Bookmonkey's Top 5 Canadian Genre Films

Since I started posting blogs in August and began getting comments from around the world to my posts, I've found that more and more often I've become a defender of my nations character (as far as Genre films, TV, and Books goes). So this week, I'm going to look at some of my favourite Canadian films.

So here we go, my top five Canadian Genre Films

5. Videodrome

This 1983 film starring James Woods is one of the big reasons we have a "NO TV HOUR" in our home from 6-7 at night, as the film gives you the message that TV kills, literally. The movie follows James Woods, who plays a television producer in Toronto, as he attempts to find the new best thing for television. What he finds is a channel called Videodrome, which is basically snuff TV. The problem occurs when he begins to find out exactly what Videodrome is actually trying to do. The film does have some pretty gruesome bits, but it is definitely a Canadian classic.

4. Ginger Snaps

For those of you who haven't seen it, Ginger Snaps uses the idea of Werewolves as a metaphor for puberty. Basically you have two teenaged sisters (Ginger and Brigitte) who seem pretty preoccupied with death at the beginning of the film. Ginger gets her first period and is attacked by a werewolf on the same night and then everything starts to get very weird, and very freaky. Watching this film as a guy, I have to say that it definitely plays to all of the fears we have about girls at that age.

3. The Changeling

I actually found this movie as I began watching the films that had won Genie awards (Basically our Oscars here in Canada). George C. Scott plays a man who after a devastating family tragedy, buys a suspiciously perfect house in a new town. The tone of this film is pretty quiet, but once you realize the house is haunted the tension builds to an unbelievable level.

2. Cube

Alright, you know the scene in Resident Evil where Alice and the Umbrella agents enter a corridor and one of them is "cubed" by a laser? Totally stolen from my favourite Canadian horror film, Cube. Basically a small group of people wake up inside a giant cube shaped room, there are doors leading out from the middle of each side and as they move through these doors into other rooms, they are either attacked by some random killing device or left alive. Together, they have the skills to survive and escape, but that's only if they don't kill each other first. Simply an amazing film.

1. Last Night

This movie asks a pretty simple question. If you knew, for certain that the world would end tomorrow, what would you do with your last night? The characters in this film do all sorts of things, some funny, some terrible, some heartbreaking, with their last hours on Earth. For a film with such a grim concept, there is a lot of light here. This film should top anyone's list of must see Canadian Genre films.