Montreal Dead End

A series of short films depicting the evils unleashed around Montreal one fateful day.

The Good Stor(ies)-Le Mont Royal-While out hiking in the woods, a team of joggers are attacked in the woods by a strange malevolent entity. Discovering the state of her friends, the last one alive tries to escape from the dangerous woods alive. This is a fun, frantic entry to start this off as it's a pretty horrifying concept to take an everyday situation and make it into this strange encounter. The setup works, the effects are worthwhile and the tension is great with the woods seeming to be impossible to get away from.

Le Parc Lafontaine-While enjoying a picnic in a park, a couple put an end to their date when they realize they've switched bodies. When it turns out to be the start of their troubles, they race to escape the problems inside the park. By far one of the longest segments, this one takes a while to get going with a strange comedic bent to their adventures in the body-swapping generating a few laughs. The monster turn is somewhat cheesy and comes off as a fun joke as well leaving this with a nice, silly entry.

Hochelaga-Hanging out together, a group of friends head out to celebrate one's major achievement at a local pub when it soon dawns on them that strange creatures have invaded the building. Trapped inside, they have to put a major fight aside to deal with the killer beings. Overall this was quite an impressive entry that really goes wild with the gore here as it features some enjoyable kill scenes, plenty of erotic tension and an enjoyable setup.

Ile Ste-Héléne-Making her way through the wilderness around her, a woman is taken in by a pack of children. Returning to their sanctuary, she undergoes a series of indoctrination rituals in order to join their society. This was a nice step in the right direction and has some rather creepy concepts and ideas here, especially with the creepy kids and their ritualized chanting, but the finale twist takes it out of the realm of horror and makes no real sense.

Beaubien-Heading out into the abandoned city, a young couple try to make sense of the situation when it appears no one is around. As various attempts to kill them fail, they soon realize the danger they're in and try to get away alive. This was an utterly uproarious and fun segment which has a lot of fun with the failed killing attempts and their genuine bewilderment at the situation.

Rosemont-Walking her neighbor's daughter home, a woman finds that she's come under the influence of the deadly force afflicting the city. Trying to get to safety, a few civilians try to get away from the dangerous being alive. This was a fine shorter segment, with a nice if obvious twist and a nice solid bit of directorial flair to mix it up.

Marche Atwater-Returning home from a grocery trip, a man returns home to find that the fruit in his apartment has come to life and begins attacking him. As he struggles for his life with the deadly items, a friend comes by that may even the odds for him. This was a rather fun and highly comical outing with the idea of food coming to life and the various tactics he has to employ in order to stay alive, and the humorous bent employed here gives this a silly atmosphere.

Le vieux Montreal-On a tour of the city, a group of tourists keep encountering a group of strange inhabitants everywhere they turn. Realizing the danger they possess and their connection to the city, they soon try to get away from the deadly spirits. This was a rather fun segment as the creepiness of the historical figures and their continuous appearance means some nice jumps and their inability to recognize the danger offers a few suspenseful moments.

The Bad Stor(ies)-Ville St-Laruent-Arriving to his late-night job, a lone worker at a remote facility believes the strange sounds he hears is coming from a someone still inside the store. Taking a look to determine the cause, he finds that the figure still intends on getting the most out of its old profession. This one was a bit of a misfire as it's really not that funny and the scares it's intended to provide get old after a while as it's really hard to care what happens here. The ending twist is about all that works here and even that isn't really impressive.

Cote-Des-Neiges-Appearing at the sight of the mysterious emissions, a pair of workers intend to prevent it from spreading into the city. What could've been a segment for the wrap-around is a barely worthwhile just-about-a-minute long filler piece that is just pathetic to witness here.

Le centre-ville-Revelling in their ancestral heritage, a couple of friends decide to play up their position of influence by paying a visit to an exclusive club. When a pair of supernatural guardians appears to block their entry, they find something far deadlier at play than expected. On the whole, this was a worthless and pretty much unnecessary effort which isn't scary, has no real point and the ending twist does nothing for those with no connection to the city.

