Adam Lopez, Beloved Founder of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, Has Passed Away
By Josh Korngut
The horror community is mourning the loss of Adam Lopez, the visionary Founder and longtime Festival Director of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF). Lopez passed away recently after a courageous battle with cancer, a journey he openly shared with his friends and supporters on social media.
In 2006, inspired by his childhood passion for horror, sci-fi, and action movies, Lopez established the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. His goal was to create a platform that celebrated genre films from around the world. Under his leadership, the festival quickly gained recognition, becoming a beloved event for fans and filmmakers alike. By its third edition, screenings were selling out, a testament to Lopez’s dedication and the festival’s growing popularity.
TADFF has become one of the world’s most exciting and vital genre festivals, showcasing titles like Trick R’ Treat, Let the Right One In, and the North American Premiere of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.
In August 2024, due to health challenges, Lopez made the difficult decision to postpone the 18th edition of the festival to October 2025 and announced he was stepping down as Festival Director. He entrusted the festival’s future to his longtime colleague, Peter Kuplowsky, ensuring that the event would continue to thrive in the years to come as its Legacy Director.
Lopez’s openness about his health struggles resonated deeply with the community. He often expressed gratitude for the unwavering support he received, crediting it as a source of strength throughout his battle. His resilience and passion left an indelible mark on the horror film scene in Canada and internationally.
As the Toronto After Dark Film Festival prepares for its return in 2025, Adam Lopez’s legacy will undoubtedly be felt. His vision and dedication have paved the way for countless filmmakers and fans to come together to celebrate genre cinema. The community he nurtured stands as a testament to his enduring impact.
Adam was a loving father, husband, and leader.
The next edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival returns to the city on October 15-19, 2025. It’s an incredible legacy left to us by a true legend of the horror community.
Midsummer Scream 2025 Welcomes Horror Royalty
By Emily Bennett
Midsummer Scream is gearing up for one of its most anticipated editions yet with a guest list and programming slate that promises to thrill horror devotees and comic collectors. Leading the charge at this year’s event is none other than legendary filmmaker John Carpenter, who will make a rare public appearance on Saturday 16th August in support of Storm King Comics – the independent publishing powerhouse co-founded by producer Sandy King.
Taking place at the Long Beach Convention Center from 15th to 17th August, Midsummer Scream 2025 has declared “Horror Comic Books” its central theme. It’s a fitting backdrop for Storm King Comics, which has spent over a decade fusing cinematic terror with graphic storytelling. Carpenter’s appearance is expected to be a major draw for fans, with each autograph including a copy of John Carpenter Presents George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park, a new graphic novel adaptation of the cult 1975 film originally directed by Romero and recently restored by the George A. Romero Foundation.
Sandy King, whose producing credits include In the Mouth of Madness, They Live and Ghosts of Mars, will also be present throughout the weekend. Under her leadership, Storm King Comics has become a reliable source of horror and science fiction content, producing titles such as John Carpenter’s Tales for a HalloweeNight, Tales of Science Fiction, and the youth-focused Storm Kids. The company’s booth will also feature appearances from various writers and artists connected to its ever-expanding library.
Organisers of Midsummer Scream, the world’s largest Halloween and horror convention, have expressed their enthusiasm at hosting the Carpenters and spotlighting the genre’s ongoing legacy in comics. “This is a dream pairing,” said executive director David Markland. “John Carpenter’s presence, combined with this year’s comic book focus, makes for an unforgettable event.”
Midsummer Scream 2025 will once again deliver its signature mix of immersive attractions and horror-fuelled entertainment, including the expansive Hall of Shadows, live shows, haunt reveals, and panels focused on major horror properties such as Halloween Horror Nights and Paramount Scares. Over 50,000 attendees are expected to descend on Long Beach for the three-day celebration, with more than 300 exhibitors filling the show floor.
Elsewhere at the convention, popular Long Beach haunt shop and arcade “Revenge Of” will host horror comic creator signings and provide retro pinball machines for guests to enjoy. The event’s striking 2025 poster, designed by D.W. Frydendal, pays homage to classic horror comics with imagery drawn from haunted houses, crypt creatures, and trick-or-treat nostalgia.
