Local film embarks on a world tour
Feature-length ‘chiller’ was four years in the making
The Three Dead Trick or Treaters World Tour comes to downtown Kitchener’s Apollo Cinema this coming Thursday, Oct. 19. The doors open at 6:45 p.m.; the show starts at 7 p.m. sharp.
This is a rare example of a news story firmly rooted in the local arts scene that also has a global dimension.
The moving force here is a young Kitchener artist named Torin Langen. He’s the writer, producer, cinematographer and coproducer of “Three Dead Trick or Treaters,” a feature-length anthology film that was four years in the making.
Langen specializes in darker themes in what is normally called the horror genre.
In this case, he prefers the term “chiller.”
“Three Dead Trick or Treaters” is a “fragmented folk chiller.” It tells “five grisly stories”: A smalltown paper boy stumbles upon the graves of three murdered trick or treaters. Tacked to the headstones, he finds a series of handwritten stories that “chronicle grisly tales of Halloween rites, rituals and traditions.”
The stories are told in a manner that Langen describes as is primarily “atmospheric.” There is no dialogue, so it can be categorized as a silent film.
Sound, however, is a critical component — the sound design as well as the musical score, which features original music by Stephen Schooley, a WLU Music graduate interested in creating music for film, television, video games and other media.
The film premièred last November at the Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival in Toronto, where it won the award for best soundtrack.
Since then, Langen has been incessantly at work trying to get his work shown to audiences. He started in the usual way, with entries to film festivals. Then, following leads from online information sources, he started sending out what eventually became hundreds of inquiries about screening possibilities.
The end result has exceeded all his expectations: It is no exaggeration to call it a World Tour.
The Kitchener screening is one of almost 40 happening this fall in venues near and far. They include not only full-fledged independent movie theatres like the Apollo, but also art galleries, cafés, bars, live music venues and places called “microcinemas.”
The tour began in September with the U.S. premier at the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival in San Diego. The tour wraps up at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival on the weekend of Nov. 10 to 12.
In between, “Three Dead Trick or Treaters” is being shown in major centres like Montreal, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., as well as more obscure places such as Ottumwa, Iowa; Vandergrift, Pennsylvania; Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Sackville, N.B.
Because there is no dialogue, language isn’t barrier, which allows screenings in China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden and the Netherlands.
When I spoke with Langen this week, he explained that inspiration for all this — the film art as well as the groundbreaking distribution methods — is what he calls the “D.I.Y.” arts and culture scene, especially the underground music community here and in other Ontario locations.
Characteristics include a sense of community and dedication to craft. Along with the highest ambitions in the pursuit of excellence, there’s an amateur spirit in the originally meaning of the word: those four years of work completing “Three Dead Trick or Treaters” represent a genuine labour of love.
Martin de Groot writes about local arts and culture each Saturday. You can reach him by email at mdg131@gmail.com.