On Wednesday, Oct. 15, after a two-year hiatus, Toronto’s premier horror and cult-cinema festival rose from the dead, kicking off its five-day run at the Scotiabank Theatre downtown. For horror fans, the return is poetic: after all, resurrection is what the genre does best.
Since premiering in 2006, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival has firmly established itself as the city’s most devoted celebration of monsters, mayhem and midnight movies. If you haven’t attended After Dark, imagine a vibe closer to that of a basement screening room than a velvet-rope gala, where fans cheer at well-timed jump scares and fans can trade theories with the director after screenings.
So when After Dark founder and programmer Adam Lopez died of cancer in April 2025, many long-time fans feared the festival he had built largely on his own might disappear: the festival’s 18th edition, originally slated for October 2024, had already been postponed because of his declining health, leaving its future uncertain.
But now the festival is back and running through Oct. 19 under the leadership of legacy director Peter Kuplowsky, best known for programming the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness, a late-night showcase of genre cinema that has debuted cult classics like Saw and What We Do in the Shadows.
Ten feature films are screening, as well as 29 short films from Canada and around the world, including Paramount Pictures’ sci-fi thriller Primate and the blood-soaked action sequel Sisu: Road to Revenge. This year’s festival will also mark the return of Pub After Dark, the festival’s social nights, which the festival discontinued in 2019. Fittingly, the festival’s main award has been renamed the Adam Lopez Audience Award, in honor of the late founder.
Speaking to The Grind, Kuplowsky said his new title is one Lopez coined himself before he died, when Lopez asked Kuplowsky to keep the festival going after his death.
“I owe a lot to this festival. It gave me my first start in the film industry and I’ll always be grateful to Adam for that,” Kuplowky said. “Honoring Adam’s legacy and finding a means to keep the festival going in his absence is not something I take lightly.”
And keeping it going has come with a learning curve, said Kuplowsky. Taking over meant instituting processes that had long existed informally: for instance, Lopez had technically never incorporated Toronto After Dark. The festival also had to overhaul its online ticketing system to Eventive when organizers discovered that the old system was no longer feasible because of expired agreements.
“There were also no capital or sponsorship deals in place, so we were entirely reliant on submission fees and pass sales,” said Kuplowky. “There was a real risk that with the hiatus, the audience and submission pool might not have returned.” Thankfully he said that hasn’t been the case: all-access passes sold out before any titles were announced, but tickets to individual screenings are still available.
That loyal fan base is part of what’s kept Toronto After Dark relevant in a shifting film landscape. With local festivals being overtaken by streaming giants, and comedies and prestige dramas struggling to lure audiences back post-COVID, horror seemingly never lost its pulse. Studios now rely on horror as one of the few genres that can still fill seats, with recent hits like Smile and Talk to Me delivering returns more than tenfold their meagre budgets. Horror’s share of the box office has doubled over the past decade, from about 5 percent in 2013 to just over 10 percent in 2023. When it comes to scares, it seems audiences would rather scream together.
Moving forward, Kuplowsky said the festival will institute a more sustainable model as they seek out sponsors and apply for grants and funds, which will help in subsidizing ticket prices. But because of his other responsibilities as TIFF programmer and producer, the interim director said it’ll be unlikely he will hold onto the leadership position for a long time.
“I hope to begin making room for more members of the local genre community to join the team and even take the reins,” he said. “The fest has technically been around for 20 years come 2026. And I can see another 20 more […] and look forward to them!”
