Festivals: Fantastic Fest Reviews
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: TOTALLY KILLER, '80s Slasher Meets BACK TO THE FUTURE
Meeting your mother when you’re both teens can screw seriously with your head (e.g., the Back to the Future trilogy). Meeting your mom as a teen when there’s a serial killer targeting your teen mom and her circle of friends,...
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: THE WAIT (La espera), Visually Captivating Horror Western About Greed and Grief
Directed by F. Javier Gutierrez, the rural thriller stars Victor Clavijo, Ruth Diaz, Manuel Moron, and Luis Callejo.
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: V/H/S/85, Mixtape Horror Anthology Improves on Its Predecessors
Over the last decade, six standalone entries, two unlikely spinoffs, and even a limited series, the V/H/S anthology series has functioned as an efficient delivery system for period-specific horror, extra-gnarly, gory kills, and nightmare-inducing imagery. The series has also served...
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: ONE-PERCENTER Delivers Brutal 'Real Action'
The 85-minute One-Percenter, the new film from Meatball Machine writer/director Yudai Yamaguchi, opens with an extended series of intercut interviews and behind-the-scenes segments that feel like a DVD extra, centering on the intensity and combat abilities of action star Takuma...
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: TRIGGERED (Topakk), Brutal Action Highlights Flick From The Philippines
Richard Somes directs the Filipino action movie.
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: JACKDAW Drives Through in This Fast and Compact Thriller
Oliver Jackson-Cohen stars in a noir action-thriller, directed by Jamie Childs.
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: RAGE (Rabia), Growing Tension And Fear Gives Way to a Bloody Finale
Alan survives his mother's death, forced to hide by his father in a secluded housing unit.
There, he discovers hidden messages that reveal his father is a werewolf. Alan has to do
something before the next full moon catches up with them.
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: STRANGE DARLING, A Joy Ride to Remember
After a brief prologue that promises – both via text and voiceover – a dramatization of the true story of the final killings of the most unique American serial killer of the 21st century, we are treated to a mesmerizing...
Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY, Lovely Little Genre Exercise That Grows Too Big
The feature debut of writer/director Francis Galluppi makes the most of its single location setting for most of its runtime, and only falters when it takes steps to leave that place behind. That place is a sizable diner attached to...
Fantastic Fest 2022 Review: SMILE Opens Wide
Writer/director Parker Finn had me asking one question prior to my viewing of Smile: Would the film simply coast on a creepy visual gimmick or, like It Follows (2016), take that idea and do something genuinely unnerving with it? Things...
Review: SHE WILL, Empowered by Truth and Mythic Magic
She did. That is, Charlotte Colbert did. She’s one of a few first-time directors who turned in great movies at this years edition of Fantastic Fest. What seemed like it may be a grim and broody revenge horror fable becomes…...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: LAMB May Not Be What You Think
Whatever the trailer may make you think, maybe it's best just to let go of your preconceptions before watching Lamb. This is the kind of cinema to go into blind, ready to connect with characters and the journey they find...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: BARBARIANS, Hell Really Is Other People
Not to be confused with Barbarians (the Netflix series), Barbarians at the Gate (Wall Street robber barons), or even Waiting for the Barbarians (the already forgotten adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee’s novel), the latest film with the word...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: PREMAN, Indonesian Action Flick Delivers Heart, Emotion, and Kicks
At one point in writer-director Randolph Zaini’s feature-length debut, Preman, Pak Guru (Kiki Narendra), a depth-free, mustache-twirling villain, marvels that the best laid plans of gangsters, gang bosses (like him), and a Buddha-like real-estate developer have gone sideways due to...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: IKE BOYS, Kindhearted Tribute to Sentai's Life Lessons
The story goes that back in the late 60s a dynamic anime director in Japan made a very ambitious movie that bombed at the box office. Shelved in the company archives the film escaped a warehouse fire and became the...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: LET THE WRONG ONE IN Lets Audience in On Joke
This is the most fun I’ve had in a vampire comedy since What We Do in the Shadows. The comparison needn’t stop there but this is no imitator. Full of original characters, hysterically gross practical effects, and a take...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: EYES OF FIRE, 1700s Style EVIL DEAD
Eyes of Fire is an interesting film. A low-budget horror venture from the mind of Avery Crounse, it is a curious amalgam of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sam Raimi. The storyline is a familiar one. Set in the 1700s, Reverend Will...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: V/H/S 94, Typically Uneven Horror Anthology
After three entries in three years, the V/H/S horror anthology/portmanteau series, a showcase for established and up-and-coming horror filmmakers to show horror-friendly audiences what terrifying delights they could deliver in short bursts, slipped into an extended period of quietude. That...
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: THE TRIP, Have a Bloody Good Time
Noomi Rapace and Aksel Hennie star in an action thriller, directed by Tommy Wirkola.
Fantastic Fest 2021 Review: BABY ASSASSINS, Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Akari Takaishi and Saori Izawa star in a killer action comedy, directed by Hugo Sakamoto.
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