By Emily Innes

If you can follow the signs and the arrows, leading through a building in the midst of construction to the Toronto Underground Cinema, it’s almost like you’ve landed in the Alice in Wonderland of theatres.

Toronto’s Underground Cinema – Photo by Alisha Parchment

The first step is to get a ticket from Charlie Lawton, who smiles while saying “I hope you enjoy the show.”

A walk down the red carpeted stairs brings you to Nigel Agnew who takes the tiny ticket, rips it in half and drops one even tinier fragment into a giant popcorn bowl.

It’s a kaleidoscope of sights: posters spanning all genres and decades line the walls, a robot made of tinfoil stands beside a soda machine, and octopus legs climb out of the wall above the washrooms. Alex Woodside mans the popcorn machine, surrounded by classic glass coke bottles and Batman figurines.

No need to rush for a seat: there are 700 to choose from.

By the time you get to that seat, you have already soaked up the atmosphere and met the three guys that made the Underground a reality. Almost a year ago, they began managing the Toronto Underground Cinema, aiming to recapture the movie watching experience of the past.

Morgan White recognized the unique qualities of “the guys” and their movie theatre before it even opened and began filming a web series about their journey. “They’re crazy,” says White. “I think they’re just normal guys doing something that they are passionate about and that’s what makes them interesting. They really genuinely care about you coming to this movie theatre and enjoying yourself.”

White has gathered so much material that he is currently making a full-length feature film about the Toronto Underground Cinema and he expects a September 2011 completion date.

Last May, Agnew, Lawton, and Woodside began running the Toronto Underground Cinema on Spadina Avenue close to Queen. The basement space was originally a Chinese cinema called Golden Harvest for five years in the eighties. Years later, it had a brief nine-month stint as the Golden Classic, which screened Asian kung fu classics.

Agnew worked at the Bloor Cinema before getting involved with the Underground. He started in concessions the day he got hired and climbed to manager. Agnew says he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do something he is passionate about. “It was going to be a good gig. It’s doing what you love,” he says. Woodside was also working at the Bloor Cinema and Lawton was an independent filmmaker.

Lawton says even though the space had been vacant for 15 years, there wasn’t much they had to do to get the old theatre up and running. “It looks pretty much exactly how it looked back then, both as the Golden Classic and the Golden Harvest,” says Lawton. “All we really did was put up posters, we dusted and cleaned, we painted the doors red, and we painted the snack bar black and red. That’s literally it.”     The theatre has more modern projectors but they still require manual labour and there is still a big red curtain that slowly draws open at the start of the show – around 7.p.m.

The Toronto Underground Cinema screens a variety of movies selected by listening “to what people want to see, films we want to show, films we think will bring in an audience – it really depends on the type of movie,” says Lawton.

Lawton admits there is a bit of a preferred genre. “Horror and cult films are our bread and butter,” says Lawton. “We program that more than anything else.”

They have shown movies such as Freaks, a 1932 Tod Browning movie about a trapeze performer trying to murder a little person, and last summer’s blockbuster Iron Man 2. The theatre also runs “cinema on demand” – requests will be screened for 25 or more guests. “We are the only cinema in Toronto doing this,” says Lawton.

[pullquote]“When you are coming down here you are getting a real film geek atmosphere.”
- Nigel Agnew, co-manager[/pullquote]

The Underground space is continually being redefined to suit movie events, music concerts, or comedy shows. Filmmakers have come for Q&A sessions after screening of their movies. Adam West, who played Batman in the 1960s TV show, talked to the crowd after a screening of Batman 66. He “was a lot of fun,” says Nigel. “We sold out that night.”

Independent filmmaker Chris Green screened his movie Zombie Werewolves Attack at the Underground to what Green describes as a great audience.

“The audience enjoyed the film and they had some questions for us about how long it took to make the film and what went into it,” says Green.

“One guy in the audience even asked one of the actors to repeat a line from the movie. He’s got a new catch phrase.”  Green suggests other independent filmmakers talk to the guys at the Underground. “They helped me out a lot,” he says.

The theatre is a space to truly appreciate the beauty and magic of films. “It’s a fun place to come watch a movie,” says White. “Because the guys that run it love movies and they want you to love the movies that they love. And that’s kind of the point. They are trying to show films that they love and show them in the way they are supposed to be seen – on the big screen.”

Agnew says that the theatre usually attracts audiences that match their passion for films.  “When you are coming down here you are getting a real film geek atmosphere,” says Agnew. “You can come down and after most screenings there is usually a few people that hang around and talk at length about the merits of the Super Mario Bros. movie,” says Agnew.

One evening the theatre played Freaks and when it came to an end, moviegoer Cory Arsenault sat up on top of his chair, turned to his friends and began discussing how bizarre the movie had been.

“It’s that reaction of the audience, hearing everyone laugh or enjoy the film, that’s why we do this,” says Lawton “Seeing a film with a good crowd makes a film a thousand times better.”

All in all, the managers are pleased so far. “Considering we are not even a year in, we are doing really well,” says Agnew. “Obviously things like this take time. I think that the community support has been overwhelming, and we really have a dedicated fan base who really loves what we are doing, so I think it can only get better from here.”

Underground Cinema managers Nigel Agnew, Alex Woodside, and Charlie Lawton - Photo by Alisha Parchment

Arsenault, who has been coming here since opening night, says he likes the relaxed atmosphere the large size of the theatre and the repertoire. “I like watching the older style,” says Arsenault. He says he really enjoyed Batman 66, especially when Adam West repeated his iconic  dance.

But not everything is rosy at the Underground. There’s still the treasure hunt to find it – literally in a basement at the back of a building under construction. “We’re kind of hard to find, we don’t have a lot of signage presence on the street because of the building we’re in,” says Lawton.

Another difficulty is obtaining second run movies. This content goes to the rep theatres when the larger theatres are done with them. “The big boys pay a much larger premium to the distributors, they can pretty much keep them as long as they want,” he says. Box office hits and Oscar contenders tend to be held longer.

If someone is interested in undertaking a similar project they should be really dedicated to the project, the managers say. “Someone else trying to open up an independent movie theatre in Toronto? I’d say don’t bother,” jokes Agnew. Realistically, he says it requires a lot of passion and a desire to give people a good time.

Nonetheless, the managers have been happy about how things have been going and are looking forward to what will come. They are excited to have more events and continue to come up with new ways of using the space. Agnew would like to get big film festivals in the space and “more childhood heroes come down and chat about their work and show something the public is really going to like and remember.”

Lawton reflects on the year in a fond way. “I thought it’s been a really great year, it’s kind of hard to imagine it’s only been open for a year so far,” he says. “I’m really excited to see what happens next.”