Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2023 - Preview

Philly Unnamed Film Festival
8th annual - 2023
Preview

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, staff writer and podcast czar

Get ready to start your spooky season with Philadelphia’s premier genre- and independent film -friendly film showcase: PUFF! For their eighth year, the Philly Unnamed Film Festival is bringing an eclectic assortment of films to South Philadelphia for anyone who wants to enjoy them. PUFF will run from Weds, Sept. 27th to Sun, Oct 1st. I’ve perused the trailers for the films listed (most can be found on the PUFF YouTube channel) so I can give you an idea of what will be available on each of the fest days. I’ll provide the ticket link at the bottom of course, but before that let’s see what’s on offer.

Sept 27th:

The festival kicks off with Caddy Hack (2023), a film that asks the questions: What if the gopher from Caddyshack (1980) was supernaturally evil? and What if there were a lot of them? During a prestigious golf tournament, caddy after caddy are turning up dead from “mutated” gopher attacks and it’s up to the surviving caddies to stop it to save their jobs and their lives. The trailer is short but packs a goopy punch with plenty of sticky-looking dismemberment, glowing-eyed gopher puppet monsters, a nut shot, and even an exploding head! Caddy Hack probably isn’t a lock for the Best Picture Oscar, but it sure looks like a crowd pleaser!

After the Bizarre Block of short films (experimental shorts that defy easy categorization), PUFF is showing Killer Workout (sometimes known as Aerobicide) the 1987 slasher whodunnit set in the then-novel world of physical fitness. Five years after a young model is burned in a tanning salon incident, her twin sister Rhonda (Marcia Karr) is operating a gym where a string of murders begin to take place. The plot is overly complicated, and the kills are only occasionally gym-centric (multiple are committed with a huge novelty safety pin), but the score is great, and you won’t be the only one laughing.

Sept 28th:

The Horror Shorts block kicks things off, followed by Grieve (2023) from writer/director Robbie Smith. The trailer doesn’t give away much as far as narrative, but has buckets of mood and atmosphere! Sans dialogue, under somber piano music we see disassociated imagery of a man (educated guess is he’s grieving) at a remote house in the woods. The description mentions something about an eldritch presence that feeds on (what else?) grief, so I expect this will deal with unclear reality, and focus heavily on the vibes. I love this kind of thing personally. How about you?

The 2nd film of the day is a 10th Anniversary screening of Motivational Growth (2013), which - if you’re anything like me - you heard about due to the involvement of genre legend Jeffrey Combs. In the film, Ian (Adrian DiGiovanni) is a shut-in and habitual loser who hits his head and starts conversing with the enormous mold culture growing in his bathroom (voiced by Combs). The Mold initially helps Ian improve his life before beginning to steer things in a more sinister direction. This film is an odd-feeling balance between silly and brutal but if you can get on its wavelength, you should have a good time.

Sept 29th:

PUFF kicks the weekend off with a steamy revenge thriller. In Emanuelle’s Revenge (2023), the titular Emanuelle (Beatrice Schiaffino) begins an erotically-tinged cat-and-mouse relationship with a wealthy playboy (Gianni Rosato) after his obsession and abuse leads to the death of a young model. I don’t know how graphic this abuse might be, so if you’re especially sensitive to these themes, you might not want to start your day with this one, but - given the title - I’m guessing the bad guy is gonna get his comeuppance. In case that sweetens the pot.

After the Global Grab Bag (an assortment of international shorts) comes writer/director Nick Verdi’s Sweet Relief (2023). The trailer is slim on story, but there are flashes of knife-based violence, a man guiltily emptying a large duffel bag, and a trio of young women all in the woods of New England. There’s also a person online dubbed “Sweet Angel” who appears to be a mouse-man of some kind, who is also briefly seen in the woods. The whole thing happens under a nursery rhyme about dealing with grief. Nick’s previous film, Cockazoid - which I saw at last year’s PUFF and reviewed on MovieJawn - is an intense and fascinating spiral into a fragile male psyche, so I’m interested to see how much this film makes use of its female protagonists. This seems like a potent viewing experience.

Friday closes out with Hunting for the Hag (2023?) a found footage excursion into the woods of Illinois to find the Hawthorne Hag. This looks a bit like The Blair Witch Project (1999) - hand held camera, three friends (though they’re all women here), some of whom are skeptical, etc. - and maybe that’s all it is. And maybe that’s enough for you (there are some die-hard found footage fans out there, bless them) but the last time I thought a film screening at PUFF looked kind of basic, it was Echoes of Fear (2018) and the third act blew me away. Obviously I’m hoping for something like that here.

Sept 30th:

Saturday at PUFF is jam-packed! Beginning with the Local Block (short films from the Philly area), the first feature is Scream Therapy (2023), a horror comedy from writer/director Cassie Keet. When five thirty-something BFFs head to the desert for a weekend of restorative scream therapy (as well as drinking and drugs), they end up in the sights of an “incel cult” with a looming human sacrifice deadline. This has one really solid joke in the trailer, and the set up seems like it should be both kinda vicious and pretty funny.

Enter the Clones of Bruce (2023) plays next, a documentary about the unusual phenomenon of Bruce Lee-alikes. At the time of his death in 1973, Bruce Lee was just about to break big in America. For a while, his previous films were licensed and re-released to feed fans’ desire for more Bruce Lee movies, but after they had run out, studios turned to more duplicitous means. Hiring martial artists that “looked like” Bruce Lee (re: they were Asian) and giving them stage names like Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Bruce Lai, and Dragon Lee, genre film producers pumped out so many Lee-alikes that - as someone in the trailer points out - some people thought “Bruce Lee” was a character like Sherlock Holmes, played by different actors. This subject is endlessly fascinating to me, and this doc offers some of the “clones” the ability to speak on their times subbing for Bruce Lee, which sounds incredible!

The third film of the day, Psychosis (2023) caught my attention like a fish hook, with dramatic, unique imagery and a mix of black & white and full color footage. Described as a cross between Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998) and Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly (book 1977 / film 2006), this seems like a w-i-l-d time. When a man (Derryn Amoroso) who experiences auditory hallucinations is drawn into the orbit of a deranged bargain bin batman vigilante (Pj van Gyen) and a hypnotic guru (Adam MacNeill), reality appears to become unstable. There’s violence, mind control, potential supernatural elements; this looks like a real kitchen sink film and I. am. here for it!

