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 premiere, 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 The Last Drive-In, hosted by Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mail Girl, on Shudder. 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.