Tickets for Midsummer Scream are on sale now via the official website: midsummerscream.org/
Updates on programming and guests will be shared regularly across the event’s social media channels. For horror fans, collectors, and anyone with a love of the macabre, August’s event looks set to be a major date on the calendar.
2025’s New Horror Books...so far
Find a listing of new horror books in the order of the month they were released HERE
Send Some Love To PHANTASM’s Reggie Bannister As He Enters Hospice Care
BYAMBER T
Phantasm star Reggie Bannister is sadly entering hospice care following a fight with dementia and Parkinson’s disease, and would like to hear from his Phans.
Sharing the post on Facebook earlier today, Bannister's colleague and friend Russell Mauck shared the news that Bannister's condition has progressed to the next stage after collapsing last week:
On Feb 12, Reg collapsed. His condition had progressed to the next stage. He's still cognitive, so that's good, but his body is failing. Reggie and Gigi had planned ahead and made an advanced directive. As a result, Reggie will be going home from the V.A. soon, for home hospice care. There is no prognosis or time frame. It is his wish to be home and around family, in their little mountain cabin. He's not suffering, and he's happy to be going home.
Mauck asked that fans send Reggie our thoughts, prayers, and positive energy, as well as providing an address (seen below) to send letters and cards to.
A United States Military Veteran who served in Vietnam, Bannister played ex-ice cream man Reggie in the cult Phantasm series (Phantasm, Phantasm II, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Phantasm IV: Oblivion, and Phantasm: Ravager) as well as roles in Silent Night, Deadly Night 4, Wishmaster, Bubba Ho-tep and Cemetery Gates.
Write to Reggie at the address below and let's show him how appreciated he is in the world of horror:
Reggie Bannister
PO Box 4387
Crestline, CA 92325
Thanks to the good folks at Bloody Disgusting for bringing this to our attention.
Jeani Rector queried folks on facebook (probably you!) to ask what their favorite horror movies of all time were. Below are the top 20 picks, in order according to the amount of votes they each received.
Also listed is trivia about each film.
The number ONE movie chosen by the most votes
THE THING (1982)
John Carpenter's The Thing didn’t go over well when it was released in 1982. Ignored by movie-goers, it was a box office failure. Reviled by critics, it even saw Carpenter being labeled a pornographer of violence by some reviewers. It was such a disappointment for the studio, they took another project away from Carpenter as punishment. But it gradually found its audience, building up a cult following. And soon, a legion of fans and critics alike began calling it one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It didn’t take long for The Thing to go from being known as reprehensible trash to being considered an all-time classic.
Actor Kurt Russell would take drags off of cigarettes to make his breath visible as though he were in cold temperatures. It has become a tradition in British Antarctic research stations to watch The Thing as part of their Midwinter feast and celebration held every June 21.
TWO
HALLOWEEN (1978)
The 1978 horror film Halloween was not an immediate success, but it eventually became one of the most successful independent films of all time. The movie, directed by John Carpenter and shot in Southern California on a budget of $325,000, had disappointing sales numbers during its first weekend. However, word of mouth helped the film gain popularity, with audiences telling their friends to see it. By the following weekend, sales had doubled, then tripled, and eventually increased tenfold.
Because of the film's tight budget, the production designer Tommy Lee Wallace had to use whatever he had at his disposal, or had to buy materials cheaply. When he created the Michael Myers mask, he made two versions. The first was an Emmett Kelly smiling clown mask that they put frizzy red hair on. They tested it out but it didn't achieve the desired effect. The other mask was a 1975 Captain James T. Kirk mask that was purchased in a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard for $1.98. It had the eyebrows and sideburns ripped off, the face was painted bluish white, the hair was spray painted brown, and the eyes were opened up more. After testing out the mask, the crew decided that it was much more creepy because it was emotionless.
THREE
JAWS (1975)
Jaws, the American suspense and horror film of 1975, was directed by Steven Spielberg and is considered the first summer blockbuster ever due to the fact that over 67 million people in the USA went to see this film when it was first released. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name by author Peter Benchley, the film not only broke box office records at the time of its release, but also changed the way Hollywood marketed and distributed films, especially those released during the summer.
