For nearly 20 years, Montreals Fantasia International Film Festival has been a hub of horror, a North American must where world cinema discoveries and anticipated premieres sit side by side. Its a destination for the very first audiences a genre film can have, and an essential stop on the circuit for well-received titles. This year, with a massive lineup and now annual industry market, Frontieres, is no different. Shock Till You Drop will be in Montreal from July 23-28th, just five days of the three weeks this beast spans. In anticipation of the fest, Ive put together a look at twenty of its 135 features, highlighting 10 to anticipate and 10 I very much recommend.
The Fantasia International Film Festival is currently underway. For lineup and tickets, visit Fantasia.
Fantasia Curtain Raiser
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Anticipated
Anguish (dir. Sonny Mallhi, 2015)
A seeming tale of possession and spirit communication, Anguish is the feature debut of Sonny Mallhi, best known as producer of films like The Strangers and At the Devil’s Door. Accompanying Anguish’s festival guide entry is a quote from Mallhi, hoping audiences will be pushed out of their comfort zone. If so, we can hope Mallhi was a supporter of the strong, eerie choices in Bryan Bertino and Nicholas McCarthy’s aforementioned films… and makes some of his own here.
Sixteen-year-old Tess (an astoundingly powerful Ryan Simpkins) may be young in age, but she’s already had several lifetimes worth of psychological distress, beginning randomly when she was found banging her head into a wall at the age of five. Through the years, her mother has tried everything, every specialist, every alternative treatment, to bring her into balance. The closest thing to a proper diagnosis that doctors have been able to assign to her mental condition is an identity disorder, and in a sense, that’s not incorrect. Tess’s identity is horrifically disordered — because it’s being encroached upon by spirits of the dead.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #2
Anima State (dir. Hammad Khan, 2013)
Nations developing their genre cinema is amongst the most exciting things to catch at a festival. New horror from a country without much can provide windows into societal fears, pressures and concerns. That’s not to mention the possibility of discovering major new talent. Anima State hails from Pakistan, and its synopsis juxtaposes the evocative supernatural nature of an Invisible Man-like killer (the main offender here dons unsettling and obfuscating bandages) with very real street violence, and speaks to directly to Pakistani concern at large.
A man with a bandaged face (musician/actor Uns Mufti), akin to the Invisible Man, is on a killing spree in Pakistan, unnoticed by everyone. He kills indiscriminately, starting with upper-class youths in a public park and moving on to a lethargic policeman, a poor mother, a blogger and even a transgender who teases him saying, “If you can't give me money, then at least give me a bullet.” He gives himself up to the police but they don't take him seriously. And then a major incident takes place, whereby the entire film’s trajectory is flipped on its head…
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #3
Bridgend (dir. Jeppe Rønd, 2015)
With a mystic, moody atmosphere, Bridgend seeks to dramatize a real-life South Wales epidemic of suicide into something sensory and narrative. Its locale is stunning and premise disquieting, enough to have me in the seat in Montreal.
When well-off teenager Sara settles in Bridgend with her dad, a police officer, the last thing they both expect to find is an epidemic of suicide, afflicting the town’s arrogant, disaffected youth. Sara soon gets to know the kids her age, and they’re a peculiar, melancholic bunch: roaming the woods and skinny dipping by day and convening at night for ritualistic, almost feral romps through the woods. Complete with burning pyres and death-defying stunts, they get together to vandalize stores and shout the names of their deceased friends to the heavens. Until another one of them dies and time stands still. Days bleed into next, then weeks, and before she knows it, Sara gets sucked in as well…
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #4
Cherry Tree (dir. David Keating, 2015)
An Irish horror with overtones of the occult and witchcraft means I’m already lighting a candle for Cherry Tree. Guess what? It’s also the long-awaited new film from David Keating, Monkey’s Paw-esque Wake Wood was an underappreciated Irish chiller with similar folk and pagan proceedings.
Legends have it that the Irish town of Orchard was once terrorized by a coven of witches, seeking to bring the son of Satan to Earth. When one of them tried to betray the Dark Lord himself, the coven crashed and burned… though some believe its legacy persists in the deep underground, at the roots of a large and looming cherry tree. Flash forward to the present day: Faith (newcomer Naomi Battrick) learns that her father is dying from leukemia. Her day-to-day crumbles, but thankfully, her new field hockey-coach Sissy (Anna Walton, HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY) proves supportive… if a little forthcoming and, come to think of it, a bit off. As her father’s health deteriorates, Faith learns to know Sissy a little better, only to discover she isn’t who she says she is. In fact, Sissy offers Faith a mutually beneficial deal she cannot refuse…
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #5
Hostile (dir. Nathan Ambrosioni, 2014)
Since the New French Extremity died down, we’ve longed for a French horror film to rattle us. Could Hostile, a festival-traveling feature debut from a 14 year-old filmmaker be it?
