Sundance, SXSW, Cannes — so much of film festival culture revolves around trying to find the next big awards contender, getting sneak peeks at films that might either make the Oscar race or end up in wide release (or both). But Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival is an entirely different beast: It’s hardcore genre through and through, sporting a host of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and action pictures that might not make multiplexes, but will take chances you might not expect.
This year, the fest’s 28th edition, running July 18 to August 4, sports one of the fest’s most exciting lineups to date, from acclaimed genre filmmakers returning to the fest (Jayro Bustamante, Ant Timpson) to bold new voices making their debuts (Chris Stuckmann, Jeffrey St. Jules), and a host of exciting panels and presentations running alongside. There are more than 125 features and 200+ shorts waiting for the curious eye to explore, spanning all corners of the world and delving into some funny, dark, gory, ghoulish places.
I’ve covered Fantasia remotely since 2018, but this will be my first year attending in-person (or leaving the country for that matter; bless you, expedited passport shipping). It’ll be exciting to finally experience the wild heights and grand expanses of Fantasia’s ubiquitously eclectic offerings in the Montreal sun, and I’ll be here to document every bit of it alongside you.
On top of the films themselves, the fest also features a few exciting highlights: On July 21st, “Doctor Sleep” filmmaker Mike Flanagan will receive the 2024 Cheval Noir award and give a special artist talk about his years of experience building his career from low-budget horror to Netflix miniseries titan.
Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou of the popular video essay channel Every Frame a Painting will premiere their original short “The Second” on the 20th, complete with a Q&A.
The fest is also hosting the launch event for critic Heidi Honeycutt’s new book “I Spit On Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies,” charting the influence of female horror filmmakers like Mary Herron, Kathryn Bigelow, Mary Lambert and others on the genre landscape.
That’s just a sampling of the delights this year’s Fantasia has in store; now, here are ten films we’re most excited to scope throughout the festival. (Synopses are courtesy of the Fantasia Festival program.)
4PM (dir. Jay Song)
Jung-in has been working as a professor his whole life, but he decides to take a break from his job and move into the countryside with his wife Hyun-sook. They notice another house in their area, so they leave a note inviting the resident for a visit to their humble abode. As they’re settling into their new home, a man named Yook-nam pays them a visit on the first day. However, they notice he starts stopping by their home every day at 4pm sharp in front of their door. When it’s 6pm, that’s when he decides to leave. Each visit entails two hours of agonizing, awkward and/or unsettling moments, which drives the couple absolutely crazy. They try to get rid of him, as he becomes more and more unbearable to be around. What started out as a peaceful gathering has become a nightmare for the couple.
Inspired by the book THE STRANGER NEXT DOOR by critically acclaimed Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb, 4PM is a riveting psychological thriller from director Jay Song, best known for THE NIGHTMARE and A FRIEND IN NEED. The cast is incredible, especially the two lead actors Oh Dal-soo (OLDBOY) and Jang Young-nam (PROJECT WOLF HUNTING), who keep the audience invested in the unfortunate situation they’re dealing with. As the story goes on, the mystery of this strange man, and why he’s constantly popping up at their house, begins to unravel. Filled with non-stop tension, 4PM does everything right in terms of brilliant storytelling, great characters and endless suspense.
Bookworm (dir. Ant Timpson)
Fantasia’s 28th edition is opening with a joyride into the wild. Behold: BOOKWORM. Eleven-year-old Mildred (Nell Fisher, EVIL DEAD RISE) is a super-precocious bookworm, wise beyond her years, with no patience for slackers or the generally uninformed. Despite living in stunning New Zealand, she’s being driven mad by a mundane existence, taking refuge in cherished novels where adventures live without limit. A sudden family crisis rattles Mildred’s world, causing her absentee father, Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood, YELLOWJACKETS), a washed-up American illusionist, to fly into New Zealand in an attempt to be… helpful? Or even the slightest bit present. You see, Strawn has been an absentee father in the most absolute sense, in that he and Mildred have never once met. Now, he’s there, much to his daughter’s unimpressed annoyance. As a bid at bonding, Strawn agrees to take Mildred out into the New Zealand wilderness for a camping adventure in search of a mythological beast that’s long held her fascination: The Canterbury Panther. A string of increasingly absurd and treacherous adventures unfold. Bonding isn’t always easy!