The next film is an as-yet-unannounced Mystery Movie (exciting!), before the night closes out with a screening of T Blockers (2023), the third feature from 18 year old Alice Maio Mackay! When a trans filmmaker and her friends find an old horror film that predicts the future, only they know that their town is being taken over by ancient parasites. Now they’ll have to deal with the problem if they want to get back to partying. This seems like exactly the blood-and-neon soaked way you’d wanna end your evening.

Oct 1st:

The final day of PUFF 8 kicks off with the Music Videos block, followed by an afternoon screening of the 2001 - I kid you not - masterpiece that is Josie and the Pussycats! When sinister record label MegaRecords needs a new band with which to spread their subliminal advertising, they choose the titular trio of girl power pop punks (Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, and Tara Reid), setting off an anti-capitalist adventure comedy with a soundtrack full of ear worms that will get stuck in your head - in a non-sinister way - for days! Legitimately a great cult film.

The fest comes to a close with Hist-o-Rama 3D!: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (2023), a collection of outdated industrial and educational short films converted into 3D to, and I quote, “given an otherworldly dimension, allowing the past to reach out and touch us in ways their creators never imagined.” I don’t really know what that means in an exact way, but it sure sounds interesting.

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I’ve never had a bad time at a PUFF screening. The organizers are friendly, funny, and welcoming to both the audience and, frequently, filmmakers. The vibes, as they say, are impeccable. Please support PUFF whenever and however possible and that includes treating yourself to some of the screenings mentioned above! I don’t think you’ll regret it.





PUFF 8 will run from Weds, Sept. 27th to Sun, Oct 1st.
Tickets are available HERE.

Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 - Finale

Fantasia International Film Festival
27th Edition
Week 2

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, staff writer and podcast czar

And with that, the curtain has closed on another Fantasia International Film Fest and I’m …pleasantly exhausted. I managed to see over 50 films and shorts during the film’s three week tenure. Some left me scratching my head, some left me dabbing my eyes, and some left me out of my seat applauding. Below I’m going to round up some especially noteworthy titles from the festival in a little bit more detail than in my previous dispatches from the festival front lines.

But before I do, I want to thank everyone involved at Fantasia and all the related companies that fielded my emails and organized everything for not just myself but everyone else covering the festival both in-person and remotely. It’s a lot of work, a lot of organization, and it can’t be easy, but every year Fantasia makes it look painless.

Here are my choices for stand out titles from the 27th Fantasia International Film Festival:

Hundreds of Beavers
Directed by Mike Cheslik
Written by Mike Cheslik, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
Starring Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves, Wes Tank
Running time 1 hour, 48 minutes

I have to start with my personal favorite of the year, Mike Cheslik‘s Hundreds of Beavers. Very few movies leave me smiling for the entire runtime but this absolutely did. A man having to resort to wilderness survival techniques when his applejack distillery gets destroyed, who then eventually falls in love with the furrier at the local trading post and wages an all-out war on the local wildlife to win her hand? Even the description sounds ludicrous, and while it is, it works because of the filmmakers’ dedication to that cartoonish logic.

Though it is live action, this touches on everything that made the Looney Tunes cartoons great: the single-mindedness with which the woodsman accomplishes whatever his task of the moment is should seem familiar to anyone who watched Bugs Bunny and co. try to blow each other up/eat each other/etc., throughout their youth. But rather than just repeating the time-honored goofs you’d be familiar with, co-writers Mike Cheslik (also the director) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (also the star) build upon them. The famous ‘So Hungry That The Other Guy Looks Like a Turkey Leg’ bit is elaborated upon not just by changing up the foods being hallucinated, but by hilariously mis-pairing them: fish turn into ice cream, geese turn into a flying-v of soft pretzels, a nest full of eggs turns into a pepperoni pizza.

There’s also tons of cartoonish violence (both narrowly avoided and not), sometimes with surprising brutality which is still funny in the greater context, like when the woodsman skins a beaver to make clothes for the winter: the animals are played by humans in mascot/furry costumes, so not only is the violence subverted, but the punchline of a man wearing a coonskin cap with an enormous smiling mascot face on it undercuts the shock of violence that had itself just undercut the repercussion-less cartoon violence that came before. It’s very smart, nuanced humor that doesn’t draw attention to itself; it’s only concerned with being funny.

The stand-out sequence is the penultimate big action scene, the showdown between the woodsman and the titular hundreds of beavers that he needs to slay to win the approval of his crush’s father. After sneaking into the beavers’ evil headquarters dam, a chase ensues on the complicated and spatially nonsensical series of log flume-like chutes that are used to transport the trees that the beavers have chewed down. The entire sequence is about 15 minutes long, is presented in stark black and white (as is the rest of the film) and is the definitive funniest live action cartooning (cartoonery?) that I’ve ever seen. The stakes are established, raised, subverted, reset, and on and on, over and over and it never gets tiresome. It was honestly mesmerizing and, as is about 90% of the film, totally dialogue-free.

I cannot recommend Hundreds of Beavers enough. I wish I could rewatch it again right now. The same crew’s previous film Lake Michigan Monster was released by Arrow Video two years ago or so and I sincerely hope Hundreds of Beavers gets the same treatment so I can watch it whenever I want.

River
Directed by Junta Yamaguchi
Written by Makoto Ueda
Starring Riko Fujitani, Manami Hanjô, Gôta Ishida
Running time 1 hour, 26 minutes

I mentioned in my previous capsule review that I underestimated River. Sure the set-up, a mountain spa gets trapped in a two-minute time loop and only those in the immediate area are affected, sounded cute and interesting but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as thoroughly as I did. There was no big turning point for me, it happened gradually (but swiftly) and before I knew it, I was smiling ear-to-ear at this very small-scale drama.

The smallness is what really wins one over, I think. There are no super dynamic moments or characters, they’re all very relatable. Aside from the various spa employees (owners, attendants, cooks) there are a handful of guests: a pair of old friends who have to clear the air between them over lunch, a writer working on a tight deadline, and his handler from the publishing company who’s along to make sure he meets it. When the loop becomes apparent, the writer can actually relax a little without the crushing weight of time ticking forward. It doesn’t hurt that his handler is stuck getting out of the bath all the way on the far side of the spa and ends up ridiculously running around in a towel, making everyone uncomfortable. The two old pals meanwhile have all the time in the world to really address all the issues between them, air all of their grievances, address their guilt, and ultimately bury the hatchet.

The closest to a big action set piece that surfaces in River is when attendant Mikoto (Riko Fujitani) and line cook Taku (Yûki Torigoe) run away from the spa (as far as the two-minute loop will allow) and hide out watching Roman Holiday in two-minute increments, as a date. Not that this is without drama or tension; the rest of the folks in the loop are looking for them because they believe they won’t be able to resolve the loop until everyone is present, so Mikoto and Taku have to keep finding new places to hunker down together. It feels like a game of tag rather than anything life-or-death.