Meredith Langston’s dream of being a mother comes true when she adopts orphans Anna and Emilie. Sisters by blood, they’re finding it hard to adapt to their new home, spending most of their time playing strange games to which they’re the only one who know the rules. Their arrival coincides with an inexplicable event that drastically alters the girls’ behavior. Their worried tutor decides to call SOS ADOPTION, a local TV show dealing with how kids adapt to their foster homes. Convinced that they’ve got a hit story, the reporters seek out Anna and Emilie, not having realized that the door to another world has just been opened.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #6
Observance (dir. Joseph Sims-Dennett, 2015)
With strong influence from Polanski and a voyeurism plot, Joseph Sims-Dennett sounds a paranoid creeper. Its sparse trailer teases not only the sort of isolated descent into madness so affecting in horror cinema, but something supernatural afoot as well.
Parker is at the end of his rope since his son’s death. Unable to see his grief through, he’s watching his world fall apart around him. His marriage is crumbling and his debts are piling up. Soon, he’ll have to declare bankruptcy. Parker desperately needs help getting back on his feet, but when help arrives, it’s not what he might have expected. An anonymous employer offers Parker a contract — and a lot of money — to spy on the apartment of a young woman. The rules are simple but strict. Never the building which serves as his post. Contact no one. Ask no questions. Observe, that’s all. Lured by the promise of easy money, Parker jumps at the job. The first few days are uneventful, but as he watches the gorgeous blonde, his self-imposed isolation takes its toll. Paranoia creeps up on Parker as he finds strange objects in his lodgings. Horrible dreams haunt his nights and pursue him into daylight. It’s becoming clear that his mysterious client is hiding something, and finishing this job will finish Parker.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #7
Ojuju (dir. CJ “Fiery” Obasi, 2014)
New perspectives on zombies are always most welcome. What can we expect from a Nollywood view? Its opening title card about lack of safe drinking water in Nigeria hopefully leads us to believe a zombie film with energy, humor and actual thought in all those braaiinnss.
Romero, a citizen of a dense, dilapidated pocket of the sprawling slums of Lagos, hasn’t always been the most responsible guy. Now that his girlfriend is pregnant, he’s making an effort to get his act together. He’ll have to get it together a hell of a lot faster than he planned, though. Weed dealer Fela and his crony Gaza both got bitten by what they took to be some staggering drunkard, and something’s really wrong with them. Soon enough, the strange, violent behavior is spreading, and the ghetto that Romero has always called the home he lives in is becoming a hell he’ll be lucky to live through…
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #8
Remake, Remix, Ripoff: About Copy Culture and Turkish Pop Cinema (dir. Cem Kaya, 2015)
With a long history of appropriating, remaking and ripping off world cinema into utter insane works of cult film and underappreciated horror , Turkey’s film industry is a fascinating one. Remake, Remix, Ripoff documents the madness into a much-needed education for many, especially as new school filmmakers like Can Evrenol and Alper Mestçi are primed to unleash thrilling new works on us in 2015.
It’s the stuff of legend in the realms of eccentric cinephilia. The Turkish takes on STAR WARS, THE EXORCIST, THE WIZARD OF OZ, RAMBO, E.T. (there were two!), DRACULA, DILLINGER, SUPERMAN and countless others. Shameless and often ridiculous, resourceful and charismatic knockoffs. These films were nothing if not narratively adventurous — robots could appear in a kitchen-sink drama, zombies can show up in a Rambo film. There truly were no rules. Don’t think this is all curious fodder for laughs, though. In the ’60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, the Turkish film industry, christened “Yeşilçam”, was a force to be reckoned with. In fact, it was one of the most prolific production industries in the world.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #9
She Who Must Burn (dir. Larry Kent, 2015)
For over 50 years, Larry Kent has been a lauded, provocative voice in Canadian independent film. Here, he crafts his first horror film, She Who Must Burn. Stomping right down into challenging territory, Kent crafts a tale of intensely religious activists stalking the owner and operator of a Planned Parenthood clinic. The excitement that this veteran enters the genre space with polarizing subjects and ferocity is real.
