Fantasia 2024

Well, I'm a week removed from my Fantasia trip and suitably recovered enough to talk about it. Now a veteran of over fifteen years at this fest, it's become just as much about visiting restaurants and cocktail bars in Montreal as it is about watching movies...

(from top left) The Mayahuel at Caifan MTL, the pan-seared hanger steak at Joe Beef & the counter at Neo Tokyo.

...but here is a sampling of my festival faves.

#3: Retro screening of The Carpenter (1988)

Perhaps surprisingly, I had never seen this. It was a delight to watch for many reasons, including viewing it with a hometown audience (the movie was shot in Montreal) and a rare performance by Wings Hauser where he is decidedly charming. A gleefully absurd romp.

#2 Kryptic (2024)

A somber and atmospheric debut piece by Canadian Kourtney Roy. This movie has a lot going for it in a committed performance from Chloe Pirrie, the perfectly utilized scenery of British Columbia and a meandering, yet engaging, mystery.

#1 Frankie Freako (2024)

Director Steve Kostanski is back at it again. Utilizing a pair of his Astron 6 cohorts (Conor Sweeney & Adam Brooks), a gaggle of misfit puppets and just a couple of locations, he has paid homage to one of his favourite movies, Ghoulies III. Edibles are optional, but everyone in attendance had a blast with this one.

The Summer of Jay! (jk)

So this summer was pretty good all things considered. Sure, we're not fully out of the shadow of the Rona quite yet, but I was able to do enough cool things in the last few months to make it feel like relative normalcy is within reach.

Weather wise, I think this was one of the most pleasant summers in recent memory. There was little rain and an excessive amount of beautiful days. I really got to explore the walking trails in my 'hood and much patio time was had. And for the real scorchers, I just retreated into the aggressive air conditioning of my basement apartment.

The pinnacle of course, was my trip to Fantasia for which was pretty much back to 100%. Even better, my festival affiliations basically paid for everything except my train ticket. Not a bad deal.

No Embassy, but still plenty of films, food and booze. And even though the market weekend ended up being a super spreader, I managed to get out of Montreal unfettered. I got my dose in May and am in no hurry to double dip.

Anyway, I saw a eight films in Montreal (nine if you include Nope in IMAX) and here were some of the highlights.

This was the first thing I saw and also my favourite. Alexandre O. Philippe, the documentarian who gave us deep dives into Psycho, Alien and The Exorcist, takes us on a fantastical journey through David Lynch's filmography and the parallels it shares with Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz. Broken up into a half-dozen visual essays presented by such notable figures as John Waters, Karen Kusama and Rodney Ascher, you really get a sense of not just how Oz influenced Lynch, but the very language of cinema. A must-watch for cinephiles!

Part sci-fi, part road movie, part rom-com and part horror movie, this movie wears many hats and wears them well. Directed by Mali Elfman (yes, THAT Elfman) and starring Flanagan mainstays Katie Parker & Rahul Kohli, I found this piece really sincere and affecting.

Andy Mitton (The Witch in the Window, Yellow Brick Road) returns with this really strong quarantine horror. This is definitely the best use of Covid-19 I've seen so far and the lead (Gabby Beans) is terrific. Don't sleep (I keeeeed) on this one.

Neil LaBute is back! You'll watch the trailer and be like “hey this gives everything away” and you'd be right. Even going in blind it was fairly obvious to me where it was headed. However, it kind of didn't matter. This is more of a movie where enjoying how it gets to the end is more important than the end itself. It also had the best jump scare of my fest, as well.

This was the last film I saw at Fantasia and a great one to end on. This four character piece was fantastic low budget/high concept sci-fi in the tradition of Primer and Coherence. Keep your eye out for it!

And that's it! Tomorrow, I'll move onto my experience at this year's TIFF.

The Sadness

There were of course many reasons that prompted last weekend's getaway to Montreal, but chief among them was Fantasia's North American premiere of Rob Jabbaz's The Sadness. Shot in Taipei's summer of 2020 during the delayed onset of Covid-19, this title has been rapidly growing infamy for its extreme violence. I became aware of it after Rue Morgue put in on the cover of their Jul/Aug issue and then leaned shortly after, rather fortuitously, that it was screening during my visit. Then, months later, stuffed high up in the balcony at the Imperial, I finally took in The Sadness.

Citizens in Taipei fight to survive during an outbreak that compels those infected to torture, murder and rape.

