The Substance
In our circles, this is the most anticipated film at TIFF in 2024, even though it opens commercially a few weeks from now.
Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid, and Margaret Qualley star in this ultra-stylized body-horror satire from Revenge director Coralie Fargeat. The buzz from Cannes was mighty, the trailer is perfect. It opens Midnight Madness this year.
Our own Eric Ortiz Garcia caught and loved the film at Cannes: "The Substance is, as you can imagine, one of those genre exponents that traces its premise very well and goes exactly to the places where it needs to go, but the important thing is that it does so in a memorable and surprising way due to its excess. Body horror reaches levels that made me think of witches, David Cronenberg, Stuart Gordon, for delving into the monstrous and grotesque side, and even in Japanese horror fantasy for its gore explosion."
Bring it.
The Brutalist
A three and a half hour 70mm shot post-WW2 immigrant epic in English, Hungarian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Italian, starring Adrian Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, and helmed by actor-turned-director Brady Corbet (Vox Lux).
This kind of thing could go either way, but
Lázaro at Night
A few years ago, in September 2020, during the height of the pandemic, I was still doing in person TIFF screenings, even though there was a buffer of nine empty seats in all directions. In the tiny screen, there were perhaps 15 of us watching Mexican-Canadian auteur Nicolás Pereda's Fauna, and I feel that we all silently bonded with this surreal, multi-narrative, deadpan comedic take on Mexico, and social grace, and literature.
His latest film, Lázaro at Night, is again aptly placed in the Wavelengths, the avant garde sidebar of the festival, could be about anything, and I would be there.
If it is indeed a "sly, pleasurable, and provocative meditation on desire as manifested through roles, identity, and representation," as the catalog says - whatever that means - I am already all in.
The Assessment
The debut feature from director Fleur Fortuné stars Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, and Himesh Patel, and probes the social science of climate change, as well as reproduction quotas put on parents to maintain the planet.
In the near-future everyone gets to live a calm existence but the government maintains a strict control of resources. To ensure the world doesn’t become overpopulated, it decides who can and can’t have children.
The still image, involving the two overlarge couches and stained glass window, instantly sold us that this chamber piece is, come what may, going to look gorgeous.
Universal Language
Universal Language looks like an out-of-the-gate masterpiece. Part Wes Anderson, part Roy Andersson, part Guy Maddin, Matthew Rankin's previous film, The 20th Century, was a surreal/absurdist Canadian history fantasia focusing on one of the country's stranger Prime Ministers: William Lyon Mackenzie King. It was also as brilliant as it was entertaining.
Ankit Jhunjhunwala caught Universal Language at Cannes, and wrote:
"It offers a beautiful paean to Canada’s unyielding embrace of multiculturalism. It would almost be poignant if it weren’t so damn funny [...] Universal Language isn’t bereft of feeling, though. A breathtaking switcheroo in the finale brings in the pathos and simply illustrates the film’s central thesis: Canadians, regardless of origin, are all alike due to their capacity for selflessness and generosity."
Rumours
Guy Maddin is a cultural treasure, a film archivist, a melodramatist, a technical maestro, and on occasion, a charming goofball. His odd films have been entertaining and confusing Canadian and global audiences for decades.
His latest has an all-star cast, including Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, Charles Dance, and Roy Dupuis, but I expect it to be no less strange for its star power.
When Martin Kudlac caught it at Cannes, he called it "a cross between Ubu Roi and 28 Days Later... on molly, Rumours begins as a political satire but quickly veers into an absurdist narrative, placing a group of politicians in an apocalyptic scenario with masturbating zombie-like creatures and The Wicker Man vibe. This survivalist predicament of bumbling leaders fosters an atmosphere reminiscent of a buddy comedy. Guy Maddin and the Johnsons eschew the low-hanging fruit of sharp, acerbic political satire, opting instead to embrace a juvenile, absurdist, and surreal approach, with a touch of genre-bending thrown in."
Shell
We enjoyed actor Max Minghella's directorial debut, Teen Spirit, more for its visual style and cast (Elle Fanning, Zlatko Buric!) than we did the subject matter. For his sophomore feature, he has leaned into body horror. All the kids are doing it these days; body horror is having a moment at TIFF24.
A dark comedy about society’s obsession with youth and good looks, an actress (Elisabeth Moss) challenges a beauty firm CEO (Kate Hudson) over science and ethics.
Else
The debut film from Thibault Emin, a French-Belgium co-production, is a black and white, surreal-looking, body horror romance. Yes, at TIFF24 you can fill your boots with the body horror sub-genre, but this one looks the most unusual of the bunch. It promises existential dread mixed with transcendental awe. Just what the doctor ordered for 21st century digital boys.
Daniela Forever
Nacho Vigalondo has been a long-time favourite in these parts, from his radically inventive short films, to his jump to features with the brilliant Time Crimes, as well as Extraterrestrial, and the star-studded Kaiju cum relationship drama, Colossal.
