Horror-Movies.ca takes a look at the estimated box office for this year’s AfterDark Horrorfest and asks why it didn’t get the support from the community it deserved. I can think of a few good reasons, and none of them have to do with a lack of interest.

One solution should be obvious to Horror-Movies.ca, considering their base of operations. I didn’t attend the AfterDark Horrorfest because it didn’t play in Canada. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal. After all, it wasn’t until just recently that Canada even had a regular horror convention. I’m used to getting the short end of the stick. But in this case I was even considering crossing the border to catch the Fest. A few weeks before AfterDark was set to begin I checked their site to find the closest possible theatre in New York state and up until that point they didn’t have one listing. Not one theatre in the sixth most densely populated state in the U.S. Looking at the listings now, they added a handful of theatres in New York state, including a few that I could have reached, but the cities were added a little over a week before the event which left me no time (or interest) to make preparations for the trip. I’m sure others were in the same boat, and in a way I’m glad that I couldn’t make it because according to some reports this lack of preparation on After Dark’s part resulted in numerous theatres not showing their full engagement by cancelling some of the weekend screenings, leaving numerous pass holders holding the bag.

Happily, it looks as if AfterDark has realized their shortcomings and are prepared to take action. On the AfterDark message board, in response to various complaints, an employee of the company in charge posted the following message.

We are listening carefully and taking notes so that next year will be better. I can’t give you any details at the moment. It’s a bit soon for that. I’ll just promise that things will be different next year, different in a good way.

There’s nothing quite like watching a horror movie on the big screen, but unfortunately the gap between theatrical sreenings and direct-to-DVD seems to get wider with each passing year. I would love to see AfterDark work out, and I’m sure many genre fans feel the same. Here’s hoping they iron out the kinks. Until then, I hardly think the fans are to blame.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Events, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.