Fantastic Fest

Let’s talk about something that happened in September… (I know, I am just so on top of things.)

I was able to go to Fantastic Fest, a sci-fi, horror, fantasy film festival, in Austin, Texas. The movies were stacked back to back from 10:30 or 11 am to 2 am. It was a marathon of movie watching and I held off Tweeting about the movies I saw because I wanted to talk about all of them, and then a month slipped by. Well, here goes nothin’.

Day 1

I saw no movies. I didn’t know how the sign up worked so I saw no movies day one. Move along, nothing to see here.

Day 2

So I ended up choosing most of the movies I saw at random. Especially this first day, but it worked pretty well for me.

-Before We Vanish-

A Japanese movie with an indie feel that chronicles the beginnings of an alien invasion of Earth. You don’t know that going in, but over the first half hour or forty five minutes this becomes apparent. The aliens can make themselves look human and they have to collect people’s concepts of things so they can understand our culture and society. Only problem is when they collect people’s concepts they remove them from the human’s mind. This leads to a bunch of people running around crazy because of the concepts they’ve lost, like property, family, etc. I’m glad I saw this movie first because it was good but I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it as much later after I saw so many other good movies, (a lot of which I liked better).

-Mary and the Witch’s Flower-

This is an anime, I had no idea going in, but I really loved it. Mary is a little girl living with her great aunt, (grandma? I don’t honestly remember guess I’ll find out when I see it again tomorrow), and her great aunt’s friend. She’s bored so she goes wandering near the woods, and meets a black cat that takes her to a flower that gives her magical powers for a day. She then accidently stumbles upon an academy for magic and you think this is going to be a Hogwarts story until it wildly diverges yet again and takes off in a completely different direction. RECOMMEND

-Darkland-

This was a more realistic take on the vigilante justice story. The main character’s brother gets killed by the mob and he basically becomes Batman to get revenge ruining his life in the process. It was cool seeing how realistic this was taking the lead from a mild mannered doctor to savage murderer, but this is a story I’ve seen before and I just honestly like Death Sentence by James Wan better. Nothing against it, it’s just not quite different enough for me to be thrilled by it. The last few scenes though were worth the watch.

-Wheelman-

This one is on Netflix. It stars Frank Grillo. Imagine Drive but it takes place in a single night and you’re in the backseat of the car 90% of the movie. It’s surprisingly tense and well done. I’m actually not sure if it will have the same effect watching at home because if you talk during it or get up and leave I think it’ll lose some of it’s effectiveness. Either way this is definitely one to check out because unlike a lot of the ones on this list it’s readily available. RECOMMEND.

Day 3

-Junkhead-

I chose this one based on the recommendation of someone I met at the Fest and I’m so glad that I did. Imagine H.G. Gieger and Clive Barker making a stop motion animated movie and you’ve got some idea of what you’re in for with Junkhead. I loved it. The story revolves around a cyborg, (most people in this future have sort of robot exoskeletons) who’s society has lost the ability to have children a la Children of Men so he takes an adventure underground to find the key to making the human race fertile again. You are going to forget this is his end goal because it really doesn’t matter. The movie unfolds as almost a series of shorts with the same characters. At one point our hero has his entire robot body broken and is put onto a mute robot and made to go find severed fingers for a stew, that’s the type of movie this is. Delightfully weird and strange, it’s one you’ll never forget. RECOMMEND

-Haunters: The Art of the Scare-

This is a documentary on extreme haunted houses. You don’t necessarily need to see this one in a theater but it was absolutely fascinating, I enjoyed every minute of it. It was very cool seeing some of the very elaborate things people created. One of the haunted houses talked about actually will not let you out. It’s just a guy who does this in his yard, but once you’re in you’re in until he lets you go. They have videos of people vomiting and on the verge of nervous breakdowns. It’s the most extreme haunted house out there today. RECOMMEND.