It’s all just so adorable and twee. In my capsule review I mentioned that there’s a Wes Anderson quality to everything, in case my use of “twee” didn’t appropriately convey exactly what I meant. There’s something about the dialogue; the people in the loop don’t have time to talk around anything, so whenever they cross paths they just say whatever is most important in that moment. It reminds me of the direct and deadpan delivery of a lot of Anderson’s characters. There’s also an attention to detail, like the writer punching through the paper door panels because he’s “always wanted to do that”, that makes the world feel realistic even though it’s obviously heightened.

There is an explanation for the loop that’s pretty wild but feels of a piece with the film that has come before it. There’s a storybook quality to everything leading up to the finale that makes all of it feel like play, like fun, which allows for the denouement to be a bit silly and whimsical. It just wouldn’t work half as well if the movie took itself more seriously. Thank goodness there are filmmakers (like director Junta Yamaguchi and writer Makoto Ueda for instance) who make movies that are allowed to just be quirky and sweet, and places like Fantasia Fest for me to find them through.

#Manhole
Directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
Written by Michitaka Okada
Starring Yûto Nakajima, Nao, Kento Nagayama
Running time 1 hour, 39 minutes

I love all kinds of movies, but like anyone, I go through phases. And currently, for the last few years at least, I am all for this kind of contained thriller: a person (maybe two) gets themself/selves in an unusual but not impossible situation and has to survive long enough to get out of it. In the past I mentioned movies like Crawl (2019) where some folks are trapped in a flooding house with alligators, Fall (2022) where thrill-seekers get stuck at the top of a very tall tower, and (breaking the sequence by both not rhyming and not being quite as good a film) The Pool (2018) where a guy gets stuck in an empty pool with also an alligator. There’s also Quicksand (2023) (newly added to Shudder) where two folks get stuck in guess what, but I haven’t had the opportunity to check that out yet. These are the feature length equivalent of a television “bottle episode” where most if not all of the story takes place in one location to restrict the budget.

#Manhole fits nicely in there amongst those other bottle thrillers in that, after a night of drinking to celebrate his engagement, Shunsuke (Yûto Nakajima) falls down an open guess what and can’t get out under his own power. #Manhole (and I’m encouraging you to always say the hashtag in your head) immediately makes things interesting with fun choices and additions to both story and setting. There’s the mysterious white foam slowly trickling in from a run-off pipe, a leaky and shoddily-repaired gas main, and the possibility that Shunsuke was drugged. Then there’s how Shunsuke goes about trying to escape: he creates a fake online persona, a “Pecker” account (which is no worse a Twitter rebrand than “X”) called Manhole Girl - because “people are more likely to help a girl” - to try to figure out exactly where he is (because remember, he was at least drunk, possibly drugged).

Don’t get me wrong, he tries the more sensible things - calling friends, calling the local police - but the film does a good job of ruling them out as possibilities. It also keep heaping complications on him: given the weather he can see up through the #manhole, he may not be in the part of the city he first thought he was, and on top of that the only person in his contacts that answered the phone was his ex-girlfriend, with whom he has a messy past.

But the small ways in which #Manhole defies expectations have got NOTHING on the big ways it defies them. The third act of this film goes off the rails in huge, extremely pulpy style and while I will not spoil even one iota of it, I can assure you that you’re not prepared for the w-i-l-d-ness of these turns. Perhaps most impressive of all, despite initially feeling like things are coming out of left field, in the end it all totally works together. Grab your popcorn for this one, and buckle up.

Killing Romance
Directed by Wonsuk Lee
Written by Park Jeong-ye
Starring Lee Hanee, Lee Sun-kyun, Myoung Gong
Running time 1 hour 46 minutes

I can’t think of a movie that’s quite like Killing Romance. A slapstick-minded story of a one-time film icon’s failing marriage to a controlling egotistical entrepreneur, the film has a backbone of pure fandom and a murder plot at the center. It also has some of the strangest, silliest details that only exist to perfectly maintain the zany tone of the world. John Na (Lee Sun-kyun), the aforementioned entrepreneur, has a selection of fake mustaches for instance. Why? I guess because he can afford it? Makes sense. Seems like something he’d do.

But there’s so much more depth to Killing Romance than first seems apparent. After marrying John Na, it took Yeo-rae (Lee Hanee) a few years but eventually she realized that, as the narrator puts it, “He was a fucking monster”. And the narrator’s right. John Na is manipulative, offering to fund a movie project Yeo-rae is interested in starring in - to restart her career - but ONLY if the filmmakers promise NOT to hire her, telling them that she’s unwell, has depression and hallucinations, and is above all a bad actress! He’s also physically abusive, standing Yeo-rae in a corner and pelting her with tangerines! In hindsight, when he first swept her off her feet, she was feeling especially low because her most recent movie was a flop - the situation may be unusual, but that’s classic predatory behavior.

Serendipitously John Na’s compound is across the street from Beom-woo (Myoung Gong)’s house. He’s a Yeo-rae fanclub member from back in her pop idol days, and he’ll do anything to help her get out of this situation. Anything, even murder… Well, almost. Turns out he gets cold feet when it comes to actually killing John Na, but he’s still willing to help Yeo-rae do it. Many goofy plans are concocted, like weaponizing his toxic masculinity in a scheme to get him to stay in the hottest sauna in the country until his brain cooks, or weaponizing his peanut allergy by getting him to eat entirely too much bean stew laced with the deadly legumes.

Don’t let these events, which I’ll grant you sound grim without context, lead you to believe this is in any way a dark film. It isn’t. It’s a very fun, silly, and colorful world. It’s just that John Na is arguably the worst person in that fun, silly, and colorful world. He’s even made an ostrich nemesis (who can speak AND fly) who is firmly of the belief that John Na deserves everything that’s coming to him. Seek out Killing Romance when you’re able and I think you’ll agree.

Mad Fate
Directed by Soi Cheang
Written by Melvin Li, Nai-Hoi Yau
Starring Ka-Tung Lam, Lok Man Yeung, Ting Yip Ng
Running time 1 hour 48 minutes

Mad Fate takes the conceit of the Final Destination films - can regular humans, once wised up to the grand design, outmaneuver Death? - and ups the stakes to outmaneuvering Fate itself. After a botched attempt by a fortune telling master (Ka-Tung Lam) to bluff a prostitute’s oncoming bad luck, he finds himself crossing paths with an actual killer (Charm Man Chan), a young man with violent tendencies (Lok Man Yeung) and the grizzled detective who’s after both of them (Ting Yip Ng). For personal reasons, the master decides to use all of his occult and astrological knowledge to help the violent young man defy his seemingly inevitable murderous inclinations.

