It’s been swarmed by zombies, terrorized by serial killers, besieged by aliens and monsters. And then they’ve come back for more. Our city has provided a look to the future and the past, and has been a haven for superheroes.

It’s about time we recognized Toronto for what it’s become: the current capital of genre movies, in particular for science fiction and horror. How fitting, then, that our flagship film festival will open with a genre picture, the sci-fi thriller Looper.

At the moment, Toronto is also remake-ville, with big-budget projects filmed here, including the recently released Total Recall, Carrie being re-splattered with blood and a new Robocop in production soon.

There’s more. Pacific Rim,director Guillermo del Toro’s take on the Asian monster movie, recently wrapped shooting here. Nihilistic comic-based Kick-Ass 2 is starting production next month and the adaptation of Philip Pullman’s bestselling fantasy series, His Dark Materials, is about to shoot here too. And coming to theatres next month is Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth in the sci-fi horror franchise that has laid waste to local architecture from city hall to Exhibition Place as Toronto stands in for the appropriately named Raccoon City.

Beyond all the current action, there are also plenty of genre films from the past that have called this city home (see sidebar).

How did it get this way? For starters, there is clearly an appetite at a grassroots level. This weekend’s giant Fan Expo is a perfect example of the explosion in appreciation for genre work. It’s the third largest convention of its kind in North America, and provides a place for fans to meet and greet creators and find like-minded enthusiasts.

There are also plenty of smaller events that celebrate the macabre, such as the annual Zombie Walk, in which intricately made-up corpses shuffle through the streets.

Rue Morgue, one of the leading publications celebrating horror in the world, is located here and Dave Alexander, editor-in-chief, sees many reasons for the city’s scary fictional underbelly.

“Absolutely, this city is becoming known for this. I heard people talking about doing a documentary on that very topic, about how Toronto has become a real horror centre,” he says. “There are all these genre film festivals like Toronto After Dark popping up the last few years, which has brought that further to bear. Then of course, the Midnight Madness (program) of TIFF, which premieres some of the most interesting horror films out there, which also gets big guests, like Rob Zombie is coming this year for Lords of Salem. There’s a lot of evidence to support the theory.”

Alexander points to a raft of examples, including local director David Cronenberg (“one of the most famous, most important, most influential horror filmmakers”) and George Romero, who moved here and filmed some of his recent zombie horrors here. He mostly chalks it up to the fact that Toronto is a major media and film hub, but there’s a money factor too. Ontario’s aggressive tax credits have drawn the big budget films here. But smaller, independent films are being made here too, in part because funding bodies have come to see their potential.

“One thing that’s going to play a major factor is that government funding bodies are more receptive to funding genre films these days. For example, a guy like Jason Eisner, who did Hobo with a Shotgun, that’s a Canadian genre film that had huge international presence. A lot of the fresher blood that is coming into those funding bodies is friendlier to genre films, and they understand the potential for the genre work.”

Walter Klassen’s home and studio is a testament to the amount of film and television made here, and also to the changing nature of film production. He started Walter Klassen FX, and the number of bodies, animals and other weird stuff in the studio’s prop shop points what his company used to do, mostly creating animatronics for films. One prized possession is a concave mirror that creates an impressive three-dimensional reflection, which was used in 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic. Today, since most effects work has shifted to CGI, he’s had to change his focus, investing in cutting-edge equipment like a 3D printer and full metal-working machines.

“Science fiction, for example, is a good area for us, because everything they want doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist yet,” he says. “Actors still need hand props in their hands. They still need something, so if it’s a sci-fi movie like Total Recall, the bombs that Colin Farrell has, or the backpacks on the soldiers, where computer screens come out of it, anything exotic that they can’t buy, like often guns and weapons, things that are real.”

Klassen is doing some work on Robocop, and did a lot for Del Toro’s Pacific Rim. He credits the surge of big-budget productions here to Pinewood Studios. Opened in 2008, Pinewood has seven sound stages, including the largest in North America, which, at 46,000 feet, is perfect for large-scale science fiction films.

“The things that make us a good draw for these types of films are that we’ve got the tax credits that are offered through the Ontario Media Development Corp, (and) the fact that we have the large production facilities that let you do these big effects-heavy films that lend to horror and sci-fi,” says Blake Steels, president of Pinewood Toronto Studios. “We’ve had guys like Guillermo del Toro walk in and go, ‘oh, I can create in this space’ . . . Mostly what sells in the long run is the word of mouth. Once you get one or two productions through, they say it’s fantastic shooting there, positive experience, they’ve got great crews, the space is excellent, and that really brings more and more people in.”

Steels describes how the jumbo sound stage was utilized for Pacific Rim.

“With Pacific Rim, we can’t talk too much, but there’s a scene where these giant aliens are moving through a battered Asian city street, and cars are flipping into the air, and the stars are running down. They retook this 10 times. Of course, the effects and aliens were coming in later, but the huge scale of the scene was amazing.”

The funny thing is, when all the action is confined to a massive sound stage, with no local landmarks or distinctive signage, there would be no way to know that it was shot in Toronto. But the secret is already out, and we can only expect more genre movies to leave their dark, twisted mark on the city.

A SAMPLING OF SCI-FI AND HORROR PRODUCTIONS SHOT IN TORONTO

Resident Evil (Franchise)

Saw (Franchise)

Prom Night (1980)

Videodrome (1983)

The Fly (1986)

Dead Ringers (1988)

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

Mimic (1997)

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Cube (1997)

American Psycho (2000)

Frequency (2000)

Ginger Snaps (2000)

X-Men (2000)

Blade II (2002)

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Fantastic Four (2005)

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Splice (2009)

Kick-Ass (2010)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Total Recall (2012)

Pacific Rim (2013)

Carrie (2013)