While Open Windows was more than a bit of a disaster, his return with Daniela Forever, a film about lucid dreaming, plays in the space of and/or in the spirit of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Solaris, which is intriguing.
You Are Not Alone
A French-Canadian genre picture that is being described as splicing the DNA of P.T. Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love and Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin? Say no more! Sold.
Cloud
After venturing into all kinds of cinematic forms and genres over the past decade, prolific Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns to the technology-driven horror and dread roots that put him on the global stage at the beginning of the 21st century. Nearly a quarter of a century after Pulse, will this be his eXistenZ to his previous Videodrome?
ICK
Maximalist provocateur Joseph Khan (Torque, Bodied) returns with a new feature. It stars mostly forgotten Superman Returns star Brandon Routh as an aging high school football legend doing battle with both a parasitic alien entity, as well as the collective apathy of the small town it has been gradually absorbing. Body Snatchers fun and broad social commentary are likely to ensue.
Escape From The 21st Century
Bearing all the hallmarks of a high energy Midnight Madness selection: time-travel via sneezing, aliens, body-swapping, wuxia wire-work, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World style special effects, and a double-dose of utter absurdity. The debut film from Yang Li, out of China, looks to be a hoot and a crowd pleaser.
Nightbitch
Amy Adams and lyncathropy? Could this be more body horror at TIFF? OK, Marielle Heller's latest feature promises more The Babadook than Raw, as an overworked mom turns into a feral dog at night (the title makes more sense now, right?) to escape the crushing domestic load.
The Shrouds
When our own Martin Tsai caught the latest David Cronenberg film at Cannes, he was decidedly on the fence about it.
"The Shrouds is David Cronenberg's most intensely personal film, or at least he wants us to think it is. Just how intensely personal can body horror get, you might ask?
"Scientifically speaking, The Shrouds is the most plausible in Cronenberg's oeuvre. All the hypothetical inventions seem to be based on existing technology. Is Cronenberg wary of science and technology potentially being used to exploit human grief? The Shrouds offers no answers."
But every Cronenberg is worthy of thought and consideration, and we are certainly look forward to both.
Superboys of Malegeon
Films about filmmaking with your pals are always worth a look. This one is based on a true story. Nasir Shaikh is the creator of no-budget productions which have conscripted his buddies and his community into the film process. Director Reema Kagti chronicles a dreamer from the late 1990s and beyond, in an ode to the joy of filmmaking.
Anora
This years Palm D'Or winner, caps a series of unlikely successes from director Sean Baker, the iPhone-shot Tangerine, the empathetic brilliance of The Florida Project, and the absurd cult comedy, Red Rocket.
Anora finds a radically different story than any of those, and involves a young sex worker from Brooklyn, who impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale marriage is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the union annulled.
Megalopolis
Francis Ford Coppola's latest is either the culmination of his life's work (he has been working on Megalopolis since 1980), or an absolute fiasco. Or both. It looks like madness.
Adam Driver, Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight, and a metric tone of compositing special effects star in this big science fiction picture shot in IMAX. The movie is big. Will it be Apocalypse Now or One from the Heart? We have heard the latter, but we must see for ourselves.
Dead Mail
Described in the Midnight Madness section of the TIFF guide as a synth-laden retro-thriller, directors Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy have our attention.
When an ominous cry for help on a blood-stained scrap of mail is found in the dead mail pile at a mid-western post office, it spurs an investigation in the late 1970s of local amateurs, without all the digital tools we have come to suspect when the phrase, "Do you own research," is evoked.
Our own J Hurtado caught this one at SXSW, and had this to say:
"While it’s not strictly speaking a horror film, there is plenty to suggest that fans of the genre will enjoy the film with all of its allusions to grindhouse era exploitation aesthetics, even if it lacks the blood and gore [...] A film where style is equal to substance and where both work in this kind of harmony is rare, but Dead Mail is just such an animal. Unusual in its tone and execution, but familiar enough to evoke nostalgia for nightmares of days gone by."
Oh, Canada
New Paul Schader! New. Paul. Schrader! While the aging auteur, and writer of Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Mosquito Coast, and Raging Bull has been all over the map as of late, from the quietly disappeared Master Gardener to the stunning master work First Reformed, to the OK The Card Counter to the garish-gonzo-WTF Dog Eat Dog, pretty much everything he in involved with is worth a look.
Here he adapts Russell Banks’ novel Foregone, about a writer and draft dodger (Richard Gere) who agrees to recount his life for a team of documentary filmmakers.
Mr. K
Norwegian-Dutch filmmaker Tallulah H. Schwab brings Crispin Glover (Back To The Future, Willard, The River's Edge) back to the big screen, for a stylish riff on Kafka.