It’s an uphill battle too. The two of them don’t get along and despite it obviously being in his favor to avoid backsliding into violence, the young man just can’t seem to help himself and no amount of feng shui elements, no matter how deliberately placed, seem likely to help. The master is carrying some emotional baggage from his past, and is afraid of his own fate (he believes he is destined to lose his sanity) so he’s determined to make this experiment work because if he can help someone avoid their fate, he may be able to avoid his own.

It is a surprisingly fun watch though, in spite of the heaviness and subject matter, at times approaching buddy comedy energy between the two leads, but with those slightly over-the-top stakes (the fate of their souls) always looming. Their clashing personalities make for inherently dynamic scenes even if, as I mentioned, the thrust of the scene is essentially redecorating. There’s a manic sort of back comedy running through a lot of the film too, whether it’s the master putting the young man’s hair in curlers (long, straight hair is not good for his spiritual alignment) or the young man attempting to murder any stray cat that looks at him wrong, and even if it doesn’t all entirely work for me, I admire the bold swings at this tone.

Mad Fate was the last feature I was able to catch for Fantasia Fest this year, and it exemplifies - as much as any one film can - what makes this festival so wonderful. Even before the film landscape became as dire an environment as it has recently, a film like Mad Fate would be unlikely to see wide release. It’s too dark, the subject matter is handled in a sometimes indelicate manner, and I can’t imagine a trailer that appropriately represents the film, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be seen, and it doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable.

Obviously, my writing a few dozen sentences praising a complicated film isn’t going to break it into the mainstream but my hope is, as always, that someone reading this will put that film on their mental watchlist (or maybe they have a digital one on a site like Letterboxd), and should they ever encounter it in the wild so to speak, the title will ring a bell and they’ll decide to watch it. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be a film that really speaks to them. Maybe they love it enough to dive into the other work of the cast and crew, or maybe they hate it and it will encourage them to make something of their own.

Film is an art (yes, even whatever movie you just thought of as a counter argument to that statement) and art is always in conversation with itself, with other art, and with the people availing themselves of it. It should provoke emotional response and those emotions need not always be complex, there’s nothing wrong with simple, uncomplicated joy especially these days (which are inarguably some very rough days for many, many folks). But it should also inspire, whether what comes from that inspiration is a good conversation or another work of art.

That’s why I love covering film festivals. The major movies coming from the huge studios don’t need your attention as much as literally any other film. This isn’t my commentary on overall quality, just general awareness. There used to be more of a playing field for smaller films, but many of the theaters which catered to that market have either gone under or adopted a new programming strategy to avoid that fate (and good for them, I hope that they succeed). It’s just harder for smaller films to find their audience.

The majority of the films I was able to screen at Fantasia Fest were not on my radar and likely wouldn’t have been. A lot of them were completely unknown commodities, meaning I was unfamiliar with anyone in the cast or crew. But, thanks largely to this year’s Fantasia (as well as the quality of the films themselves) I now have dozens of new names on my mental ‘I Like Their Work’ list. I hope my coverage helped you add some new names to your lists as well. And if there’s a film festival you’re interested in checking out online, or one in your town, I hope you’ll do so.

Until next time, Long Live the Movies!

FANTASIA 27 - Week 2

Fantasia International Film Festival
27th Edition
Week 2

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, staff writer and podcast czar

This year’s Fantasia International Film Festival is rolling right along and I’m just trying to hold on, y’know? With a staggering amount of feature films, and almost a dozen short film blocks, there’s more than enough to keep anyone entertained. And trust me when I tell you that I am being entertained.

This 2nd week has been very surprising for me. You never know what you’ll be getting with a movie, but especially at a festival. Some of these films have only the briefest of descriptions to go by, and though sometimes they don’t live up to the expectation, sometimes (the better times) they exceed them! Below are a couple of recommended flicks from Fantasia week 2!

#Manhole

Written by Michitaka Okada

Directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri

Starring Yûzo Nakajima, Nao, Kento Nagayama

When a film’s title has a hashtag in it, I am less likely to take it seriously. I’m gonna say the word “hashtag” in my head at every applicable moment, which can severely damage your film’s tension. That’s just how it is. And when the film’s plot is as simple-seeming as “a man falls down an open hashtag-manhole and becomes trapped”, I am likely to think I know what this film has in store for me. In this instance, I could not have been more wrong.

A man absolutely does become trapped after falling down an open hashtag-manhole, and yes, some of the runtime is him exploring the space, trying to devise clever ways out, as expected. But when #Manhole bucks my expectations, it really threw me in the best way. If like I did, you think you know where this film is going, I can assure you: You do not! This sits comfortably alongside Crawl (2019), Fall (2022), and (even though it’s not quite as good a film as the others) The Pool (2018) as simple-seeming concepts that wring every ounce of entertainment from their set-ups.

Blackout

Written by Larry Fessenden

Directed by Larry Fessenden

Starring Alex Hurt, Motell Gyn Foster, Marshall Bell

In Blackout from writer/director Larry Fessenden, the acclaimed genre mainstay finally gets to tackle the werewolf mythos, and as he usually does when treading in seemingly familiar waters, he manages to approach the subject from a unique direction. Sure we have a protagonist who believes he is the unknown beast committing the killings in Talbot township (nice reference btw), but Fessenden makes his story about the emotional arc as well as contrasting the townsfolk’s reactions with a very timely commentary on xenophobia.

These parallel through-lines give the story both a macro and micro focus that’s interesting for a classic monster movie. What’s more, this may be Fessenden’s best shot, strongest directed film. The use of Charley (Alex Hurt)’s own paintings to help tell his story is incredibly effective and feels surprisingly fresh, even though the first time it happens I wondered why this isn’t done in more films.

River

Written by Makoto Ueda

Directed by Junta Yamaguchi

Starring Riko Fujitani, Manami Hanjô, Gôta Ishida

The story of a small inn located in the mountains of Kyoto which becomes stuck in a two-minute loop of which only those in the immediate area are aware, River sounded like a “cute” idea, but I didn’t expect to as thoroughly enjoy it as I ultimately did, or to be as drawn into the handful of characters’ stories as I was.