Ladies and gentlemen, Ant Timpson is back! Reuniting the celebrated New Zealand filmmaker with his COME TO DADDY star Wood, who matches through-the-roof comic chemistry with gifted young co-star Fisher, BOOKWORM is as entertaining as it is richly cinematic. With echoes of everything from WALKABOUT and THE WILDERNESS FAMILY to HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE, balled into a crazy, enjoyable take on a PG-rated family film that features what just may be a career-best performance from Wood, it’s an inspired feel-good surprise that will have you smiling like a loon. A lifelong friend of film, with decades of history as a cutting-edge festival programmer, Timpson has also donned a producer hat on such beloved one-of-a-kinds as TURBO KID, THE GREASY STRANGLER, CENSOR and DEATHGASM, among others. Co-starring Michael Smiley (KILL LIST) and Morgana O'Reilly (HOUSEBOUND), this is one that simply cannot be absent from your life.
Chainsaws Were Singing (dir. Sander Maran)
“Monty Python meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets… Les Misérables?” That’s how the makers of CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING describe their zany, gonzo, blood-soaked musical. A true DIY passion project from Estonian filmmaker Sander Maran, the film is about lovers split up by a chainsaw-wielding killer. Over a decade in the making, Maran not only directed but wrote, scored, shot, and edited this colourful murder-fest that is part gory horror movie and part ridiculous musical. While a true underground independent project, CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING more than makes up for its limits. The camerawork is inventive, the editing slapstick, and the tone absurdist. Most importantly, though, the songs are incredibly catchy (the chainsaw solo alone is worth the price of admission), and in the rarefied subgenre of horror-musicals, it’s clear that Sander is deeply indebted to Trey Parker and Matt Stone (especially CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL) and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.
CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING not only overflows with blood but also adorable animals, supernatural fridges, dumb cops, and twincest. Channelling the early works of Robert Rodriguez and Peter Jackson, few films in the past decade have committed so wholly to a totally independent spirit. A whiplash experience of insanely stupid violence and heartfelt musical scenes, every moment of CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING has exacting and thoughtful intention. Every performer gives it their all, fully embracing the movie’s maximalist spirit and, not unlike last year’s HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, Sander’s insane musical feels indebted to the limitless imagination of animation. More than just a passion project, CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING is made with an audience in mind and will be best experienced on the big screen. This film brims with genuine cinematic ingenuity and an infectious playfulness that will put a song in your heart and a smile on your face.
Cube (dir. Vincenzo Natali)
A handful of very disparate characters, from a twenty-something math genius and a master escape artist to an aggressive cop and an autistic savant, find themselves trapped in a gigantic cube containing a maze-like arrangement of interlocking rooms. Their struggle to figure out the cube’s secrets and escape, without being killed by its horrific traps—or each other—is the basis of this jolting debut feature from director/co-writer Vincenzo Natali. From its seriously startling opening scene, featuring the familiar gaunt visage of character actor extraordinaire Julian Richings (THE WITCH), CUBE is a consistently suspenseful experience showcasing intense performances by horror stalwart David Hewlett (SCANNERS II, PIN), Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, Andrew Miller and others. It was visually unlike anything the genre had previously seen when it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1997, and hit theaters the following year.
Marking a turning point for Canadian horror fare, which at that time had a rep as tax-shelter productions and direct-to-video fodder, CUBE knocked down the doors for such subsequent standouts as John Fawcett’s GINGER SNAPS and Bruce McDonald’s PONTYPOOL. It also anticipated the rise of cost-conscious “confinement thrillers” sparked by the likes of SAW and BURIED, and sired a franchise as well as a Japanese remake. Fantasia is therefore proud to launch a new 4K restoration of CUBE this year, and to bestow upon Natali our Canadian Trailblazer Award. Following CUBE, Natali went on to the underrated CYPHER and NOTHING, the Frankensteinian success SPLICE and the intriguing ghost story HAUNTER, as well as a number of notable TV and streaming series. Join us as we revisit the film that began it all, in which Natali demonstrated what could be achieved with a solid cast, an arresting concept, and one repeatedly redressed set.
Dark Match (dir. Lowell Dean)
Lowell Dean, who made the cult hit WOLFCOP and came to Fantasia with WOLFCOP 2 in 2017, is back with the World Premiere of DARK MATCH, starring wrestling legend Chris Jericho!
Indie wrestling can be tough. Despite the hardcore fanbase, there’s little money to be made. That’s where Rusty Bean’s (Jonathan Cherry, SUPER GRID, WOLFCOP 1 and 2) gaggle of small-time wrestlers come in. Amid fighters duking it out over chances with talent scouts, Rusty gets a mysterious call offering $50K to bring headliners Miss Behave, aka Nick (Ayshia Issa, TRANSPLANT, UNITÉ 9), Kate the Great (Sarah Canning, SUPERHOST, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES), and Mean Joe Lean (Steven Ogg, THE WALKING DEAD, WESTWORLD) to a private event called “The Dark Match.” It’s too good to pass up, so, along with their rival fighters, they arrive at a secluded compound to a scene of bacchanalia, or as they learn, “Lupercalia,” headed by a mysterious leader called The Prophet (WWF/WWE eight-time champion, Chris Jericho). It’s Party Central as the athletes indulge in drinks and drugs, leaving them guiltily disoriented and uneasy the morning after. Things get stranger leading up to the match, and Nick knows something’s amiss. Armed guards spark alarm bells, and the team learns they’ll fight for more than a big payday.
