fake the moon landing? (That last one kills me.)

The Associated Press has a nice article on Room 237, the documentary which exposes the various conspiracy theories about The Shining. And whaddya know, Room 237 is playing at the Toronto International Film Festival!

As for all the theories about The Shining, Room 237 producer Tim Kirk says, "I'm really confused about it at this point."

Luckily, you don't have to be confused. Check out one of the screenings of Room 237 at the Festival. Feel free to share your own theories in the comments. Or share Calumet recipes (you'll have to read the AP article to understand that reference, though).

In the meantime, f you want to see even more artistic interpretations of The Shining, check out The Overlook Hotel. You know they say all work and no play. . . oh, you know.

ROOM 237 Screening Times:
Thurs., Sept. 13th, 6:00 PM BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Sat., Sept. 15th, 5:45 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 2
Sun., Sept. 16th, 12:00 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 3

ROOM 237 Premieres Tonight!

Rodney Ascher's Room 237 premieres tonight at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema at 6:00 PM. Head over to our previous post to see the film's trailer and poster.

Tickets can be purchased:

• ONLINE: TIFF.net/thefestival
• BY PHONE: 416.599.TIFF or 1.888.599.8433 (Toll-free) 
• IN PERSON
• Festival Box Office; 225 King St. West
• Bloor Hot Docs Cinema Box Office; 506 Bloor Street West

Further information about Rodney Ascher's Room 237 can be found on the Festival website, as well as on the Room 237 website, Twitter account, and IMDB page.

ROOM 237 screening times:

• Thurs., Sept. 13, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 6:00 PM 
• Sat., Sept. 15, Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 2 5:45 PM 
• Sun., Sept. 16, TIFF Bell Lightbox 3 12:00 PM

ROOM 237: Review

I'll start with a confession. I hadn't actually watched Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining until about two years ago. There were lots of reasons, the main of which was that I was never a real fan of "horror" films. After seeing it, of course, I discovered that The Shining is not the slasher film that I'd anticipated (and feared). Instead, it's a dense and moody psychological thriller, and the type of film that I actually love. That being said, I may have only seen the film twice in my life.

Which makes me completely different from the motley band of nutjobs and conspiracy theorists who populate Rodney Ascher's creepy Room 237, each of whom has probably watched the film on slo-mo dozens of times. From the man with the relatively mild theory that the film is really all about the extermination of America's indigenous population to the guy who's convinced that The Shining is Kubrick's cryptic confession to filming the faked Apollo moon landings in a studio, Ascher's "subjective documentary" turns out be at least as scary as watching Kubrick's film itself.

Ascher wisely chooses to allow his "theorists" to only be heard in voiceover and never seen. Instead, he uses visuals from The Shining and many other films, including almost all of Kubrick's other work. The result is deeply unsettling, especially when combined with a rather sinister score. While the various theories can often provoke guffaws of disbelief, the relentless accounting of the film's eccentricities has an alienating effect that reinforces how weird The Shining really is.

For instance, while not convinced by one of the commentator's convoluted geography of the hotel's floor plan, I did become convinced that Kubrick may have purposely messed with the audience's spatial awareness simply to heighten our sense of unease.

What Ascher's film demonstrates most ably is the limits of auteur theory when taken to its absolute irrational end. Each of these people is convinced that not only was Kubrick aware of every tiny detail they tease out of the film, but that he alone was the visionary behind each choice. I'm aware that Kubrick may have been a bit of a control freak, but I'd be very surprised if every decision of the cinematographer, editor, production designer and even the actors sprung from the mind of the director.

In the end, while we may come out of Room 237 laughing at these "crackpots," I'm convinced that for many of us, our next viewing of The Shining will be a lot more terrifying.

ROOM 237 screening times:

• Thurs., Sept. 13, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 6:00 PM
• Sat., Sept. 15, Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 2 5:45 PM
• Sun., Sept. 16, TIFF Bell Lightbox 3 12:00 PM

ROOM 237 Poster

Room 237 is a "strange, gripping and enchanting" film, says New York Magazine; "A documentary that’s not so much about the theories themselves but about the way we like to obsess over great films." Following its world and European premieres in Sundance and Cannes, respectively, Rodney Ascher's Room 237 will bring some of the most obsessive cinephiles to the Festival as they detail their conspiracy theories about the hidden messages within Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

Below is the poster for Room 237, which plays this year's Toronto International Film Festival within the Vanguard programme.

Further information about Rodney Ascher's Room 237 can be found on the Festival website, as well as on the Room 237 website, Twitter account, and IMDB page.

ROOM 237 screening times:

• Thurs., Sept. 13, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 6:00 PM 
• Sat., Sept. 15, Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 2 5:45 PM 
• Sun., Sept. 16, TIFF Bell Lightbox 3 12:00 PM