Glover plays a travelling magician who finds himself in a hotel full of unusual guests, where the exit disappears once he checks in. How can you not want to see this?
40 Acres
R.T. Thorne's post-apocalyptic science fiction looks to be in the vein of under appreciated Z for Zachariah, and that is a good thing indeed.
In a post-apocalyptic future where food is scarce, the last descendants of a Black family of farmers who settled in Canada after the American Civil War must protect their homestead from an organized militia hell-bent on taking their land.
I am also curious where and how the Cree language factors into the film.
The Shadow Strays
So wait. You’re telling us that the returning Midnight Madness alumni and one of the ruling lords of Indonesian and International action filmmaking is bringing a near two and half hour ultra-violent extravaganza with them?
That it has all sorts of nods to action classics, including the warehouse scene from John Woo’s seminal work of art, Hard Boiled? Just inject this into my eyeballs already. We don’t want to know what demons Timo Tjajhanto exercises when they make their brand of action films and quite frankly we don’t care.
We would save a seat for however many of them there are if we were able to get to a screening of this highly anticipated action flick at this year’s festival. Yes, The Shadow Strays is coming to Netflix next month but boy howdy does a Tjajhanto action movie demand to be seen with a rambunctious crowd of ultra-violence enthusiasts!
U Are The Universe
A Ukrainian science fiction feature written and shot while the country is under siege from Russia? OK, I am intrigued.
Pavlo Ostrikov’s debut feature comes pre-loaded with symbolism, given that the Earth explodes while a lone astronaut is disposing of nuclear waste in space, and might just be one of the last humans in existence.
Bring Them Down
Will we watch Barry Keoghan in just about anything? After '71, The Killing of A Sacred Deer, and The Banshees of Inisherin, he gets a lifetime pass.
And we are always suckers for a desperate rural blood feud, so sign us up, please!
Seeds
We will blindly support any genre project from an Indigenous filmmaker, especially from Canada, and few are likely as familiar to us than Kaniehtiio Horn right now. Exceptionally active within mainstream and independent cinema and television Horn starred in their share of genre and specialty projects over the years, starring role in Ted Geoghegan’s Mohawk and their recurring role as Tanis in Letterkenny.
Rural Canada is a genre! We could not be more excited about their feature film debut, Seeds, which will have its world premiere at the festival this year. Touted as a bloody revenge thriller by the festival, we're eager to watch this tale with themes on food sovereignty, connections to the land, and reproduction. We’ve been anticipating this project since Horn first presented it remotely during the Frontieres Market back in 2021, then returned in-person the following year to participate in the Frontieres Forum with the same project.
Two years later and we are finally here with a debut feature they wrote, directed, and starred in.
Relay
Director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water, Outlaw/King) is a bit hit or miss, but Riz Ahmed is a thoroughbred. Together, they have made a modern whistleblowing thriller about analog telephone relays and privacy, with Hitchcock inspired set-pieces, and many twists and turns?
You had us at analog.
The Cut
British director Sean Ellis should be a bigger name than he is. His stylish coming-of-age debut Cashback was a delightful discovery at TIFF nearly 20 years ago. He followed it up with a young Lena Heady psychological thriller, The Broken and a Filipino cop flick, Metro Manilla, neither of which managed to make it past the festival circuit and into the box office. I am guessing all are are unfairly buried in one streaming service or another. He continues to work in the mid-budget thriller space -- anyone recall Anthropoid? -- but has yet to have a film truly break out.
Will this body-punishing boxing drama starring an aging, but ripped, Orlando Bloom (as well as the always welcome John Turturro) be the film to get him finally noticed?
Presence
A Steven Soderbergh ghost story in the vein of The Haunting. Enough said. Everything the prolific auteur does is worth a look, but even more so when he is playing in the genre space.
The End
A somber post-apocalyptic musical from Joshua Oppenheimer, the director of the challenging but popular documentary The Act of Killing. Starring Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George MacKay, and taking place entirely in a bunker.
It looks colourful, and gives off some real Dogtooth vibes. It is safe to guess that it will be neither an easy or comfortable watch.
Grand Tour
Portuguese director Miguel Gomes is a personal favourite, his films keep you on your toes, and he has not repeated himself. He takes big chances. His 5 hour+ magnum opus Arabian Nights remains one of our favourite TIFF experiences in recent years.
Our own Martin Kudlac caught Grand Tour at Karlovy Vary back in July, and he had this to say about it:
"Grand Tour stands out for its ambitious blending of genres, time periods, and cinematic techniques. It builds on the themes and stylistic choices of Gomes' earlier works while pushing the boundaries of a more epic, or grand, narrative. The film’s deliberate anachronisms and playful use of artifice underline the fluid nature of cinema, becoming a post-modern encapsulation of the medium's existence and mechanics transcending the centenary of its existence."