So is it worth all the hype? For the most part, yes. I mean, you know how things go when movies get talked up as they do - Fantasia even put a disclaimer on their listing - your imagination is always worse than the real thing. Having said that, The Sadness was no doubt a Category 3 title (Hong Kong's much maligned version of NC-17) peppered with bloodstained set pieces that kept the tension going once all hell broke loose. Not only was it gory, violent and transgressive, but also well made with solid performances by Regina Lei and Berant Zhu. A lot of the tension is built on these two trying to find each other again after the movie's gentle and relatable opening scene of their morning ritual.  

Also memorable was the axe-wielding company man played by Tzu-Chiang Wang. Jabbaz revealed in the Q&A that Wang is a well-known character actor in Taiwan (he referenced Harry Dean Stanton as a Western equivalent) so I'd say it was pretty ballsy for him to have taken such a lecherous role. In amongst all this were the obvious parallels between The Alvin and Corona viruses, as well as some political satire that's pretty transparent no matter what corner of the globe you hail from.

Listening to the gasps and sighs of disgust happening around me during The Sadness' most talked about scene, I realized that it had been a while since I had experienced such a thing. It gave me pause, as it seemed like during the aughts there was some nerve shredding title grazing my eyeballs every year. Now, not so much and if I'm being honest, I don't think the machine allows the shit that tips the scales of taste to be made anymore. I mean, a Canadian had to basically flee to Taiwan and use completely independent money (his producer Jeff Huang is, among other things, a crypto tycoon) to get something like The Sadness made. I can't even imagine other Category 3 films like Red to Kill and Untold Story even being shot in this day and age. Some people might say this is a good thing. I am not one of those people.

While I may no longer actively seek out the sinewy fringes of shock cinema, knowing it is still there comforts me because lacking the video store experience, I still want the idea of the forbidden to exist in some form or another.

Désolée

I should be a fucking plane right now. Instead, I am languishing in a humidified office.

Fuck you, Covid. Way to break my streak of twelve years.

Shorts Fantasia 2019.

At Fantasia this year, I sadly didn't see any movies that knocked my socks off (my fault, I missed the ones that peeps were buzzing about after the fact) so I figured I'd rundown some short films you should keep your eyes out for.

Up first, is Germán Sancho's creeper Fears. I was super impressed with this creative take on the monster-in-the-closet tale. Another pair of efforts that caught my attention were Lance Edmands' Whiteout and Joshua Giuliano's In Sound, We Live Forever, as they both involved innocuous situations that deteriorate quickly.

For the gore hounds out there, you need look no further than Oskar Lehemaa's Bad Hair. Just think of it as if The Peanut Butter Solution went full-on body horror. If you don't cringe at least once during this, you ain't got a pulse.

Fortunately, I was there for this year's edition of the Born of Woman programme. It was as strong as always, but there were a trio of standouts in my opinion. Opening up the block was Yfke Van Berckelaer's Lili. Buoyed by a terrific performance by Lisa Smit, this uncomfortable and all-too-real short was a good indicator of what we were all in for that evening.

Erica Skoggins' The Boogeywoman was a provocative short that blended coming-of-age tale with urban folklore by way of David Lynch. Skoggins (like BoW alumni Natalie James & Alice Waddington before her) has such a firm grasp of story, sound and visuals that I'm sure a feature film cannot be far away. Lastly, it's not an overstatement to say that Jamie DeWolf's Girl in the Hallway obliterated everyone in attendance. This was an incredible piece of work.

Fantasia 2018: Part Two

In amongst all the films, patio beers and fine foods, I was able to fit in several extracurricular activities, as well. You'd be surprised how much free time I had now that I wasn't constantly hunkered down in my Airbnb writing reviews. I had some of my best naps in recent memory last week! 

The first Fantasia event I attended was a retro screening of Hoi Mang's Blonde Fury on 35mm with Cynthia Rothrock in attendance.

Cynthia Rothrock aka China O'Brien aka Lady Dragon

Man, she's a lovely lady with so many stories about the glory days of Kung-fu cinema and the ups and downs of being a outsider in the industry. She regaled us with stories of how it went both ways, as some crews loved her because she was pretty much up for anything and some did not because the concept of “being beat up by a girl” was just too obtuse. There's no question of her icon status though. I mean, how many people can say they've inspired a video game character?

Next, was an In Conversation with genre heavyweight Michael Ironside.

Michael Ironside!

Considering his demeanor onscreen, I was expecting something between surly and grizzled, but it was amazing how affable he was. And the stories, man. So many! After ninety minutes, I felt like I knew the man. He spoke of his beginnings as a playwright and painter, working with Walter Hill, Paul Verhoeven and David Cronenberg as well as some wild tales about his personal experiences with telekinesis. Much to my delight, he even got to sneak in some talk about V.