-1922-

This is the first of two Stephen King adaptions show at Fantastic Fest. By the law of Stephen King adaptions I assumed one of them would suck. They were both good, the other was great, but we’ll get to that one. 1922 is set in the American midwest in what do you know, 1922. Our characters are a small family. The wife decides she wants to move to the big city and leave her husband behind, selling most of their land in the process, but her husband ain’t having it and he gets his son to help him kill her. Needless to say this ruins everything and for the rest of the movie we watch his dreams crumbling around him. If you’re afraid of rats this is an especially scary watch. RECOMMEND.

-Brawl in Cell Block 99-

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Carpenter star in this violent gang movie that turns into a violent prison movie that turns into a very violent horror movie from the director of Bone Tomahawk. I wasn’t a big fan of Bone Tomahawk but Cell Block 99 got me on board. Vince Vaughn is genuinely terrifying at points. He wanders on screen with a bald head and a cross tattoo and proceeds to wreck pretty much everyone who comes his way. I honestly don’t want to tell you too much about this movie because the plot is minimal but Vince Vaughn ends up in prison, (as the title suggests), and has to transition between prisons and each time he does it’s like entering another level of hell, until he reaches the titular Cell Block 99. The last act of this movie is insane and if you doubt Vaughn as a dramatic actor going in you won’t going out. Vaughn also apparently did his own stunts. RECOMMEND

Day 4

-Blade of the Immortal-

I loved this movie. This is the 100th movie from Japanese director Takashi Miike, (whom I’d never heard of before Fantastic Fest), and it’s a live action adaption of a manga. It’s a violent samurai movie with magic and it’s just insane. If you’re a fan of Kill Bill imagine the Crazy 88 fight scene but it happens about three times through out this movie. This might have been my favorite movie of the fest. RECOMMEND.

-Five Fingers for Marseilles-

So imagine a dark hearted Western set in South Africa. That’s basically what this is. I enjoyed the movie but for me it just felt like other Westerns I’d seen before, but there were two things about it that stood out. A. as mentioned the unique setting and B. they start with all of the main characters as children and show what happened that caused the protagonist to leave town before he comes riding back in to fight as an adult.

-Gerald’s Game-

This is the other Stephen King adaption premiered at Fantastic Fest. It’s also on Netflix. I thought this book was un-filmable, just straight up. Jesse is on vacation with her husband, Gerald, and he convinces her to try bondage with real handcuffs. She has a panic attack before they get going and she stops him and he has a heart attack and dies, leaving her chained up. And then a hungry dog shows up and is there someone in the house? Chilling, well done, and the fact that it keeps the references to King’s other works, (blink and you’ll miss it references to Dolores Claiborne and The Dark Tower), makes this a great King adaption. RECOMMEND.

-Professor Marston and the Wonder Women-

This is the story of the kinky three way that led to the creation of the character Wonder Woman. I don’t know how else to sell you on this. It’s a really excellent movie and it explains it’s psychological ideas well. Great performances from the three leads, (Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, and Bella Heathcote, who you might remember from The Hobbit, The Awakening, and Dark Shadows respectively, or don’t, I’m not salty) a wonderful biopic period piece. The director, Angela Robinson, was at Fantastic Fest and two things she said in the Q&A afterwards stuck with me. 1. She said everyone has been congratulating her on getting this movie out the same year as Wonder Woman. That was a fluke. Pr. Marston and the Wonder Women spent years in development hell because of the lawyers going back and forth on what panels they could use of the comics, and how much Wonder Woman costume they could show, etc. 2. She said that the real Pr. Marston and his Wonder Women believed that things would change very soon. They thought that in a few years they wouldn’t be judged for their life style the same way they were then. They thought a woman President was right around the corner. And it was a little sad to realize not much has changed like they thought. RECOMMEND.