Without resorting to much broad comedy, and even while skirting dark emotional territory, I was laughing out loud multiple times. There is a Wes Anderson quality to the directness of the characters’ approach, the matter-of-fact way they accept the strangeness of what’s happening, as well as the overall curated diorama quality of each character’s small-stake storylines that I think would appeal to wider audiences. It’s also notably a film without a villain, of which there are shockingly few, which also lends it no small amount of charm.

Aporia

Written by Jared Moshe

Directed by Jared Moshe

Starring Judy Greer, Payman Maadi, Edi Gathegi

With its strong emotional core and bold story moves, Aporia is a modern bit of science fiction that falls somewhere between Primer (2004) and Something in the Dirt (2022). When a scientist (Edi Gathegi)’s widow (Judy Greer) and physicist best friend (Payman Maadi) use an experimental device to correct his death, they begin a chain of events with unforeseeable consequences for them. As much a film about guilt and personal responsibility as it is about quantum theory, Aporia hits surprisingly hard.

It should come as no surprise when I say Judy Greer is great in this (when isn’t she?) but she’s rarely given the chance to anchor a film with such emotional complexity and she shines here. My one quibble is that the direction here is a bit matter-of-fact and could have used an extra hit of emotionality or sentimentality. Still, Aporia is a modern take on the monkey’s paw concept that will leave you with an appreciation for everything and everyone you have in your life.

Skin Deep

Written by Dimitrij Schaad, Alex Schaad

Directed by Alex Schaad

Starring Mala Emde, Jonas Dassler, Thomas Wodianka

Similar to something like The Lobster (2015), Alex Schaad’s Skin Deep takes a science fictional conceit and uses it to examine very common concerns. When couple Leyla and Tristan (Mala Emde and Jonas Dassler respectively) visit a secretive island commune to try out the body-swapping technology offered there, they’re forced to reexamine not just their relationship, or their places in it, but themselves and each other as people.

Skin Deep is a profoundly affecting examination of empathy and love. The old maxim about walking a mile in another’s shoes is meant to give us a concept of empathy and what Skin Deep does is give us a deeper level to contemplate: What if you could walk that proverbial mile in another person’s body? Imagine how much deeper you could learn to love them.

Hundreds of Beavers

Written by Mike Cheslik

Directed by Mike Cheslik, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews

Starring Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves, Wes Tank

A few years back, I was lucky enough to see The Lake Michigan Monster, a silent sci-fi monster movie epic made with a love of 1950s b-movies and the aesthetic of a Saturday morning kids’ show. It’s an absolute blast, so when I heard that the same creative group were behind Hundreds of Beavers, I was beside myself with anticipation.

When a former applejack distiller (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) is forced to live off of the land, he falls in love with the local trader’s daughter (Olivia Graves) and will have to defeat the titular amount of semi-aquatic rodents to win her hand. And he’ll do so in the style of a (nearly) silent film with healthy doses of Looney Tunes, Sid & Marty Krofft and just a pinch of Jackass. The film falls firmly into both the So Dumb It’s Genius and So Smart It’s Hilarious categories and I can not recommend it enough.

With Love and a Major Organ

Written by Julia Lederer

Directed by Kim Albright

Starring Anna Maguire, Hamza Haq, Veena Sood

Another in the illustrious history of science fiction being used to examine human nature, With Love and a Major Organ takes place in a near future (or possibly alternate now) where most people use an app to make all of their major life decisions. Most people that is, aside from painter Anabel (Anna Maguire) who fully embraces the chaos and messiness of being truly human, until a string of bad fortune and heartbreak drives her to remove her own heart - which, it should be noted, is just a thing that a person can do here.

Yes, it’s a strange world. One that asks the audience to buy into a lot of odd conceits, but beneath them is a truly touching film that creatively visualizes emotional states and examines numerous aspects of love: not only love for yourself and others, but also the dangers of never opening yourself up to love for fear of being hurt. With Love and a Major Organ is quirky, which can turn some people off, but for those willing to commit, it’s a unique and moving experience.

Where the Devil Roams

Written by the Adams family

Directed by the Adams family

Starring Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams

The follow up to Hellbender from mother/father/daughter writing/directing/starring collective the Adams family, Where the Devil Roams follows circus performers Maggie (Toby Poser), Seven (John Adams), and their daughter Eve (Zelda Adams) as they try to make ends meet in a raggedy sideshow traveling from town to town through Depression-era America.

Driven to increasingly extreme ends by a combination of desperation and Maggie’s own violent tendencies, the family set themselves on a path to their own dismantling and eventual reassembly via supernatural means. From the grainy feel of the entire carny aesthetic to the occult tensions bubbling under the surface as the family leave a trail of bodies in their wake, this one, as the kids say, is all about the spooky vibe.

Fantasia International Film Festival runs until August 9th in Montreal, Quebec. Tickets are available HERE.

FANTASIA 27 - Week 1

Fantasia International Film Festival
27th Edition
Week 1

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, staff writer and podcast czar

My first exposure to The Fantasia International Film Festival was in 2020 where I saw a half dozen tremendous films that I would otherwise probably not have been exposed to (I’ve only encountered two of them on streaming services in the years since). This is the strength of all film festivals, but especially ones like Fantasia which gather movies, documentaries and shorts from around the world - essentially each year I excitedly open the festival preview emails whispering “Yes… expand my cinematic horizons, daddy.”

I try to take in as many films as I am given access to, not just for my own enjoyment, but yours reading this as well. While I won’t be going into deep detail on any of the films below, maybe one of them sounds like your kind of jam. Then the impetus is on you to seek it out, and I hope you like what you find.

Stay Online
Written by Anton Skrypets, Eva Strelnikova
Directed by Eva Strelnikova
Starring Elizaveta Zaitseva, Oleksandr Rudynskyy, Ekaterina Kisten

Stay Online wasn’t something that I was champing at the bit to see, but it pleasantly surprised me with its creativity and ability to keep its numerous simultaneous plot lines engaging. Stay Online is what’s being called a screenlife film - a film told entirely through a computer or smartphone screen via text windows, video messaging, and surfing the ‘net - set in the Ukraine during Russia’s invasion (which is still ongoing btw). Katya (Elizaveta Zaitseva) checks in with her brother Vitya (Oleksandr Rudynskyy) on the front line, her American friend Ryan (Anton Skrypets) a volunteer helping refugees get to safe zones, and keeps her & Vitya’s mother up to date on Vitya’s status, while also finding time to secure and ship a Spider-Man costume for a young boy whose parents may not have gotten safely out of a war zone. That’s in between sheltering in the bathroom when the air raid sirens go off.