This latest effort by Larry Kent, Canadian film’s veteran iconoclast filmmaker, is definitely one hot time. A health counsellor who runs a planned-parenthood clinic out of her home, Angela becomes the target of local anti-abortion fanatics, led by Jeremiah Baarker. Jeremiah and his bible-beatin’ kin, Caleb and Rebecca, believe that procreation is the highest purpose for humankind, and that Rebecca’s recent miscarriages are God’s punishment for allowing Angela to continue her practice. Peaceful demonstrations turn personal and dangerous once Jeremiah discovers his own battered and bruised wife, whom he caught using birth control, sought refuge in the clinic. After Angela refuses to close up shop, Rebecca receives a sign from above and realizes that they must purify the town with the most powerful cleanser of all — fire.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #10
Tales of Halloween (dir. The October Society, 2015)
Ten segments. Eleven horror-obsessed directors. One town. Halloween. The likes of Axelle Carolyn, Neil Marshall, Lucky McKee and Mike Mendez celebrate spooky season in this anticipated All Hallow’s Anthology, a film which promises to revel in all sides of October, from folklore to urban mischief, mutant jack o’lanterns and so much more.
The brainchild of filmmaker Axelle Carolyn (SOULMATE), TALES OF HALLOWEEN is a Samhain-centric anthology feature made by a group of friends who also just happen to be considerable talents in the horror universe. Carolyn contributed an entry, and she’s joined by Lucky McKee (MAY), Darren Lynn Bousman (REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA), Neil Marshall (THE DESCENT), Mike Mendez (BIG ASS SPIDER! ), Paul Solet (GRACE), Adam Gierasch (NIGHT OF THE DEMONS), Dave Parker (THE HILLS RUN RED), Ryan Schifrin (ABOMINABLE), Andrew Kasch (NEVER SLEEP AGAIN) and splatterpunk icon John Skipp. Each interconnecting entry takes place on Halloween in an American suburb. Count on tons of gruesome invention in this cheerfully blood-soaked moviemaking party.
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Recommended
Battles Without Honor and Humanity (dir. Kinji Fukusaku, 1973)
As celebrations of film, great festivals often host repertory sections. Fantasia is no different and this summer, they’ll be screening Fukusaku’s classic Battles Without Honor and Humanity, that which broke new ground for the chivalry film and ushered in a new wave of graphic, realist yakuza essentials.
Postwar Hiroshima is a nightmare of despair and atomic destruction, infested by chain-raping American GIs, and all but governed by senselessly competing yakuza clans and small-time black-market crooks violently vying for a piece of the pie. Fresh out of prison, the ex-soldier and entrepreneurial street thug Shozo Hirono (the legendary Bunta Sugawara) thrives in the midst of it all, keen on carving a place for himself in this new world of rubble and blood.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #12
Excess Flesh (dir. Patrick Kennelly, 2015)
Uncompromising, repulsive and relentless, Patrick Kennelly’s body image horror is a fearless, harsh experience. It violently chews and spits in the face of societal standards and the broken psyches that result. Not for weak stomachs.
“Brownies. Ice cream. BBQ potato chips. Chili. Sour cream. Butter. Mayonnaise. Sour cream and butter and mayonnaise.” The sound of it would make the entire L.A. fashion scene gag. Roommates Jill and Jennifer are part of it. One is fat, the other is thin. One is a model, the other is not. Coping with unemployment, rejecting people close to her and isolating herself, Jill's jealousy grows into the obsessive idea of controlling Jennifer's body. EXCESS FLESH builds its tale on a parallel between these two women, between society's tyranny of appearance and the lonely broken mind that comes with it. The roommates’ dysfunctional relationship will drive them to the very core of female psychosis, and drag you along with them for a very disturbing ride.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #13
Goodnight Momnmy (dir. Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala)
This film is a pitch black tale of mistrust in childhood. Its artful construction reflects its setting’s chilly demeanor, and its nightmarish proceedings escalate to the primal and unimaginable. This is pure horror.