On Saturday night, I got my picture taken with the star of the new Puppet Master movie. As you know I've always been a Blade fan.

Too bad about the movie though :P

My last day there I checked out the book launch for Michael Gingold's new book, Ad Nauseum.

Man, it's like he read my mind. Something as comprehensive as this could only be pulled off by someone who not only lived during the era, but also had the presence of mind to collect EVERYTHING. I'm of a similar ilk, but Mike's got almost a decade on me, so I gladly defer. This book is the best!

Aside from Fantasia events, a group of us walked over to the Grevin Musée to take in some wax figures. I was pretty impressed with the setup there, including the shrine to Alfred Hitchcock.

Hitch & Ali Chappell.

I was hoping my bae was going to be there--

--AND SHE WAS!!!

On our way out of town, we stopped at two movie houses that just happened to be within minutes of where we were staying. Behold, the house from 1983's Of Unknown Origin!

And the house from 1977's Cathy's Curse!

I've been going to Fantasia for eleven years now and I'd say that this trip was top five for sure, maybe even top three! Until next time, bon nuit!

Fantasia 2018: Part One

All told I saw fifteen films this year at Fantasia, ranging from retro martial arts to Kiwi comedy to upcoming horrors. Here were some of the highlights in case you are keeping score at home.

Probably my fave of the trip was Justin P. Lange's The Dark. I heard comparisons to Let The Right One In prior to the screening and they are apt. However, I'd say the dynamic between the two leads (Nadia Alexander & Toby Nichols) was a little different, as were the events that got them there. This equally sweet and sanguine effort was right up my alley.

Lee Chang-hee's The Vanished was a terrific thriller from South Korea. It walks a fine line between conventional and supernatural with a narrative that unfolds flawlessly, yet still has room for levity courtesy of a Columbo-esque gumshoe played by Kim Kang-woo. Just when I thought the movie might be spinning its wheels in the third act, it hit me with a fantastic conclusion that tied everything together.

Brazillian director Dennison Ramalho has wowed me over the years with his short films Love For Mother Only, Ninjas & ABC 2's J is for Jesus, but The Nightshifter was his first foray into long form. Wonderfully obtuse to start, the film actually became increasingly more conventional as it progressed. It wouldn't surprise me if an American studio remade this by the end of the decade.

On the science-fiction side of things was Isaac Ezban's Parallel. This was some smart and engaging stuff that was heavily aided by the visual stylings of cinematographer Karim Hussein. I really loved that the filmmakers took the fascinating theory of the Mandela Effect and fashioned it into a feature long concept.

Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov was back at Fantasia this year with three films, but the one I caught was Profile. Using the same “screen reality” format employed in his Unfriended series, this one featured far more serious subject matter. This film was as tense as it was topical. I really dig this evolution of found footage and its fresh way of telling stories. Considering how much time we spend in front of our computer screens these days, I feel there is real strength in the familiarity of its narratives. 

Lastly, I wanted to give a shout-out to a pair of comrades who had their films play at Fantasia. My Little Terrors cohort Justin McConnell premiered his new feature Lifechanger and Jen Wexler screened her backwoods slasher The Ranger.

It was a terrific week in terms of film, as well as festival events, but more on those tomorrow.

Short of the Week #29: Limbo

Alas, I am back from Fantasia now, but more on that later. For now I wanted to post a short film that played there in 2016, Will Blank's Limbo.

It is of significance because Sam Elliot was actually at the fest this year representing The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot.

The one, the only Sam Elliot.
Photo courtesy of King-Wei Chu.

Summer in Suburbia

The first film I watched at this year's Fantasia fest was RKSS's (the Canadian collective of Anouk & Yoann-Karl Whissell & François Simard) Summer of '84.

An imaginative teen named Davey (Graham Verchere) becomes convinced his neighbour is a serial killer. He then recruits his three best friends (Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery & Cory Gruter-Andrew) in the task of acquiring incriminating evidence against him. 

I felt compelled to write a review of this movie due to my preconceived notions of it. Summer of '84 was yet another script I read sometime ago with my now defunct screenplay club. I was not a fan of it then for a few reasons. However, with decidedly low expectations, I gave the finished product a watch and it turned out to be much better than I was expecting.

My foremost problem with the script was there was a jarring shift in tone that I wasn't crazy about. That's a personal preference thing on my part though, so I get that. I did like that it went places that most films of this ilk do not. What started out as flagrant formula (most notably Amblin + Rear Window) does make some notable sidesteps.

Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery & Cory GruterAndrew in Summer of  '84

I often find it shocking how much eye-rolling dialogue – and there was a LOT of it in the script – can be smoothed over by talented performers. Most of this movie's successes come down to the chemistry between the four leads. Aesthetically, they seem like a quartet that would never hang out together, but they make it work somehow.

Perhaps the most unlikely relationship in the script was that of Davey (Verchere) and the “girl next door” Nikki (Tiera Skovbye). I remember thinking every interaction between them was going to end with him waking up from a dream, but onscreen it comes off much more sincere and at least semi-plausible. Additionally, I was quite impressed that, after seeing him as Mad Men's Harry Crane (and the goofy protagonist from Firewatch), Rich Sommer can do menacing quite convincingly.

Tiera Skovbye & Graham Verchere in Summer of '84.

Also considerably toned down was the “Hey it's the 80's” conceit of the source material. Stranger Things is guilty of this to a fault, but here it's much more restrained. The Polybius cameo may have been a bit much, but that didn't stop me from chuckling to myself when it came onscreen. On that note, the Tangerine Dream-esque score by Jean-Philippe Bernier was solid, if it was often counteracted by some heavy-handed sound cues. I'm not sure whether they were a conscious decision from RKSS or just a knee-jerk reaction based on the current status quo of genre filmmaking.

I'm not going to say Summer of '84 was a triumph or anything, but it does do what it does competently and it is definitely a large step-up cinematically for this trio of filmmakers. For their next project, I hope to see them grow even further by shucking their reliance on aping the past and bringing forth something truly fresh and original.

Short of the Week #28: Snake Bite

I'm a few days into my Fantasia trip and having a ball, but I've a few moments to spare to post this edition of Short of the week, Tim Hyten's Snake Bite.

It came to mind because I first saw it two years ago at this festival, as well as catching a similarly themed Quebecois short called Fauve on my first night here. Both are incredibly engaging works about kids up to no good and the latter, directed by Jérémy Comte, was a perfect pairing with Summer of '84.

Fantasia Beckons.

Here begins my yearly trip - the eleventh! - to Montreal for the Fantasia Film Festival.

Things will be a little different this year though, as this will be the first time that I'll be going as industry, representing the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Fest. That said, now that I no longer have to sing for my supper as it were, review frequency may be sparse over the next week. I do plan on seeing about five to ten flicks while I'm there, so I'll try and do a wrap-up post at the very least. Inspiration for writing about new releases has been a tad elusive lately, (Cheers for Hereditary! Jeers for A Quiet Place!) but we'll see how it goes.

Be good while I'm gone, kiddies.  

Shorts Fantasia

As with previous years, I am wrapping up my Fantasia coverage with a rundown of the best shorts I saw while at the fest. This year was particularly strong and I wish I could have seen all of them, instead of just a sampling. Fortunately, I was there for not one, but two short programmes (Small Gauge Trauma & Born of Woman) so I did get the catch more than usual.

I saw a pair of creepers that really impressed me this year in Nico Van den Brink's Sweet Tooth and Adam O'Brien's Banshee. The former was super tight, had a brilliant setup and utilized some chilling beats involving technology. Banshee had some awesome effects and a conclusion where I was actually glad it went on after I thought it had ended. Scary shorts are the hardest to pull off and both these guys did some great work.

A short I saw a few months ago and was glad to see play here was Amelia Moses' Undress Me. With its university coming-of-age backdrop, it reminded me of Julia Ducournau's Raw and its university, only leaning more toward body horror than cannibalism. It ended rather abruptly (Moses revealed at the screening she only had ten minutes to get the last shot), but I think she got her point across.

A couple of films that featured great performances from young leads were Andrea Naida's Home Education and William Boodell's Born of Sin. Naida's piece takes the title's idea to the next level and, whether intentional or not, becomes a comment on the dangers of ignorance. Born of Sin took the mundane situation of a child waiting for their neglectful parent and turned it into something darkly whimsical.

On the animation side of things, there was the pitch black awesomeness of Marc Riba & Anna Solanas' Dead Horses. I loved the little creative touches in the stop-motion, like the shimmering of the boy's eyes and the look of the explosions. This was one that stuck with me.

Short films often offer glimpses into worlds that would make interesting features, as was the case with Santiago C. Tapia & Jessica Curtright's It Began Without Warning. Its Who Can Kill A Child? vibe packed a lot of madness into six minutes.