Like I said: It’s a lot of threads, all mingling through Katya and her donated laptop, but Stay Online uses some very clever tricks to maintain the illusion that it’s all happening in real time. It keeps the tension dialed up, builds emotional connection to flawed, complicated characters, and attempts to communicate a fraction of the overwhelming dread that existing in a war zone feels like.

Lovely, Dark, and Deep
Written by Teresa Sutherland
Directed by Teresa Sutherland
Starring Georgina Campbell, Nick Blood, Wai Ching Ho

Lovely, Dark, and Deep focuses on one of my favorite spooky topics: the volume of unexplained disappearances that take place in our National Parks. The first feature from writer Teresa Sutherland (Midnight Mass, The Wind), Lovely, Dark, and Deep is loaded with strange happenings, eerie details, and the inherent alienness of nature experienced in solitude. Lennon (Georgina Campbell) is competent and dedicated to her job as a new park ranger, but has an ulterior motive: investigating the disappearance of her sister when they were children. She sets out for days at a time to chart the various areas of the park all alone, but there are dangerous things in the wilderness, and they know she’s looking for them.

This has some top tier scares in it and sets the spooky mood with surety and finesse. In a movie that tackles these kinds of themes, everything hinges on the payoff; is the explanation of events satisfying or does it feel like the filmmakers have skirted the responsibility of an answer? Lovely, Dark, and Deep, despite budgetary constraints, hits just the right forlorn, eerie, existentially chilling tone that I think audiences will respond to.

White Noise
Written by Christina Saliba, Tamara Scherbak
Directed by Tamara Scherbak
Starring Bahia Watson, Ryan Hollyman, Guifre Bantjes-Rafols

Short films have comparatively little time and resources with which to draw an audience in, but White Noise from director Tamara Scherbak does an admirable job. Taking a real life aural disorder - misophonia, an aversion to sounds - and a real life oddity - an anechoic chamber - and crafting a tidy little scenario that builds tension to an unsettling finale.

The performances are mostly brief, with the exception of leading lady Ava (Bahia Watson), and uniformly solid, but the real star of White Noise is the sound mixing and effects. Once Ava is left for her session in the sound-canceling room, the blanketing silence is slowly replaced by increasingly unsettling biological sounds: her heartbeat, the blood in her veins, her joints creaking, and on and on, becoming an oppressive cacophony. It’s deeply unnerving and, if you’ll pardon the pun, disquieting.

Mami Wata
Written by C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi
Directed by C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi
Starring Evelyne Ily Juhen, Uzoamaka Aniunoh, Emeka Amakeze

Shot in delectable black and white, Mami Wata tells a mythic story of heritage under attack from outside forces. Can the peaceful village of Iyi survive when its leadership, an intermediary between the village and a powerful water deity, falls under scrutiny through a perfect storm of mistrust, apathy, and jealousy?

Though the middle of this came across as a bit inert for me, I never lost interest due to the absolutely transfixing black and white cinematography (Lílis Soares) and direction (C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi).

Restore Point
Written by Tomislav Cecka, Zdenek Jecelin
Directed by Robert Hloz
Starring Andrea Mohylová, Matej Hádek, Milan Ondrík

Another film where the description left me expecting less, Restore Point has much more going on than just its ‘a future where a service exists allowing people to be brought back to life after an unnatural death’ setting. The world is nuanced and detailed, and the details matter: the fact that the RP must be backed up every 48 hours is a neat point that actually has significance.

But the overall story is what really shines here: a noir-adjacent thriller with cyberpunk undertones where a cop (Andrea Mohylová) must team up with a recently deceased scientist (Matej Hádek) to track a terrorist group trying to bring down the entire RP system on the eve of its privatization. The characters are flawed, desperate, and almost always just a step behind where they need to be, and that makes for a riveting watch.

Vincent Must Dies
Written by Mathieu Naert
Directed by Stéphan Castang
Starring Karim Leklou, Vimala Pons, François Chattot

Y’know how some things are said to be “shaped like a friend”? Well for some reason, many, many people one day seem to find that mild mannered office worker Vincent (Karim Leklou) is shaped like an enemy. Neither Vincent nor the movie seem that concerned with figuring out why, being more interested in Vincent’s just trying to figure out a way to be.

I saw a brief interview with the director (Stéphan Castang) where he said that he was interested in crossing genre lines with this film, including horror, comedy, and romance, and while I think it does blur those boundaries, it does them a little modestly for my taste. I did enjoy the film overall, but would have liked a little something extra from it.

Shin Kamen Rider
Written by Hideaki Anno, Shotaro Ishinomori
Directed by Hideaki Anno
Starring Sôsuke Ikematsu, Minami Hamabe, Tasuku Emoto

I’m only familiar with the Kamen Rider mythos through cultural osmosis, so I’m not sure how much of this tale about a motorcyclist resurrected through cybernetic and genetic augmentation to fight other augmented cyborgs (all themed around insects) is accurate. BUT what’s important is: I don’t care. It’s impossible to stop and question the logic of Shin Kamen Rider when the story is barreling ahead like a grasshopper-themed cyborg on a specially-made motorcycle; his red scarf flapping heroically in the breeze.

This film crams what feels like an entire trilogy’s worth of story into one 2 hour block and it’s only the slightest bit overwhelming. But the pure vibrant, gory, action-packed fun makes it worth the small amount of emotional exhaustion. The tremendous villain performance from Mirai Moriyama as Ichiro doesn’t hurt either.

Transylvanie
Written by Rodrigue Huart, David A. Cassan, Axel Wursten
Directed by Rodrigue Huart
Starring Katell Vervat, Lucien Le Ho, Emma Guatier

Part Let the Right One In, part George Romero’s Martin, this French short is a complete blast. Watching 10 year old Ewa (Katell Vervat) plan to make handsome, slightly-older neighbor boy Hugo (Lucien Le Ho) in her legion of undead followers, despite his relationship to local mean girl Gwen (Emma Gautier) completely hooked me right from the jump.

Is the subject material familiar? Sure, but it’s handled with a freshness that lends each of its slim assemblage of scenes an energy that makes them hard to ignore. The worldbuilding done at the fringes of this short is subtle, but deeply effective. I felt more affection and camaraderie for Ewa within 20 minutes than I did for characters I’d spend several times that amount in other offerings. There’s not much market for short films, nor is there one simple place to seek them out, but I’m looking forward to anything director/co-writer Rodrigue Huart does in the future.