In a remote lakeside home, in the centre of scenic oblivion, a terrifying scenario is beginning to unfold. Twin brothers Elias and Lukas are having a difficult time understanding their mother’s recent behavioural changes after a painful facial surgery that currently has her entire visage bandaged as she convalesces. She has always been a strict disciplinarian, but even by her standards, she is now uncharacteristically impatient, aggressive and cold. The children are devastated by this angry, bandaged version of their mother. They grow convinced that the tightly wrapped woman in their home is a terrible imposter, and become determined to force her to reveal whatever she knows about what’s going on. Desperate to have their real mother returned to them, they will get the answers that they need to save her. By any means necessary.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #14
The Hallow (dir. Corin Hardy, 2015)
Corin Hardy’s feature debut is an imaginative Irish creature feature, eerie and fantastical in its mythology of a wooded haven for the country’s folklore. The Hallow is creepy, wondrous and very, very cool.
THE HALLOW follows a family (Mom and conservationist Dad, plus baby onboard), who take up residence in a woodland cottage. These outsiders immediately get the usual cold shoulder and dire warnings from the locals, and Dad further rubs the townsfolk the wrong way, with both his “green” spiel and his unwillingness to pay heed to the creepy critters living in the woods. Before long, said critters take an unwholesome interest in the couple’s wee tot, and the cabin comes under siege by the fearsome nocturnal creatures, who would give THE DESCENT’s underground dwellers the willies.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #15
The Invitation (dir. Karyn Kusama, 2015)
One of the best genre films of the year, Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) returns with a refreshingly adult thriller about grief and the dangers of polite etiquette. A slow burn in the best sense, Kusama elegantly stages a fascinating dinner party full of old friends, strange looks and paranoia. Just wait until it explodes.
Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and Eden (Tammy Blanchard) were a young couple in love heading into the brightest of futures until a terrible tragedy claimed the life of their child. Eden ran away. Will sunk into years of depression. Now, several years later, Eden has reappeared, newly remarried and oddly changed. She has all but reinvented herself as a different person. Will is also in a new relationship, but emotionally, he’s still on thin ice. Just the same, he can’t resist an invitation from Eden, to a dinner party for old friends at her home. Not long after arriving, Will senses that something is… wrong. There’s an unease in the room. The mix of who’s there, the inexplicable presence of several unknowns amidst the grouping of longtime friends. A sense of subtle menace. What is going on?
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #16
Nina Forever (dir. Ben Blaine & Chris Blaine, 2015)
Though not zombie-related, Nina Forever exists in the realm of recent undead-girlfriends-come-back films like Life After Beth and Burying the Ex. Just its first 75% blow both out of the water. Stunningly captured with true macabre, as well as emotion and empathy for all involved, this tale of a new relationship soured by the physical presence of a very dead old one is incredibly acted by stars Abigail Hardingham and Fiona O’Shaughnessy. That it’s ending is ultimately unsatisfying doesn’t invalidate their work, nor the exciting new voices of filmmakers the Blaine Brothers.
Supermarket staffer Holly has a crush on her moody co-worker Rob. Rob recently tried to kill himself after his losing his girlfriend Nina in a terrible crash. Smitten by the romanticism of Rob’s grief-stricken suicide attempt, Holly pursues him, despite knowing of his considerable “baggage”. And oh, what baggage he has. You see, whenever Rob has sex, a very bloody and broken Nina appears from within the sheets, sarcastically chastising all involved and staying until morning, leaving the bed a sticky, gore-soaked mess. It’s a problem, yes, but Holly’s pretty sure she can deal with it. Rob, on the other hand, is absolutely at his wits’ end. Can their love withstand the not-remotely-distant echoes of a past relationship?
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #17
The Reflecting Skin (dir. Philip Ridley, 1990)
A unique and beautiful voice, Philip Ridley’s is also a sadly underappreciated. His (too few) works of dark fairy tale are visual delights, and it all began in 1990 with first feature The Reflecting Skin. Fantasia presents a 2K restoration of the 25 year-old film, with Ridley ecstatic it now looks as it was meant to. Don’t miss this rare stunner.