Dean goes in for demonic fun with his latest offering, enlisting Jericho and a fantastic cast. Along with Issa (a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World champion), Ogg, and Canning, you’ll see genre fave Michael Eklund (THE DIVIDE, CONTINUUM) and Leo Fafard of WOLFCOP fame. This edge-of-your-seat horror set in the late ’80s wrestling heyday puts you ringside with a demonic cult and battles on the ropes to stay alive. Dean’s return to Montreal with Jericho will conjure rabid fans and a devil of a good time!
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (dir. Alexandra De la Patelière, Matthieu Delaporte)
It’s 1815 in Marseille, and young Edmond Dantès has just been promoted to captain, and is preparing to marry his sweet Mercedes. Unfortunately for him, the treachery of certain jealous peers leaves him to rot in the dismal dungeon of the Château d’If for 14 years. There he meets Abbé Faria, who schools him in languages, history, sciences,and weaponry, as well as divulging the location of a lost Pharaonic treasure, so that one day he can even the scrore for the affront he has suffered. Dantès manages to escape and seize the Templars’ fortune before returning home to orchestrate his ruthless revenge.
Created by the great Alexandre Dumas in the mid-19th century, Edmond Dantès is one of the most celebrated characters in French literature, and the story of his revenge has left its mark on popular culture around the world through countless works. Consider Batman, for instance, and the similarities between Bruce Wayne and Dantès are obvious. This new film adaptation by Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, the screenwriters of the recent diptych LES TROIS MOUSQUETAIRES who now share the director’s chair, takes the brilliant gamble of subtly reappropriating MONTE-CRISTO’s pop-culture influence for its own benefit, hinting at the tropes and trappings of the modern superhero film while retaining the classicism of the work through grandiose art direction. Pierre Niney shines in the title role as he expresses the stages of Dantès’s evolution into Monte-Cristo with exemplary sobriety and spellbinding charisma. If you’re looking for a truly magnificent piece of cinema that respects its original source material while adding welcome contemporary elements, as evidenced by the triumphant reception of LE COMTE DE MONTE-CRISTO at the recent Cannes Film Festival, this is the place to go.
In Our Blood (dir. Pedro Kos)
“She’s not a bad person. She just made a lot of bad choices. And hurt a lot of people.”
Filmmaker Emily Wyland (Brittany O’Grady, THE WHITE LOTUS, STAR) is making a documentary about reconnecting with her estranged mother, Sam (Alanna Ubach, EUPHORIA) after a long decade of distance. A distance that began at the age of 13, when authorities forcibly removed her from their home due to her mother’s struggles with addiction. Now, Sam has reached out. She’s clean. She terribly wants to be back in Emily’s life. With her cinematographer Danny (E. J. Bonilla, THE OLD MAN, THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER) by her side, Emily heads to her hometown of Las Cruces, New Mexico, braced for anything that might come with the reopening of old wounds. They meet at Sam’s home. She seems to be doing better. She has so much to share. The following day, she disappears without a trace, and Emily and Danny soon learn that Las Cruces has become a place where vulnerable people regularly go missing. They desperately try to piece together a mounting multitude of disturbing clues before it may be too late.
Leave it to an award-winning documentary filmmaker to do found-footage horror right. A perfectly calculated, slow-burn nightmare that opens with the feel of an indie doc and gradually evolves into something uniquely sinister, IN OUR BLOOD is the narrative feature debut of Oscar-nominated documentarian Pedro Kos (REBEL HEARTS, LEAD ME HOME). Employing the arsenal of techniques that he’s honed through documentary filmmaking, Kos has crafted a found-footage styled mystery horror that lands with chilling authenticity, further grounding the piece by casting a number of people from Las Cruces’ unhoused community who embed the film’s DNA with haunting layers of grief. With a tremendous performance from O’Grady at its centre, IN OUR BLOOD deftly uses themes of addiction and recovery, and the intersecting vulnerabilities that come with the isolation that addicts often experience, to build a profound horror narrative. Sad, scary, and unshakably convincing, it will linger like the ghosts of stolen futures.
Rita (dir. Jayro Bustamante)
Thirteen-year-old Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz) finds herself incarcerated in an all-girls protective custody facility, after fleeing a horrendously abusive home life to seek freedom in the city. The girls in her overcrowded section tell of a prophecy, that a warrior angel will arrive to free them all from a life of destitution, incarceration, and enforced prostitution. When she’s handed a pair of wings of her own, which all the girls in her quarters wear too, it’s up to Rita to work out whether she will fulfil the prophecy, and if so, how far she’s prepared to go to let the outside world know what’s really going on at the facility.
