The buzz is building for Midnight Madness ?07, which is now just one thrilling day away!  There?s been lots of name-dropping and anticipation going around in the press and online.  Here?s a tasty little sample platter of what people have been saying.

Christopher Bales has been raving about the line-up in The Toronto Star and on his blog Crunchy Squirrel goes to Toronto.  He listed Diary of the Dead AND Dainipponjin among his three top picks for this year.  He also gave us all a big compliment on his blog, in regards to the benefit of partaking in the madness, especially for Romero and Argento this year:  ?Sure, both will get a theatrical release somewhere down the line, but why pass up the chance to see them with one of the most exciting crowds in the world??

TIFF?s own Noah Cowen also said in The Star:  "Argento is about as good as horror gets for a Baroque freak like me."

Zed Sounds gave the fest, and the madness itself a nice merit badge for our devotion to zombies, asking the question ?Is Toronto the new zombie Mecca??  (pssst? The answer is yes!)

Carla MacDonald from the Our Lady of Perpetual Hell blog sang the praises of Stuck in The Star:  "There is nothing better than gruesomely pitch-black comedies and I think that, in Gordon's hands, that's exactly what this story could be."

Also, from the blog iself:  ?Throughout his filmography, you will find that Stuart Gordon has a deft hand when it comes to finding the blacker-than-black comic side of a gruesome story. His films are what you could call transgressive?just a step beyond where other filmmakers might draw the line, y?know??

More on Diary of the Dead from USA Today?s Susan Wloszczyna:  "A master of horror returns to his indie roots and recharges his zombie engines, imagining a 21st-century outbreak of flesh-munchers."

The good folks at Bloody-Disgusting.com called The Devil?s Chair ?freakin? awesome?.  More on the film?s creep-factor from their detailed review:  ?The tone of the film is extremely unnerving and quite creepy. The way some sequences are shot will make your skin crawl. In some sequences the film is also bloody and violent as all hell. What?s so impressive in these scenes are how impactful they are without even showing some of the actual gore ? sometimes what you imagine is much worse.?

Reaching back a bit, Twitch Film gave Vexille a glowing review:  Vexille is a film that does an awful lot of things very, very well. It is an action spectacle that is, indeed, spectacular; a film that underpins its entertainment with high minded concepts and serious concerns that will ensure it remains engaging and challenging for quite some time. Eye candy it may be but these are no empty calories.

Walter at the Quiet Bubble blog is taking September 11 off ?to unwind before Takashi Miike?s midnight movie knocks my pants off.?  Walter's September 12, to-do list:  buy new slacks, bask in the awesomeness that will be Sukiyaki Western Django.

Meanwhile The In-Between has Flash Point at the top of the list not only for madness films to see, but for the whole festival.  All of it!

We?re listening to what you?re saying.  So keep on saying it and check in here for frequent and awesome updates as the madness rolls on

[Picture: Image courtesy of askapril.com.]