Lastly, my favourite short film of my trip was definitely Natalie Erika James' Creswick. It had pitch perfect tone, great performances and the best use of sound design I've seen in ages. Toward the end, there was a sequence in a workshed that was just terrific. Hopefully, you will get to catch this - and all those aforementioned - at a festival near you, or at least eventually online.

So, that's another year in Ol' Montreal done. Hope you have earmarked some of the titles I wrote about for future reference, as there were some corkers. I'll be taking a little break, but see you back here next week.

Double Docs

I caught a pair of terrific documentaries while at Fantasia this week.

I wasn't able to see Alex Phillipe's 78/52 during its run in Toronto, but it was fortuitous because the filmmakers were in attendance for this screening in Montreal. This doc examines one of the most infamous scenes in all of cinema - the shower sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. So named for the seventy-eight cuts and fifty-two second run time, this doc is extremely comprehensive, almost breaking the material down frame by frame with the help of filmmakers and scholars alike.

I loved this documentary because it concentrated on the pathos of the film and how much of an influence it had on cinema as well as the public at large. In doing so, 78/52 was not only a film about film, but also pop culture itself. I also really liked the range of subjects they brought in for the film that included the old guard like Peter Bogdonavich, the new blood like Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead & Oz Perkins (who has an obvious connection with the material) as well as denizens in between like Mick Garris and Guillermo del Toro.

The crowd was also riled up when the filmmakers announced their next project. I haven't seen it announced online yet, so I won't keep quiet, but they are planning on giving the same treatment to equally iconic moment from late-seventies science fiction.

The second documentary, Steve Mitchell's King Cohen was a deep dive into the world of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen. It was extra special to not only have him there, but also his long-time collaborator Michael Moriarty to present him with a lifetime achievement award. These two were a dynamic duo and wasted no time hamming it up with each other.

Photo courtesy of Kurt Halfyard.

I've always said that Larry Cohen is one of the purest horror filmmaker out there. His oeuvre is not only extremely vibrant and unique, but also uncompromising. Q: The Winged Serpent, It's Alive, God Told Me To, The Stuff, I mean the list goes on. As does the list of filmmakers that sing his praised within like Martin Scorsese, John Landis & Joe Dante. Cohen is also a prolific writer, having penned over a hundred pieces of work for film and television. I was honoured to be in his presence.

If you are into documentaries about the craft of film, then I highly encourage you to seek out this pair of docs. You'll learn a lot, and do it with a grin.

Hells Yeah!

Moving now to across the pond, I checked out Cold Hell, the new thriller from German director Stefan Ruzowitzky.

A Muslim taxi driver named Özge (Violetta Schurawlow) becomes the target of a serial killer after she witnesses him disposing of his latest victim.

I loved this film. Thrillers are a dime-a-dozen, but it is rare where all of its components come together as well as they did here. Cold Hell was the perhaps the closest thing to a giallo I've seen in quite some time. It has several elements, including the mysterious serial killer, a protagonist that is unwittingly brought into the investigation and the cat-and-mouse game that ensues.

This time however, the formula was cleverly subverted by flipping the gender roles. Usually, the female is a companion to the main character that helps to a certain degree, but often ends up needing to be rescued (Daria Nicolodi in some of Dario Argento's films for instance). In Cold Hell, Özge was the main character who was not only strong, but also took no shit and never let herself be a victim. It's also important for me to point out that her strength felt well established and organic. It wasn't an empty plot device, her actions were spurred on by years of being trodden on by the world.

Which brings me to Schurawlow, who was just fantastic. I could see the weight of the rage she carried around inside her quiet demeanor. It was almost as if she had been waiting for someone to come along she could unleash all her anger onto. I never once thought Özge couldn't do all of the kick-ass stuff Schurawlow did in this film. On top of that though, there were a lot of other moments like altercations with her estranged family and the socio-political hurdles of xenophobia that really added to her character. Ruzowitzky made a perfect casting choice here I can only hope that Schurawlow's career skyrockets like Franke Potente's did after he put her in his 2000 flick, Anatomy.

Violetta Schurawlow as Özge in Cold Hell.

Cold Hell was a well paced thriller, but it also had its share of really kinetic action sequences. Özge was a trained Thai boxer and I really liked the true-to-life nature of the fight sequences. They were not the highly choreographed bouts we see from Hollywood and the Far East, but realistic get-them-down-and-hit-them-in-the-face-as-many-times-as-possible affairs. It was extremely visceral and I was super pumped after the credits rolled.

Cold Hell will likely be my favourite film at the festival this year. It was a very well executed thriller anchored by a complex and spirited female lead. We need more thrillers (and lead characters) like this one.