It takes a powerful film to entirely subvert the way we see a place we've known all our lives. We're all familiar with the prairies depicted as a pastoral landscape swaying with bountiful crops and dotted with quaint farmhouses, but if you're eight-year-old Seth Dove in Philip Ridley's THE REFLECTING SKIN, it's also a nightmarish world full of murdered children, broken fathers, mentally unhinged mothers and day-walking vampires. Shot in Alberta and set in post-WWII Idaho, the 1990 film is an anguished coming-of-age story in which Seth (Jeremy Cooper in an amazingly mature performance) spends his summer blowing up frogs with his friends, suffering his mother's punishments and reading comics with his anxiety-wracked father. Things take a turn for the worse when kids start turning up dead and the police cast suspicious on the family. The bright spot in the boy's life is the return of his loving brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen in a breakout performance) from serving in the Pacific, but he has his own secrets. He starts seeing one of the neighbours, Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan of BIRDMAN and Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND), who Seth believes is a vampire. Meanwhile, a big black Cadillac drives up and down the dusty prairie roads, ever closer to the boy...
Fantasia is proud to present the premiere public screening of a new 2K restoration of this dark fairy tale masterpiece, painstakingly supervised by the filmmaker himself to create the definitive visual representation, above and beyond what was possible at the time of THE REFLECTING SKIN’s original theatrical release.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #18
Shrew’s Nest (dir. Juanfer Andres & Esteban Roel, 2014)
I love this film tremendously. Sadly without distribution in North America, this contemporary Spanish horror is a must-see at any public screening you can attend. The warped period melodrama about a pair of sisters, one who’s far too overprotective of other, is an emotionally affecting one thanks to an unreal performance from Macarena Gomez and the assurance for directors Andres & Roel. Produced by Alex de la Iglesia, this apartment terror eventually spills into total macabre madness and ends a great horror debut.
Spain, the 1950s. When their mother dies and their father abandons them soon thereafter, Montse (Macarena Gómez) and her younger sister (Nadia de Santiago) find themselves on their own. Montse quickly takes on the matriarch’s role. Years pass, and her premature responsibilities have become full-fledged neuroses: for one, a crippling agoraphobia has kept her locked inside for years, while her sister increasingly aches for a normal life. One day, a neighbour named Carlos (Hugo Silva) falls down the stairs, breaks a leg and lands in front of their door. Montse takes him in, heals his wound, but it soon becomes clear that she has no intention of ever letting him go. Turns out Montse’s neuroses run deeper than even her sister had anticipated and Carlos has awakened something lethal in her. The fragile familial nest is about to implode.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #19
Some Kind of Hate (dir. Adam Egypt Mortimer, 2015)
Coated in blood, sand and anguish, Adam Egypt Mortimer and his ensemble of troubled youth make an earnest go at the supernatural slasher. They come out the other side with both the tenets of the subgenre (a very memorable murderer with a cool M.O.), as well as a rejection of tropes. This is a harsh, red piece of work fueled by frustration.
Lincoln (Ronen Rubinstein) is a teenage metalhead who’s got it bad at home from a nasty dad (Andrew Bryniarski, the TEXAS CHAINSAW remake’s Leatherface) and worse at school from his classmates. When he can’t take any more and fights back, he’s shipped off to a desert reform camp for troubled teens like himself. Unfortunately, even an outcast society like this has its bullies, and Lincoln becomes a victim all over again. This time, his desire for payback becomes manifested in another: Moira (Sierra McCormick), an extremely angry dead teenage girl who once suffered as Lincoln has, and is more than willing to shed a little blood for him.
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Fantasia Curtain Raiser #20
Tales From Beyond the Pale Live
Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid’s audio horror plays are a delight in aural form, but a true event live. Here, the technical feats are revealed, the sound and actor performances are physical and prove even more engrossing and educational; not to mention, proper creepy. This is the first time Tales From Beyond the Pale Live hits Fantasia, and it brings new stories from Fessenden, McQuaid and Douglas Buck (The Theatre Bizarre, Family Portraits). A cast of exciting festival special guests is also expected.
Fantasia is ghoulishly proud to be presenting the first-ever TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE live show on Canadian soil.
Taking its inspiration from the vintage radio shows of Hitchcock and Welles, TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE is the creation of acclaimed independent filmmakers Larry Fessenden (HABIT, THE LAST WINTER) and Glenn McQuaid (I SELL THE DEAD, V/H/S). Through them and their extensive Glass Eye Pix production team and indie film allies, they’ve produced a unique series of “radio play” podcasts and theatrical storytelling happenings that have mesmerized and amazed audiences lucky enough to have the experience.
For this special Canadian debut, the Glass Eye Pix team are putting together a night that will surely go down in festival history, featuring all new Tales by McQuaid, Fessenden and series newcomer Douglas Buck (SISTERS, THE THEATRE BIZARRE).