Peter Benchley himself can be seen in a cameo in the film as the news reporter who addresses the camera on the beach. Benchley had previously worked as a news reporter for The Washington Post before penning Jaws. Steven Spielberg also makes a cameo in the movie: His voice is the Amity Island dispatcher who calls Quint’s boat, the Orca, with Sheriff Brody’s wife on the line.
FOUR
THE LOST BOYS (1987)
As filming began, the comedic points in the movie were made up on the spot. The comedy confused Warner Brothers, and they would ask Joel Schumacher (the director) if he were making a horror film or a comedy. He responded with “yes” every time. The executives seemed confused about the combination of those two genres, and weren’t sure that a horror-comedy would work. The city of Santa Cruz, California, did not want to be connected to the crime that happens in the movie, so they asked the production to change the name of the town in the film. So the movie takes place in the fictional city of Santa Carla.
See movie trivia about The Lost Boys HERE
FIVE
ALIEN (1979)
Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigouney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to Special Order 24 (Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded) is: "How do we kill it?"
The blue laser lights that were used in the alien ship's egg chamber were borrowed from the rock band The Who. The band was testing out the lasers for their stage show in the soundstage next door.
SIX
HELLRAISER (1987)
Based on the Clive Barker book titled The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser was an orignal film in an era of cliches. Famous critic Roger Ebert panned it HERE, but moviegoers loved it. The movie was originally going to be called Sadomasochists from Beyond the Grave or Hellbound, but producer Christopher Figg suggested Hellraiser instead.
Since the movie was filmed in England, there was a law that stated that cockroaches of both sexes were not to be allowed on movie sets because they could cause an infestation. So, Barker decided to hire someone who could manage the cockroaches. He explained, “They were all male. And we had a fridge…we chilled the maggots and the roaches.”
SEVEN
THE FLY (1986)
Directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jeff Goldblum early in his career, the movie is about a scientist who accidentally merges with a fly during a teleportation experiment. Although most people prefer the 1986 version because of the lead character's charm and also because the film has great heart and soul, there can't help be some comparisons to the original 1958 version.
The first The Fly (1958) was a film that surprised even its producers. They knew the original story was a little silly and expected only a modest return on the film from a mostly young audience. Even the film’s name stars, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall, could not take The Fly seriously. The audience, on the other hand, found that there was much to respond to in the film. The Fly cost $350,000 in 1958 dollars and only took 18 days to make, yet it grossed $3,000,000 (also in 1958 dollars), considerably outstripping any expectation at the time.
EIGHT
THE HAUNTING (1963)
The 1963 horror film The Haunting had a budget of $1.05 million in 1958 dollars but only made $1.02 million at the box office. The film was shot at MGM-British Studios near London, with exteriors filmed at Ettington Park in Warwickshire. It was based upon Shirley Jackson's famous book The Haunting of Hill House.
At the time it was released, The Haunting was considered to be a flop because it originally lost money. But over the years, it became a classic because of word of mouth and because of TV showings. There were some clever uses of lensing effects to heighten the strangeness of Hill House. By adjusting the props in the sets so that they are off by a few degrees, it helped to unsettle the viewer.
NINE
FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
Frankenstein is a Pre-Code film. Pre-Code movies are American films produced between the late 1920s and mid-1934, before the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) censorship guidelines were strictly enforced. The term "pre-Code" is a misnomer because the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, but Hollywood filmmakers often ignored it, and oversight was poor until July 1, 1934. Before then, local laws, negotiations between studios, and popular opinion had more influence on movie content.
Universal Pictures exists today because of the monster movies. In 1930, Universal lost $2.2 million in revenues (over $36 million adjusted for inflation). Then, in February 1931, Dracula was released and made $700,000 (1931 dollars) in sales. It was clear to Universal producer Carl Laemmle Jr. that horror movies were what the public wanted. By November of that same year, Frankenstein was released. Bela Lugosi, who had shot to stardom at the studio following Dracula, assumed he would be playing the Monster. However, makeup tests showed the actor didn’t have the right look. Instead, the studio went with English actor Boris Karloff, and the rest is history.
