The back half of any festival can turn up some unexpected gems, as I'm sure attendees of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland will discover today through Saturday, when the festive occasion wraps up.
Allow me first, please, to mention that you can keep tabs on all our coverage of this year's festival by clicking this handy link. Today will see repeat screenings of various films that we've already reviewed -- such as Taiwanee puppet adventure Demigod: The Legend Begins, Japanese kaiju adventure Shin Ultraman and Filipino zombie thriller Day Zero -- or covered in our daily reports.
Retrospective screenings of Jack Clayton's black and white The Innocents, Gus Van Sant's colorful Psycho and Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys will also reward the faithful, as will special (separate) conversations with authors Mariana Enriquez and Joyce Carol Oates. In our daily gallery, let's look at three films of special interest to readers of this site, including one that we've already seen.
Occhiali neri
Screens tonight at 0:15. Visit the official festival page to learn more.
Attention must be paid! Dario Argento has made a new film (aka Dark Glasses), one that is described as an "upbeat bloody thriller," though I assume the festival could have left out the "bloody" in that description, since this is Dario Argento and OF COURSE IT'S GOING TO BE BLOODY!!!
The official synopsis: "When a solar eclipse plunges Rome into darkness, a serial killer starts spreading terror in the streets of the capital city. Luxury escort girl Diana barely escapes with her life, but she becomes blind.
"With the help of a young Chinese man who was also traumatized by his encounter with the killer, she will try to unmask the culprit… Ten years after his last film (Dracula 3D), the maestro Dario Argento makes his come-back to the giallo genre and reconnects with the chilling terror of his early years."
We live in hope. Watch the trailer below.
Holy Spider
Screens tonight at 19:30 and again on Saturday afternoon at 13:15. Visit the official festival page to learn more.
I respect investigative journalists very much, which makes this is a must-see, even before I read the festival's official synopsis:
"In 2001, a Tehran journalist is investigating a series of femicides in the dodgiest neighbourhoods of the holy city of Mashhad. These crimes are thought to be the work of a single individual who claims to be cleansing the city of its sins by murdering prostitutes at night.
"Holy Spider works as a fascinating mirror of Iranian society. It is a film at the crossroads of genres, which displays strong originality, and tackles the condition of women in Iran. A must-see!"
Be sure to watch the trailer for this Cannes selection; it's excellent and quite chilling.
Soul of a Beast
Screens tonight at 19:30. Visit the official festival page to learn more.
I'll turn this space over to our faithful contributor Martin Kudlac, who reviewed it last year out of the Locarno Internattional Film Festival:
"Coming-of-age has become a vital genre, its topicality being reinvigorated by new hoops that young adults have to jump through in the era propelled by disruptive technologies and their aftermath. Swiss filmmaker Lorenz Merz grasps the confusion of adolescence, desire, heartbreak, and the limits of freedom in his latest film, Soul of a Beast, but charts a completely different path to portray the turbulence and chaos of the transition into adulthood. …
"The intensity of the surreal shock on the protagonist's senses and the dilemmas he has to confront turn Soul of a Beast into a hip metaphor on the paradoxes and turmoil of early adulthood."
Watch the trailer below.
Visit the official festival page to learn more about today's programming.