Fantastic Fest Report: Wrong Turn 2, Invisible Target, Velvet Hustler, Alone

Exhaustion has well and truly set in. It's Thursday afternoon as I type this, I watched five movies back to back yesterday, and felt so charged up I had trouble sleeping. Which means my schedule is shot again; I'm missing a screening at this moment. The hangover has begun. Despite taking a few notes I'm having trouble marshaling my thoughts. I feel like a cinematic punch drunk. Still, I'm very sorry that Fantastic Fest concludes tonight and that "normal" life resumes tomorrow.

A quick recap: Wrong Turn 2 is a satisfying though average backwoods horror flick; The Beautiful Beast is a consistently perplexing horror of the dysfunctional family variety; Invisible Target is an incredibly crunchy and adrenaline-pumping Hong Kong action picture; Velvet Hustler, a funny and colorful film noir, is yet another undiscovered masterpiece in the Nikkatsu Action series; Alone manages to transcend its one-note scares by uprooting a painful, tragic relationship at the heart of its character-based horror.

Check the Related Links to read more detailed reviews of two of the films. I liked Invisible Target even more than Stefan and The Visitor -- and it looked and sounded glorious on the big screen at the Alamo Drafthouse. I was a very happy boy and I recommend it. The midnight screening of Alone was extremely gripping, and I agree entirely with Todd Brown's sentiments on this one. It will be receiving a theatrical release in the US (hooray!), so spread the word and look out for this one.

My time and energy are entirely depleted, so this will be my shortest report, but I very much hope to recoup and write more in the next few days about some of the films that deserve greater attention. And allow me to repeat myself up front: Velvet Hustler is a great film that needs to be released on DVD.