Meet the new blood behind TIFF's Midnight Madness

Peter Kuplowsky is bringing new blood to Toronto International Film Festival's obscure and nightmarishly terrifying after-dark cinema Midnight Madness.

The inaugural line-up chosen for the program by the Toronto-born film buff runsthe typical gamut of cult classics, withblood-driven horror and shocking thrillers, but expands it withnon-genre titles in the program, includingBodiedandThe Disaster Artist.

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"An important thing to distinguish is these are genre films and not necessarily just horror films," the new programmer told CBC News on Friday.

"Midnight Madness has a connotation of being a horror section, and while we do show a lot of horror films and we're close to the Halloween season, it's a constant sort of battle to remind people of that."

Colin Geddessteps down after 20 years

The man behind two decades of madness, veteran programmer Colin Geddes,raised a generation of late-nightaficionados and helpedTIFF earn itsreputationfor being the place to see non-mainstream films.

In February, TIFF announced Geddes was leavingto pursue new opportunities, including concentrating on producing films withpartner Katarina Gligorijevic, in the pair's production company,Ultra 8 Pictures, and curatingthe subscription streaming-'n'-screaming service, Shudder.com.

"This year I decided, you know what, I think I need to move on and embrace other things within the film world, but we had to find someone who would kind of continue to select weird and crazy films from around the world," Geddessaid.

'AState of the Union of genre cinema'

And that's whereKuplowskyhas come in.

He has worked as Geddes' protege, attending all 10 Midnight Madness offeringssince 2005.

"I've always viewed the Midnight Madness program as kind of a State of the Union of genre cinema," Kuplowskysaid.

"It's not just 10 horror films. It's not 10 action films.It's a breadth of genre cinema that will, you know, that kind of tells everybody what the next year is going to look like.

"What are the new trends in horror films? What are the new trends coming out of Asian action cinema?"

'Midnight Madness audience is up for anything'

On Thursday, one film that Geddesnevergot to select for his lineupswas screened for the first time to an international audience since it made its debut in 1975. The screening wasinhonour of Geddes.

Wolf Guy a rare Japanese horror-action-science fiction hybrid representsa sub-culture of cinema, according to Geddes.

Kuplowskysaid: "The Midnight Madness audience is up for anything in a way that very few audiences are."

Thatincludes the energy in the theatre before the show, which Geddessays is worth the price of admission alone.

"The audience knows the code of movie going," he said. "It's like you're supposed to cheer with the good guy and you're supposed to boo with the bad guy."

Complete with beach balls tossed amongst the crowd before the lights dim, "Midnight Madness is the party" according to its former curator.

"If you don't go to Midnight Madness, you don't understand parties at all."