The First Slam Dunk
Written by Takehiko Inoue
Directed by Takehiko Inoue
Starring Shugo Nakamura, Subaru Kimora, Maaya Sakamoto

I’m familiar with the Slam Dunk series in reputation only but I was genuinely excited to check this out. I’m not sure what I expected of an animated feature film based on a basketball manga from the early ‘90s, but I’ll say this: I wasn’t disappointed. Set entirely during one important game, the psychology of the teams was fascinating, clearly explained, and doled out in reasonable amounts, and the characters were fleshed out through a series of flashbacks that were genuinely touching.

The film’s focal character is small fry Ryota Miyagi (Shugo Nakamura) who has struggled his whole life to escape from the shadow of his deceased basketball star older brother, but the standout character for me was red-haired troublemaker Hanamichi Sakuragi (Subaru Kimora) who - fun fact - it turns out is actually kind of the protagonist of the series as a whole! It’s worth noting that the animation is stunning and makes every gameplay minute riveting.

The Fantastic Golem Affairs
Written by Juan González, Nando Martínez
Directed by Juan González, Nando Martínez
Starring Brays Efe, Bruna Cusí, Javier Botet

Easily the most unique film I’ve seen thus far at Fantasia, The Fantastic Golem Affairs (El fantástico caso del Golem) exists in a world entirely its own. When Juan (Brays Efe)’s best friend David (David Menéndez) slips and falls from the apartment building’s roof during a game of movie title charades, instead of becoming a big messy pile of meat and bone, he shatters. Turns out David was a golem, artificial humanoids designed to be friends and lovers for socially deficient humans, whether the humans know it or not.

That’s only scratching the surface of the bizarre and creative, silly and horny, and through and through colorful world that Juan González and Nando Martínez have created, and I won’t spoil more than I’ve already mentioned but needless to say: it’s a lot of fun. The ending isn’t quite as bombastic or scintillating as the set-up and world as a whole, but it’s far from a let-down, and still entirely worth your time.

Fantasia International Film Festival runs until August 9th in Montreal, Quebec. Tickets are available HERE. 

Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 - Preview

Fantasia International Film Festival
27th Edition
July 20th - August 9th, 2023

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, staff writer and podcast czar

Returning for its 27th Edition, this July 20th - August 9th, the Fantasia International Film Festival is Montreal, Québec, Canada’s cavalcade of unique yet universally exciting films, most of which would otherwise go unnoticed by your average audience. Fantasia grew out of a love for Asian genre cinema into a renowned festival dedicated to “creating bridges between the cutting edge and the mainstream”. Focusing on genre films from around the globe, usually of the lower budget, lower profile variety; in short, the kinds of films that don’t get wide release marketing pushes unless they’ve won accolades from somewhere like Fantasia. Over the years the festival has been a beloved destination for fans and filmmakers alike, warranting glowing praise from, among others, the world’s foremost ambassador of genre film - Guillermo del Toro, who referred to Fantasia as “a shrine”. Personally, I have been lucky enough to have numerous mind-expanding, breathtaking, eye-popping film experiences within Fantasia’s program.

This year’s lineup is as borderline overwhelming as ever, and it feels like they’re announcing more movies every day! Below I’ve assembled a selection of the films that have grabbed my attention with both fists for one reason or another and will be at the top of my To Watch list once the festival kicks off. I’ve divided them into some loosely defined “categories” to help me keep track of them, and to help showcase the width and breadth of Fantasia’s 2023 offerings, with my main pick set apart.

_______________________________________ Horror ________________________________________

When I think “genre” I think “horror” and this year’s Fantasia has almost too much horror on offer. For instance: A queer filmmaker finds herself as the only one who can detect the parasites taking over a small town in T Blockers from eighteen year-old filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay (her third feature!). The new film Perpetrator from Jennifer Reeder (who you may know from Knives and Skin) sounds bewitching: on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, a troubled teen girl experiences a magical metamorphosis due to a familial enchantment which will aid her in searching for the person responsible for a series of disappearances at her school. Then there’s In My Mother’s Skin from director Kenneth Dagatan: the first film co-produced by the funding boards of three countries (the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan), it follows a young woman whose attempts to protect her dying mother are undermined by her misplaced trust in an evil fairy.

Then there’s the Sundance hit Talk to Me which has been the, no pun intended, talk of the town. Following a group of Australian teens dealing with the fallout from a seance involving an embalmed hand, Talk to Me is being described as one of the scariest films in recent years. It also has a creepy kangaroo jump scare in the trailer, which immediately hooked me!

______________________________________ Animation ______________________________________

For as long as I’ve been aware, Fantasia has featured a treasure trove of all kinds of animation. Without even discussing the short films (always a haven for unusual animated projects), this year’s festival is no different. The steampunk detective adventure Kurayukaba is set around a train traveling the dreamlike tunnels beneath a metropolis. Animated in a traditional anime style with 3D elements like the train, this looks extremely intriguing and mysterious. The Chinese feature Deep Sea looks staggering and whimsical, achieved in part by using “a cutting-edge digital particle-animation technique” that emulates an ink-wash painting style to tell the tale of a young girl seeking answers from within by traversing an oceanic dream world. Then there’s the box office record breaking sports anime The First Slam Dunk, the first addition to the super popular Slam Dunk franchise in 33 years! It’s about basketball, in case you didn’t realize.

The film that most caught my attention however, is Mother Land. A stop-motion modern fable from South Korea set in the Siberian tundra, it follows a young girl traveling into the unknown wilderness in search of an old spirit who may be able to heal her mother. Though the animation is not unlike the work of Laika studios, it doesn’t seem nearly as whimsical, coming across as more solemn and mystical. It’s giving me almost a Studio Ghibli tone. Most intriguing of all, it’s South Korea’ first stop-motion animated feature in 45 years! I’m very excited to see what inspired writer/director Park Jae-beom to break the streak.

______________________________________ Romance ______________________________________

As a hopeless romantic and genre fan, I’m always on the lookout for cool, genre-bending love stories. The Becomers seems like just the thing: starring a pair of body-swapping aliens who’re just trying to find their place on our planet. What’s not to love? Then there’s My Animal, a queer horror drama (co-starring Amandla Stenberg from Bodies Bodies Bodies) that “flips the script of Ginger Snaps”; very intriguing. Another that caught my eye was With Love and a Major Organ, a high-concept sci-fi commentary on dating in the age of apps, which has a truly batnanas plot description. Any movie where the female lead rips her heart out AND THAT’S when things start to get rough? You have my attention.