TEN
28 DAYS LATER (2002 UK, 2003 USA)
28 Days Later took the traditional zombie movie horror formula and gave it a fresh coat of paint by changing the location, the tone, and of course, the monster in question. To properly give the feeling of a dead Britain shrouded in chaos, the filmmakers had to be careful with how and when they shot. Shots on the M1 motorway were done early in the morning between 7 and 9 AM under police guidance.
A real hospital was used for the filming to create a sense of authenticity. The hospital in question was open during the week but shut on weekends which allowed Danny Boyle and his crew to rent the space for shooting when nobody was around.
An extra benefit of this arrangement was that rental fees went directly towards the hospital's trust fund, representing one of the best kinds of business transactions one could wish for. Nothing like shooting a bloody horror movie and having a portion of the budget go towards a good cause.
See more HERE
ELEVEN
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
Written by George Romero and John Russo, Night of the Living Dead only had a $114,000 budget. It changed the movie world of how zombies were portrayed by using dissociation. Since the film was shot in black and white and had a really low budget, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so chocolate syrup was used. For the scene in which Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) begins eating her father’s corpse, the crew’s leftover lunch was employed.
Both Romero and Russo played cameos in the film. Russo played one of the ghouls who managed to reach into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tire iron, while Romero can be seen in the Washington D.C. sequences as a reporter.
TWELVE
THE SHINING (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, it is widely known that this movie is not loved by its creator, Stephen King. But not many know why. According to David Hughes, one of Kubrick’s biographers, Stephen King wrote an entire draft of a screenplay for The Shining. However, Kubrick didn’t even deem it worth a glance, which sort of makes sense when you consider that the director once described King’s writing as “weak.” Instead, Kubrick worked with Diane Johnson on the screenplay because he was a fan of her book, The Shadow Knows. The two ended up spending eleven weeks working on the script and ignoring King's version.
THIRTEEN
PHANTASM (1979)
Phantasm (released as Never Dead in Australia) is a low-budget cult classic horror film produced in 1977 and released in 1979. The film was originally rated X by the MPAA because of the silver sphere sequence, and due to a scene involving a man urinating on the floor after going down dead. After Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin made a telephone call in a favor to a friend on the board, the rating was changed from the (commercially non-viable) X-rating to R.
This movie was number 25 on the cable and streaming channel Bravo's list of the "100 Scariest Movie Moments."
FOURTEEN
THE EXORCIST (1973)
William Peter Blatty’s novel is supposedly based on the real-life 1949 exorcism of a young boy, known by the pseudonym Roland Doe. The story became national news, and caught the interest of Blatty, who was a student at Georgetown University at the time (hence the change in location). For the 1973 movie The Exorcist, the possessed child was changed to that of a girl.
Though it’s never stated in the film, the demon that takes possession of Regan MacNeil has a name: Pazuzu, which is taken from the name of the king of the demons in Assyrian and Babylonian mythology. Much of Regan’s moaning and grunting were created by remixing pig squeals. When the demon is finally exorcised from her body, the sound you hear is a group of pigs being led to slaughter.
FIFTEEN
CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1963)
Amateurish in many ways (the film does include some stilted performances, bad lip-synching, clunky editing and a few continuity errors), Carnival of Souls nevertheless continues to exert a strange fascination for many viewers. Not a conventional horror or ghost story, this film explores the psychological state of Mary Henry after a car accident as she emerges from the murky depths of a river.
Carnival of Souls was the only feature film to be directed by industrial and educational filmmaker Harold (Herk) Harvey. After completing Carnival of Souls, Harvey was to return to making industrial and educational films before retiring in the late 1980s (he died in 1996). Assembling a crew of just five – himself, cinematographer Maurice Prather, editor Dan Palmquist, assistant director Reza Badiyi, and production manager Larry Sneegas (all of them his buddies at Centron), Harvey managed to generate a budget of $33,000 after approaching local Kansas businessmen, who invested in packs of the production’s stock. He found his lead in the form of up-and-coming actress Candace Hilligoss, who turned down a role in Psychomania (1963) to star in Carnival Of Souls. “I was paid $2,000 for doing the film,” she later recalled. “At the time, it seemed like a fortune.”