Le village-Upset over her floundering social life, a young woman tries to put it behind her as it starts to take a toll on her physically. As her friend tries to help, a deadly force encounters them and they find themselves changed forever. Overall, this is a fine lesbian drama but it's really not much of a horror segment until the flesh-eating takes hold and the twist is revealed, but overall it's not much of a segment and ends too abruptly to mean much.

Mile-End-Out terrorizing the city, a pair of ruthless maniacal zombies begin a killing spree in order to prepare a feast for other like-minded zombie individuals in the city. While this one possesses a great central idea of zombies in the city treating killing like a grocery store experience trying to find food, the joke wears off soon and doesn't even register as being all that funny in the first place. The relationship between them is nice to watch and the gore is impressive, but that's about all it has going for it.

Place des artes-Out studying the city-wide phenomenon, the guardians find themselves overwhelmed by the forces around them and can't carry on their scheduled assignment. As they begin to get everything under control, a pair of possessed criminals overtake them and prevent it from happening. Such a worthless segment, this is barely a minute long and really has no purpose here. The demons arguing isn't funny, the werewolf look is atrocious and it really doesn't even tie into the central wrap-around segment at all.

Villeray-Going home from school, a young teen witnesses a horrific act occurring in the city and once she realizes what's actually happening is forced to make a severe decision to get away. This is barely even worthwhile, features no real horror and the ending offers up a twist completely away from the genre as a whole.

Outremont-Capturing the guardians, a secret society tries to reclaim a special artifact from his possession that will complete the upcoming apocalypse. When it turns out a member of their own is possessed, they try to stop him before it's too late. This really could've been a fun segment by being done in a longer setting, but the shortness basically crams a lot of fun into barely three minutes of screen-time so it's rushed beyond belief and is forced to move this along unnecessarily.

Montreal Nord-Appearing at the secret location of the tome, the guardian tries to retrieve it from the one holding it for him only to realize he wants the power it contains. Attempting to get free, he tries to use his special skills to get away from the situation. While this one is overall fun with the voodoo powers and the fun turn-around, storyline wise it makes no sense and really doesn't offer anything due to jumping around so often in the events of the film that it just seems like useless time-padding filler.

Station Beaudry-Arriving at the subway, the guardian arrives to fight the last remaining follower of the deadly situation and uses all of his powers to control it before it's too late. While this ends things on a fun note, it's way too brief to be the grand showdown it's made out to be.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

I was always very fond of horror anthologies, but that was back in the days when they were limited to only 3-4 segments and filmed by only 1-3 competent directors. Since a couple years, however, we are witnessing the rather annoying trend that horror anthologies are becoming large assortments of mini-tales (barely a few minutes) that are directed by young and often very inexperienced and untalented people. Some examples here are "The ABC's of Death", "V/H/S", "The Profane Exhibit", and unfortunately you can also add "Montreal Dead End" to this list. I say 'unfortunately' because I have a lot of sympathy for Canadian horror cinema and I really wanted to like this. Also, I was attending the world-premiere of "Montreal Dead End" at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and I always feel somewhat guilt-ridden if I must be the first person to write negative comments about a film.

But I can't lie about it, "Montréal Dead End" regrettably was a sore disappointment and I often found myself rolling my eyes in the cinema or felt a surrogate sense of embarrassment during most of the little segments. 18 Canadian-born directors, most of them completely unknown, put together 15 short tales that each take place in a different district of Montreal. There's a very thin red line connecting all the tales, namely that the strange events are occurring ever since fiendish green smoke inexplicably emerged out of a hole in the asphalt. None of the stories are truly good or even memorable. A handful of segments are tolerable, like the one with the female jogger in the park (obviously a homage to "The Evil Dead") or the one with the young couple meandering through the streets unaware of the recent zombie outbreak, but most them are just downright dumb, infantile and boring. I found the story with the murderous vegetables the absolute low point, but admittedly I already can't remember many of the others. Rémi Fréchette, one of the directors and present at BIFFF, explained how each filmmaker collected approximately $200 for his/her segment. The lack of budget clearly shows as well, through pitiable special effects, poor editing and amateurish acting performances.