Page 82 - Sharp Summer 2021

They may feature
smaller explosions, less-recognizable actors, and dodgier CGI than your fa- vourite Hollywood hits, but low-budget genre films have re-emerged as one of the feistiest filmmaking trends in recent years. Once laughed at by audiences for their wooden dialogue and crude effects, modern low-budget “B films” — or genre films, as they’re more politely known — have won over audiences by taking creative risks and telling overlooked stories. And while upstart U.S. production companies like A24 and Blumhouse have been leading the change, Canada has been nurturing a burgeoning independent B-movie industry of its own, producing films that are sur- prisingly forward-looking, even as they firmly embrace their past.
“There’s tons of people making these kinds of films now, whereas before it was its own weird little niche,” says Montre- al filmmaker Elza Kephart, whose new film Slaxx (2020) is a horror satire about killer jeans haunting a retail store. While Kephart is aware that genre films are still sometimes considered to be lesser enter- tainment — an attitude that stems from the era when theatres paired up star-studded “A pictures” with cheaper “B film” westerns and murder mysteries — she’s also seen attitudes begin to shift. “They’re definitely taken more seriously by the press and the film world these days.”
Kephart is one of several Canadian filmmakers making strides in the industry, along with rising talents such as Indigenous filmmaker Jeff Barnaby, whose zombie epic Blood Quantum turned heads (and stomachs) in 2019, and Panos Cosmatos, the Vancouver-based filmmaker behind the mind-bending Nicolas Cage vehicle Mandy (2018). And while director David Cronenberg helped lead a national genre- film boom back in the 1970s, it’s his son Brandon who has taken up the family baton with Possessor (2020), his recent Toron- to-shot mind-control thriller.
“When people stumble across these kinds of B movies on streaming sites, it can be a bit of a shock to the system,” admits Peter Kuplowsky, who programs genre films for the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness showcase. “There’s an obvious disparity between these B movies and Marvel movies, for example. But for some, it’s actually an exciting shock — like, oh, cool, this is so aesthetically different,” he says.
Slaxx shook up some of these sensibilities when it landed on horror streaming service Shudder this year — and not only because of its outlandish premise. Kephart’s third fea- ture, Slaxx features tongue-in-cheek scenes of haunted pants crawling through dark hallways and chewing up retail workers and online fashion influencers. However, some horror fans didn’t expect to find a strain of social commentary lurking under the splatters of stage blood.
“It’s my first genre film with a really strong message,” Kephart acknowledges, noting that she conceived of the film partial- ly as a way to shine a spotlight on exploitive sweatshops in the developing world that fuel the “fast fashion” industry. “Making a genre film is a slightly more insidious way to get a message across than, say, just making a documentary,” she laughs. “Sometimes it even just comes out unconsciously.”
“Genre movies tend to be a commer- cial enterprise, but they can also be blank canvases for more interesting and personal ideas,” observes Kuplowsky. He believes this recent focus on social commentary is part of the growing diversity of filmmakers who want to make genre films, a change that’s at least partly due to the popular success of director Jordan Peele, whose wildly popular Blumhouse-produced horror film Get Out (2017) took a chilling look at systemic racism. “Looking at that success, people started to see how marginalized voices can use these films,” Kuplowsky adds. “They can unpack cultural anxieties that don’t necessarily get addressed in mainstream movies.”
Danis Goulet, a Toronto-based Cree/ Métis filmmaker, agrees. “When Get Out came out, it changed everything,” she says. “It just really felt like something shifted in terms of what the possibilities were. Un- til recently, Indigenous people and BIPOC folks didn’t really exist in the genre space that often.”
Goulet has been on the festival circuit this year with her debut feature, Night Raid- ers (2021), a post-apocalyptic thriller that addresses the real-life horrors of Canada’s residential school history. Although far re- moved from the campier sensibility of films like Slaxx, Goulet’s film draws on similar genre elements to depict an oppressive government that forcibly seizes children from their parents to attend state military school. The film focuses on a determined mother, played by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, who mounts an ambitious rescue operation to get her daughter back.
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