-Vidar the Vampire-

So the premise of this is basically What We Do in the Shadows, a mockumentary on vampires, but this takes things in a different direction. What We Do in the Shadows is mostly comedic, whereas Vidar the Vampire takes the premise to explore loneliness and longing. It’s a very weird movie with a very dark sense of humor. (The vampire that turned Vidar is Jesus. Yes, that one.)

Day 5

-Anna and the Apocalypse-

A musical comedy with zombies. It’s hysterical from beginning to end, but of course with that premise we have to take a moment and compare to Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. Well, I love all three, it’s hard to rank them just because they’re all trying to do different things. So they are all zombie comedies but Zombieland never even tries to make you sad that most of the human race died, and Shaun wants you to see the absurdity of a zombie apocalypse, but Anna is the only one that wants you to care about the characters, and it works. I genuinely did not want several of the characters to die but they did. Also setting the movie at Christmas adds a new level of twistedness to the zombie mayhem. So is it better than those that came before it,? Not sure but it’s a wonderful movie in it’s own right. RECOMMEND.

-My Friend Dahmer-

Imagine if you will the aesthetic of Dazed and Confused (minus the multiple main character structure), but the points where you would be laughing in that movie you suddenly stop and realize with a sickening gut stab that the main character of this movie becomes a serial killer. We follow future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer through his high school years. The tension is when is he going to kill someone. This isn’t a graphic movie, this isn’t even your typical horror movie. Instead it meditates on exclusion and bullying and ignoring warning signs of things to come, and how a bullied, lonely boy became one of America’s most infamous serial killers. RECOMMEND.

-Thelma-

This movie just was not for me. It focuses on a girl from a very religious family going to college and exploring her sexuality and drugs and then she also has Carrie powers. It took a long time to even get to the supernatural aspect and although I think it’s trying for something to say I can’t tell what it is and just over all the movie wasn’t particularly engaging. Granted the other movies at Fantastic Fest set a pretty high bar but I just could not get into this movie.

-Secret Screening: The Death of Stalin-

There was much speculation amongst the crowds at Fantastic Fest what movie would show for the secret screening. The popular rumors: The Shape of Water (which I was hoping for as it’s Guiermo del Toro’s latest), Blade Runner 2049, Jigsaw… The presenter who introduced the film told us nothing before it started except to mock that people thought it might be Jigsaw. “We try to show good movies at Fantastic Fest.”

So I had heard nothing of this movie, but it’s from Armando Iannucci the creator of Veep and the director of In the Loop. Well, what is this movie? You ask. Well, it is a pitch black comedy about the power struggle for control of the Soviet Union following Stalin’s death. It’s hysterical, it stars Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Steve Buscemi, Michael Palin and Jeffrey Tambor. RECOMMEND.

-Let the Corpses Tan-

I really didn’t like this movie. I probably would have left if the waiter didn’t have my debit card until the last five minutes. This was a French heist movie with surrealist undertones. I was fine with the weird surreal vignettes in between the main story but the main story didn’t really grab me and to be honest I was expecting a horror movie from the title.

Day 6

-Anyab-

This is the Egyptian version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s crazy, but not as crazy as the original. There’s a whole social commentary going on that you wouldn’t totally understand if the context wasn’t explained, but basically there was extreme wealth disparegy in the country at the time so Frankenferter becomes Dracula in this version and he and his vampire buddies are sucking Egypt dry financially. It’s a lot funnier than that sounds. The music they use is all from other places so themes like The Pink Panther, A Clockwork Orange, Horror of Dracula will just pop in from time to time. And at one point a main character wears a Rocky Horror t-shirt and parades right in front of the camera with it. No idea how you can watch it but if you’re a big fan of Rocky Horror this one is worth checking out, just for shits and giggles.