SIXTEEN
TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016)
Roger Ebert called Train to Busan "a wildly fun action movie, beautifully paced and constructed, with just the right amount of character and horror. In many ways, it’s what World War Z should have been—a nightmarish vision of the end of the world, and a provocation to ask ourselves what it is that really makes us human in the first place."
Filming began in April 2015 and finished in August 2015, for a total of only four months. The movie is based on an original story created by Park Joo-suk. The film team tried to reference the movements of the zombies from the game 7 Days to Die, and also from the movies Ghost in the Shell and Silent Hill.
Train to Busan received a 94% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and British filmmaker Edgar Wright, director of the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, highly applauded the film. He personally recommended it on Twitter and called it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever."
SEVENTEEN
ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)
This wildly entertaining nightmare, faithfully adapted from Ira Levin's best seller, stars Mia Farrow as a young mother-to-be who grows increasingly suspicious that her overfriendly elderly neighbors are in a pact with Satan. With a comparatively small budget of just $3.2 million (1968 dollars), Rosemary’s Baby grossed over $33 million worldwide upon its release, making it by far the most commercially successful of Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy’ films.
According to Mia Farrow, the scenes where Rosemary walks in front of traffic were spontaneous and genuine. Director Roman Polanski is reported to have told her that "nobody will hit a pregnant woman." The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.
EIGHTEEN
RE-ANIMATOR (1985)
Re-Animator (also known as H. P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator) is a 1985 American comedy horror film that is loosely based upon the 1922 H.P Lovecraft serial novelette titled Herbert West: Reanimator. Originally devised by director Stuart Gordon as a theatrical stage production and later a half-hour television pilot, the television script was revised to become a feature film. Filmed in Hollywood, the film received an R Rating at the box office, but it garnered its largest audience through the unrated cut's release on home video.
The special effects department went through twenty-four gallons of fake blood during the shoot, and makeup effects artist John Naulin said that Re-Animator was the bloodiest film he had ever worked on. In the past, he had never used more than two gallons of blood on a film. The building used for the Miskatonic Medical School is the same one as the Cyberdine Headquarters in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
NINETEEN
PSYCHO (1960)
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest since it was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of his then-television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Initially, the film divided critics due to its controversial subject matter, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Janet Leigh.
When the cast and crew began work on the first day, they had to raise their right hands and swear an oath not to divulge one word of the story. Hitchcock also withheld the ending part of the script from his cast until he needed to shoot it.
TWENTY
NOSFERATU (1922 Germany, 1929 USA)
Nosferatu, also known as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens) is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Even with several details altered, Bram Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and would resurface through second-generation reels. The movie was banned in Sweden due to excessive horror. The ban was finally lifted in 1972.
The vampire's unblinking stare was central to the unnerving effect the creature cause for audiences. Count Orlok is only seen blinking once on screen, near the end of Act One.
Today, the film is regarded as an influential masterpiece of early cinema and the horror genre, as reported by Deadline. That’s Friday the 13th.
Jeani Rector’s Advice on Writing is a folksy, easy to comprehend step-by-step process that covers in detail such techniques as character development; substance, structure and style; pacing suspense; suggestions about promoting your work and other valuable information.
What makes an editor choose one story over another for publication? What are the secrets to make your work stand out from the pack? How can you bring out the best in your potential? This book shares insider information to help you succeed in the competitive world of writing.
It is on sale for a low price of $8.99 paperback and $2.99 kindle HERE
THE HORROR ZINE IS PUBLISHING BOOK REVIEWS
The Horror Zine welcomes book review requests.
To learn how to submit your book for review, go HERE.
Did you know that BloodyDisgusting has a horror forum? Post your thoughts about horror HERE
Take the Plague Quiz HERE
Would you survive the bubonic plague? Find out HERE
|