Following up on the international success of LA LLORONA (2019), director Jayro Bustamante fuses notes of mythical fantasy with themes of childhood innocence and female friendship, and the potent emotional register of a story based on a harrowing real-life event, where 41 young women horrifically burned to death inside a Guatemalan orphanage in 2017, in the midst of a protest about inhumane conditions.
Much like the early work of Guillermo Del Toro, RITA employs a fantastical mood, and oftentimes whimsical imagery, to dig into a core of grim real-life themes. At the heart of the piece is the powerful performance of Guiliana Santa Cruz, who speaks for all the young women who suffered at the orphanage—those who lost their lives, the survivors, and those who still have to endure such difficult circumstances. As a result, the story speaks much to the power of female anger, and yet, not once does the director lose sense of the fact that at its heart, Rita’s tale is one of girlhood, of dreams, of an innocence lost and regained within the bosom of female solidarity.
Shelby Oaks (dir. Chris Stuckmann)
Who took Riley Brennan? That’s the question asked by millions of devoted, even obsessed fans of the popular YouTube series Paranormal Paranoids, which ceased production when Brennan and her three co-hosts disappeared near the deserted town of Shelby Oaks, Ohio in 2008. Conspiracy theories have run rampant over the years, but none are more determined to get to the truth than Riley’s sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan), who has finally agreed to telling Riley’s story to a documentary film crew (Emily Bennett and Rob Grant) in the hopes of finding closure. Closure, however, refuses to be found as a series of shocking events opens the door to a deeper mystery surrounding Riley, one that leads Mia to follow her ghost-hunting sister’s footsteps down a path to confront demons of the past and get answers that can only be found somewhere within the darkness of Shelby Oaks.
This is it! After a successful Kickstarter campaign (which raised over five times the original goal, breaking all records on the platform) and two years of waiting, the debut feature from esteemed YouTube creator Chris Stuckmann is finally here and ready to scare the pants off Fantasia audiences. SHELBY OAKS delivers in all departments, as a creepy supernatural shocker, as a character-oriented horror film with strong performances, and as a well-crafted debut feature. Helped along by veteran producers Aaron B. Koontz (THE ARTIFICE GIRL), Ashleigh Snead (THE RANGER), along with the great Mike Flanagan coming on board as an executive producer, Stuckmann proves that he’s been paying close attention to all those movies he’s reviewed over the years, as the results are impressively moody and deftly scripted throughout. Anchored by a strong performance from Sullivan with solid support from Michael Beach (AQUAMAN) and genre vet Keith David (THEY LIVE), SHELBY OAKS has finally been found and it’s going to put Chris Stuckmann on the map in a very big way.
Vulcanizadora (dir. Joel Potrykus)
“I have a stomach ache too, man. I shouldn’t even be doing this with a stomach ache. You don’t have a stomach ache! I have a bad stomach ache!” VULCANIZADORA follows Derek (Joel Potrykus, director of RELAXER and THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK), a father who would rather take a bottle rocket to the face than confront his failures, and Marty (Joshua Burge, RELAXER, APE), an arsonist who is leading the charge on the sprint toward hellfire and away from his juvenile transgressions. These best friends embark on a seemingly innocent camping trip through the Michigan woods, but their disturbing pact becomes increasingly clear as they approach the X on the map!
Functioning as a spiritual sequel to writer/director Joel Potrykus’ 2014 offbeat slacker portrait BUZZARD, VULCANIZADORA engages in dialogue with the past, reflecting on different stages of the filmmaker’s life. Where BUZZARD’s Marty thrives in youthful rebellion, angst, and apathy, VULCANIZADORA’s Marty is more reserved, older, and in search of consequences for his crimes. Playing the foil to Burge’s more solemn performance is Potrykus himself, who plays the character Derek with a hilarious case of diarrhea of the mouth, fitting of his incredibly thick goatee. Together, they put forward an emotional depth that allows the audience to see themselves in Derek and Marty’s search for control in lives that have escaped their grasp.
With Potrykus’ sharp editing basking in the long take, and the camera of long-time cinematographer Adam J. Minnick’s (CHAINED FOR LIFE, QUANTUM COWBOYS) capturing beautiful 16mm images from a Haneke-esque distance, the two traverse the Michigan forest leaving a subtle sense of unease in their path that will settle in the back of your brain as you piece together the mystery behind why these two very different people are wandering through the trees! VULCANIZADORA showcases Potrykus at his most contemplative, exploring the tale of the aging metalhead through his trademarked twisted sense of humour, using this film as a response to a time capsule dug up from the past.
