Chris Emery is preparing to stare down room after room full of bloodthirsty maniacs — and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“They’re nuts. That’s the kind of audience that we want. We want the people who will get really involved and go crazy,” said Emery, the online communications director for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. 
   

Courtesy of Toronto After Dark Film Festival

'Zombies' invade the Bloor Cinema.

“They cheer when they see blood, they cheer when they see monsters kicking ass or zombies ripping apart flesh. ‘Cinemaniacs’ is what we like to call them.”
   
The festival, now entering its second year, will run from Oct. 19 to 25 at the Bloor Cinema, showcasing creepy and bizarre films from around the world.
   
“Our strongest suit is horror,” Emery explained, “but there’s also science fiction, fantasy and cult films as well.”
   
All of the festival’s 14 features are being screened for the first time ever in Toronto; for about half of those films, the Toronto After Dark screening will also be the Canadian premiere.
   
Founder Adam Lopez said one of the festival’s main goals —aside from providing movie fans with  a gore fix — is getting independent or foreign films in front of an enthusiastic Toronto audience.
   
“There would be fantastic films having a premiere North American screening at festivals, and maybe five or 10 people would show up,” said Lopez, who is also an occasional instructor in consumer behaviour at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education. “I’d feel bad – for the filmmakers, for the organizers.”
   
A longtime film buff, Lopez spent three years planning for the inaugural run of Toronto After Dark, with Emery’s help.
   
“When we approached this after our first year, we got a good idea of who our audience was,” Emery said. “A lot of those cult fans were really into those kinds of genres, like horror and sci-fi, and they have very strong followings online, especially on online forums.”
   
The organizers went to online networking sites and local blogs and media, and the effort paid off.     “For the most part, we had about 400 people a screening, which is really good for a first-run festival.”
   
Paul Bordonaro agrees with Emery’s assessment. As the Bloor Cinema’s proprietor, he’s seen his share of fledgling film festivals over the years.
   
“We’re a big room — 830 seats,” he said. “I try to discourage some festivals from renting out our theatre if it doesn’t look like they really have everything together, because they might not need a room our size. We want to know if they’ve put in the time and the effort, and they really did their homework.
   
“They make it exciting,” Bordonaro added. “Giveaways, special events, getting filmmakers to appear and talk about their films – all that really adds to the experience. Just selling tickets, letting people in, raising the curtains – that’s not enough to really make a successful festival.”    
   

Courtesy of Toronto After Dark Film Festival

More zombies take in Night of the Living Dork at the conclusion of last year's Toronto Zombie Walk

One such new event tied to Toronto After Dark is the rather aptly titled Pub After Dark.
   
“One of the things we used to do back home,” Lopez explained, “is that after we would see a really good film, we’d all go to the pub and talk about it. We really wanted to push that social element at the festival this year.”
   
For the festival’s Wednesday to Saturday screenings, Pauper’s Pub — located near the Bloor Cinema — will serve as the location for an after-party where viewers can meet up and discuss the films.
   
“We’re going to get whoever wants to go together, and sort of bullshit about films and have a discussion,” Emery added. “It’s a good way for us to get to know our fans, and for people to meet other people at the festival.”
   
This year’s run of the festival also marks the return of one of Toronto’s most beloved Halloween traditions: the downtown Toronto Zombie Walk.
   
Since setting out with a troop of seven zombies in 2003, founder and Ryerson media lab employee Thea Faulds has seen the walk swell exponentially. Until last year, Faulds was unsure of what to do with several hundred shambling, elaborately costumed undead after their march.
   
“I’d love to have movies and bands and stuff playing after,” Faulds said. “But I just don’t have the time to set it up. Toronto After Dark came along and were willing to make the day of the walk a Zombie Night.”
    
For this year’s Oct. 21 march, Toronto After Dark will be offering a double zombie feature. “It’s cool that there’s an option for them,” Faulds said. “All zombies love zombie films.”
   
Unlike the great B-movie heroes of the past, Lopez has fond memories of being in a room full of 500 jacked-up zombies. “I got to introduce the film to the audience at the screening last year. Zombies are probably the best audience you could ever have. The cheering, the screaming of ‘brains.’ ”
   
Lopez and Emery, however, stress that it’s the films they’re the most excited about. This year, legendary pulp horror director Lloyd Kaufman’s  final film Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead will be screened at the festival.
   
“The fact that we’ve got (this film) is huge,” Emery says of the campy chicken-zombie-musical. “It’ll be really exciting to have Lloyd Kaufman’s  ‘swan song’ film here.”
   
Another first for the festival is Audience Of One, the only documentary to ever to be shown at the festival, but it fits right in with the rest of the lineup; the doc follows a priest’s efforts to film a Catholic-friendly adaptation of Star Wars.
   
Students can take advantage of a reduced $8 admission to screenings. “We knew it would be tough for students, because it’s right after (the Toronto International Film Festival) and everyone's already maxed out their credit cards," Emery said.

But younger horror buffs are out of luck, Lopez said. “Because many of these films are indies and haven’t gone past the review board yet, we have to restrict all of them to 18 and over,” he said. “They’re very strict about that.
   
“Think of it as a rite of passage. Every year you’re a little bit closer to Toronto After Dark.”