Tag: fantasticfest2015
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: DARLING Is Too Shrill To Scare
In the last few years, writer-director-producer Mickey Keating has established himself as a prolific genre filmmaker, and his film Pod was released just a few months ago. Darling, his latest work, is a low-key psychological thriller that draws from a...
Fantastic Fest 2015: Awards Go To GREEN ROOM, DER BUNKER, DEMON And More
Fantastic Fest ends with its usual crazy bang tonight in Austin, and with it comes the awards announcement. Some great titles have been honoured; I know, I've seen many of them (if you'll allow me to say a personal congratulations...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: THE MIND'S EYE Is A Squishy 80's Throwback
When any filmmaker with a well-received first film heads into their next project, the threat of the sophomore slump has to weigh heavily on their heads. Joe Begos' first film, Almost Human, was a lovingly crafted homage to the low-budget...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: DEMON, When Ghosts Refuse To Be Silenced
Anything you try to bury will come back to haunt you. And as many times as you bury it, it will come back, and no doubt hurt those you least want to see hurt. The past can never be escaped,...
Fantastic Fest 2015: Canfield Talks With BASKIN Director Can Evrenol
Director Can Evrenol won Best New Director here at Fantastic Fest 2015 last night. It's an honor well deserved. With his debut feature Baskin he's juggling potential tonal problems that could give any filmmaker serious headaches. What emerges, from his...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: ZINZANA, Thrills, Chills, And Kills In A Police Station
Two men in a police station. One is locked up, the other should be. The first genre film from United Arab Emirates, Zinzana (aka Rattle the Cage) is a refreshingly potent, teasingly intense drama. It begins with Talal (Saleh Bakri)...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: GRIDLOCKED Kicks Ass And Takes No Prisoners
If you're looking for a movie with hyper-violence, well-choreographed ass kickings, and a lot of bloodshed, Gridlocked is your Huckleberry. Not to be confused with the great 1997 crime film Gridlock'd starring Tim Roth and the late Tupac Shakur, Gridlocked...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: KLOWN FOREVER, Still Funny, Still Raunchy
Tragedy is easy. Comedy is hard. And making a comedy sequel is impossible Four years ago, Klown (original Danish title: Klovn) blew into worldwide cinematic consciousness as a wickedly funny, perversely smutty, and utterly original comedy. Born on a television...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: MAN VS. SNAKE, Cheering For The Champion Of An Unknown Game
What the heck is Nibbler? The opening scene of Man Vs. Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler, a new documentary by Andy Seklir and Tim Kinzy, asks that question, which is pertinent because the movie is about several...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: DAG Delivers A Bleakly Hilarious Take On Life And Love
Dag dislikes people. All of them. Strongly. He would like nothing more than to be simply left alone to enjoy a good meal alone at home, while listening to his vast collection of music. Because he does not like people....
Fantastic Fest 2015: CAMINO Stomps On Humanity's Dark Pedal
Josh Waller's Camino premiered this past Saturday to a packed theatre --- or actually, three of them simultaneously. Starring Zoe Bell, Nacho Vigalondo, and Francisco Barriero, Camino posits Bell as an award-winning photojournalist who gets pulled into a job in Colombia photographing...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD, Stirring, Fantastical Entertainment
April is an extraordinary character in an extraordinary world. As voiced by Marion Cotillard in the animated film April and the Extraordinary world (original title: Avril et le monde truque), she is the offspring of scientists who have gone missing....
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: LA GRANJA Refuses To Be Friendly To Tourists
Nothing fantastic happens in La Granja, a relentlessly dour feature debut by writer/director Angel Manual Soto that should have the official Puerto Rico Tourism Company up in arms. Set in Puerto Rican neighborhoods that are far off the beaten path...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: THE PASSING Broods And Glooms In Welsh Countryside
Oozing rustic dread in the remote Welsh countryside, Gareth Bryn's The Passing toys with the hidden demons of three lonely characters on a sumptuous, wet and verdant stage. Beautiful to behold but perhaps too slight in the narrative department, this...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Day One: Canfield Talks FEBRUARY With Writer/Director Osgood Perkins
Hello from Fantastic Fest! Yesterday I had the chance to have an amazing conversation with Osgood Perkins the writer/director of the extraordinary horror drama February. Fans of deep psychological or spiritual insight, take note. Perkins manages genre convention with a deftness...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: LOVEMILLA Gently Unfolds In A Wonderfully Bizarre Comic Universe
Unfolding in a (slightly) alternate universe where people can turn into zombies after a single drink of alcohol, babies can be possessed by the Devil, and people can fly, Teemu Nikki's feature adaptation of a television series he created with...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: DOGLEGS, An Intimate Look Into An Extreme World
Doglegs is a documentary that examines the inner lives of some of Japan's strangest wrestlers. The name refers to an underground wrestling circuit that pits disabled and able-bodied performers against each other in the ring, often to horrifyingly uncomfortable ends....
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: IN SEARCH OF THE ULTRA-SEX, Both Smarter And Dumber Than It Sounds
When Woody Allen re-edited and overdubbed Japanese spy film International Secret Police: Key of Keys into absurdist comedy What's Up Tiger Lily in 1966, I'm fairly certain that he didn't see this coming. The French directorial duo Nicolas Charlet and...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: THE GLORIOUS WORKS OF G.F. ZWAEN, Wrought With Tension, Suspense, And Complexity
We all know that crime doesn't pay, but who among us would be able to walk away from a big bag of money that's just sitting there, begging for attention? Sure, that bag of money is surrounded by three dead...
Fantastic Fest 2015 Review: DER BUNKER Is Smarter Than It Looks
A student needs a quiet place to live while he writes a scientific paper, and so he tramps out into the deep, snowy woods to a small, isolated house and takes a look at a small, dank basement room without...