-Yalla! Arab Genre Shorts-

So there were a lot of shorts but I only really remember one of them. This woman and her family go to the beach. Her husband leaves to go do something else and the wife goes in the water, only she’s not wearing a hijab. The wife is attacked in the water by a group of men who will not let her leave. They call her a whore and push her back and forth among them, knocking her over and holding her underwater. She eventually drowns. This scene goes on for about ten minutes and it’s incredibly disturbing to watch, very emotionally affecting. The rest of the family tries to find her and she eventually returns as a dark spirit, (an almost revenge mermaid), that kills a bunch of people at the beach. It was a really well done short and if I see where you can watch it I will link to it.

-Mom and Dad-

Nicholas Cage is back in a very weird movie. Something, (a virus?), is causing parents to try and kill their kids and of course, Cage is a father. It’s a fun campy movie filled with Cage and family attacking each other in new and creative ways.

Day 7

-Salut-7-

This movie is about a Russian satellite that malfunctions and the race to fix it before the Americans take it. Interesting movie, well done special effects and on a historical topic I knew nothing about. This was a little hyped before I went in. Other people were saying the special effects were as good as Gravity, and they are good but that made me think it would be as good as Gravity, (you know in terms of that relentless pacing and tension), but it wasn’t quite there.

-Mon Mon Mon Monsters-

Another horror movie about bullying. The main character is tormented by a group of bullies but when their idiot teacher pairs them up to do a community project together they end up finding a monster together, which the bullies promptly capture, and hold hostage for most of the rest of the movie, and torment. Our main character ends up joining in to fit in and to stop being victimized by them. But the monster they captured has a sister and she’s on the hunt. Mon Mon Mon Monsters has a lot to say and it’s at points heart wrenching and like a lot of these movies insanely bloody. RECOMMEND.

-VIP-

I laughed at this movie a lot. I wasn’t supposed to but I did. This to me was such a cookie cutter police movie it just was made in China. You have your police detective trying to solve the case, with a really obvious suspect taunting him who is protected by higher ups. It’s the sort of movie you’ve seen a million times and there wasn’t anything particularly special about it. It also takes itself so dreadfully seriously that it really just wasn’t enjoyable. Unless you count the serial killer’s face, he was so over the top and funny and really the only thing I enjoyed about the movie.

-Ichi the Killer-

I don’t know if I liked this movie but it disturbed the fuck out of me. I wanted to see it because it was a rerelease from Takoshi Miike (Blade of the Immortal) but I had no idea what I was in for. Our hero is an attempted rapist brainwashed by a corrupt cop (if I recall correctly he attempts to rape people both before and after the brainwashing, and don’t quote me on the corrupt cop thing) who battles a ruthless killer who at one point in the movie cuts off a large portion of his tongue. If you’re reaction is “um, what?!” so was mine. But I won’t forget it that’s for sure. RECOMMEND, MAYBE? IDK…

Day 8

-World of Tomorrow Ep 2-

If you haven’t seen the first World of Tomorrow episode you can watch it on Netflix. It’s an animated short about a young girl and her several generations removed clone having a nice nihilistic chat. RECOMMEND.

-78/52-

If you’re a fan of horror movies and want to know how they’re made or just a fan of movie making or story telling in general this is a great documentary for you. It’s on the shower scene from Psycho and it goes to great depth how this scene was shot, how it makes the movie as a whole work, the cultural impact it had, and much more. A specific interesting tidbit I remember from it; casually in the middle of something else one of the woman being interviewed mentions that watching Psycho as though it is happening from the perspective of a fly changes the entire movie. When the movie starts we come in through the window, we as a fly would be the voyeur watching this story unfold. Then at the end of the film Norman decides not to kill us, the fly, because we like him are voyeurs. A really interesting documentary and the same people who made it are working on an Alien documentary called Chestburster. Can’t wait. RECOMMEND.

So that’s all the movies I saw at Fantastic Fest. Couldn’t stay for the closing night so I didn’t get to see Downsizing and I wasn’t in the screening of Killing of a Sacred Deer but I had a great time and I hope to go back next year. Peace out…