The love story I’m most looking forward to is Killing Romance. Another truly unique description, this “madcap musical comedy” follows a once-popular actress and her student neighbor (who also talks to animals) as they decide to eliminate her controlling husband so she can mount a career comeback. Even if she and the neighbor don’t fall in love during their misadventures, there’s nothing like seeing an awful relationship come to a hopefully hilarious end to make you appreciate your own loved one(s).

______________________________________ Popcorn _______________________________________

Some movies try to convey a message, while some endeavor only to entertain. Some even manage to do both. Empire V follows a student invited to join an elite group that turn out to be vampires. The trailer is filled with enthralling visuals (and a breathy pop cover of Muse’s Knights of Cydonia), features fascinating world building, and has apparently been banned in its native Russia due to the presence of anti-war Russian rapper Oxxxymiron in a co-starring role. Wild stuff. Meanwhile Hideaki Anno’s Shin Kamen Rider, following the creation of the titular grasshopper-themed superhero, has all of the visual punch with none of the oppressive politics. Then there’s The Sacrifice Game, director Jenn Wexler’s sophomore feature about two students at an all-girls school in the 1970s defending themselves against cultists when left alone during the holidays. I wasn’t able to find a trailer for this one, but if it’s anything like her 2018 feature film debut The Ranger, it’s sure to be entertaining. Whether or not these deliver on deeper meaning, they certainly seem like a blast simply to watch.

The same could be said for my top choice. Making its North American premier, Vincent Must Die follows the seemingly unremarkable title character who finds himself under assault from almost everyone he encounters for seemingly no reason. Described as a mix of genres, including horror, comedy, romance, fantasy and thriller, the premise alone seems like enough to keep my eyes glued to the screen for two hours.

____________________________________ Favorite Actors ____________________________________

Compiled from films from around the world, the Fantasia lineup is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to their casts. Even so, It’s always a pleasant surprise to see a favorite familiar face in the cast list. Perennial genre fan (and fan favorite) Nicolas Cage co-stars as The Passenger alongside Joel Kinnaman as The Driver in Yuval Adler’s carjacking thriller Sympathy For the Devil. The flick looks intense, so buckle up. On the other end of the spectrum is Aporia, a time-bending bit of speculative sci-fi starring living legend Judy Greer as a woman who lost her husband in a drunk-driving accident and teams with the husband’s physicist best friend to experiment with a new technology the two had been developing, which may be able to fix things for them all. Finally there’s Nick Stahl, a talented actor who kept almost breaking into the mainstream through the late ‘90s and early 2000s and has been making a strong comeback in the last few years. His performance in Fantasia thriller What You Wish For is being described as “a career best” playing a chef with a gambling problem who adopts the identity of a wealthy friend. Love that for him.

Then there’s David Dastmalchian who is one of the most interesting character actors of the last few years (and it’s a crowded field). In Late Night with the Devil, he plays late night television host and recent widower Jack Delroy during a disastrous live broadcast in 1977 that unleashes evil into the homes of his viewers. Stephen King has said that the flick is “absolutely brilliant” which is enough for me to move it directly to the top of my list.

_________________________________ Last Drive-In Alums __________________________________

Some of the films at this year’s Fantasia come from filmmakers who’ve had movies featured on Shudder's The Last Drive-In, hosted by Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mail Girl. These include genre mainstay and dare I say legend Larry Fessenden, whose lycanthropy horror thriller Blackout finally allows him to reimagine familiar werewolf movie tropes in much the same way as he’s approached vampires in Habit (1995) and Frankenstein’s monster in Depraved (2019). The familial collective the Adams family - mother/father/daughter team Toby Poser, John Adams and Zelda Adams - follow up their breakout feature Hellbender (2021) with the depression era film Where the Devil Roams which follows a family of sideshow performers searching for eternal life. Both films have piqued my interest, due in part to Joe Bob Briggs’ interviewing the filmmakers during their respective episodes. Hearing the filmmakers talk about making their films, and seeing them get to be themselves really endeared them all to me, much the way that a good fanzine interview would.

Though he wasn’t interviewed by Joe Bob, director Joe Lynch’s ultraviolent workplace revenge actioner Mayhem (2017) was similarly featured on an episode of The Last Drive-In. His Fantasia entry Suitable Flesh is being described as a “loving tribute to the late Stuart Gordon”. Gordon is a favorite filmmaker of mine, and Lynch is treading in familiar Gordon territory by adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s story The Thing on the Doorstep into a film starring Heather Graham as a psychiatrist who becomes infatuated with a young patient of hers (Judah Lewis) who exhibits otherworldly symptoms. Nobody realized Lovecraft’s stories and characters in quite as post-psychedelic a fashion as Stuart Gordon and I’m legitimately very excited to see Joe Lynch’s approach. Suitable Flesh also stars Bruce Davison, Jonathan Schaech, and Gordon collaborator and legend Barbara Crampton.

___________________________________ Special Projects ____________________________________

Fantasia frequently plays host to unique projects like film restorations, special screenings and idiosyncratic events. This year is no different with a book launch for the genre anthology Haunted Reels, featuring readings from authors in attendance like Jay Baruchel, C. Robert Cargill, and Benson & Moorhead, plus others! There’s also a Canadian Trailblazer Award presentation for filmmaker Larry Kent, which includes 4K restorations of three of his most seminal films: The Bitter Ash (1963), Sweet Substitute (1964), and When Tomorrow Dies (1965). I was unaware of Larry Kent, even by reputation, but in researching him in relation to this award, I’m now very keyed up to check out his work. 

In a similar vein, this year’s Fantasia will host the world premier of The Primevals, from special effects whiz David Allen. When a sasquatch-like creature is encountered and killed, and its skeleton eventually brought back to civilization, a team of explorers set out to find a living specimen and end up in a lost valley that time forgot where there are even more creatures than they expected! Allen’s credits include special and visual effects work on everything from Q the Winged Serpent (1982), to Willow (1988), to Ghostbusters II (1989), to The Arrival (1996) and, importantly, the large chunk of the Full Moon Films universe, including the Puppet Master series, Subspecies series, and more. Basically every film you’ve ever seen where the quality of the stop-motion effects had vastly outpaced the film that contained them. Conceived in the ‘70s and begun in the ‘90s, The Primevals was to be David Allen’s magnum opus for Full Moon. Sadly, production stopped when Allen passed away in 1999. But now it will finally be realized, using the original assets and finished with guidance from Allen’s own storyboards. I’m sincerely so excited that this film will finally be seen!

Vive les films !

Tickets for the 27th Fantasia International Film Festival can be purchased HERE.