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| The poster for this year festival is pretty magical! |
Finally! We've reached that marvelous time of year when Montreal blossoms into full summer and shows three weeks of the most fantastic films at the 2017 Fantasia Film Festival. Poring through the listings, as usual I've chosen too many films about which I am excited, and I have to be a little more practical and make some hard choices. I stood in the epic line at Concordia waiting for the box office to open today, and now, tickets in hand, I'm ready to talk cinema. I have tons of films to discuss, but I have to start with my second favorite film of all time, which is screening on the final day of the festival.
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| The Kaleidoscopic Phantasmagoria of Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) |
Fantasia is showing the first public screening of Dario Argento's technicolor masterpiece, a remastered 4K version that I've heard about, but never thought I'd be lucky enough to see! The film follows Suzy Bannion as she attends an ominous European school of dance--one that's full of Witches. The set pieces of this film are so gorgeous, the imagery so incredibly surreal, if you have not seen this film yet, you are missing out. It takes my breath away every single time.
The film is the perfect cap to a pretty intense festival, with some really dark films--just the way I like them. Here are some of the goodies!
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| Camping will kill you in Damien Power's Killing Ground (2016) |
I kind of hate camping. I grew up in a very rural area, and my sister and I spent a lot of time in nature--a lifetime's worth, in my opinion. I like cities. Power's film promises to be another "vacation from hell" horror, where the bourgeois couple (w/kids), out of their element, must fight to keep their family alive. I'm one of those sick people who likes to see it all go to hell. This film will be released in the U.S. later in July, but why wait and watch it VOD?
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| Prom Night and Shrooms from a female perspective in Karen Skloss's The Honor Farm (2017) |
As people who read this blog know, I am pretty invested in there being more female directors, especially in the horror genre; so I make it mandatory that I try to see as many woman directed films at Fantasia as I can. Here's the first, and I have not heard of it, so I'm excited. The beauty of Fantasia is that they bring the directors in to talk about their films, and Skloss will be around to discuss her coming-of-age horror film that has been touted as "Lynchian." When Lucy's prom night is less than stellar, she gets persuaded to go to the Honor Farm, an old abandoned prison, and take Shrooms. What a premise. The film was co-written by Skloss's teenage daughter, so perhaps this film is only the beginning of a women's horror dynasty!
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| Kira inadvertently sheds her skin in Norbert Keil's Replace (2017) |
In contemporary western culture, a woman's beauty is a treasured commodity, so horror films are a common place to explore female monsters hungry for aesthetic perfection. Norbert Keil's
Replace is yet another male-directed film seemingly
trying to comment on how culture makes women into avaricious monsters who will stop at nothing to achieve the highest beauty standards (think
The Neon Demon and
Starry Eyes). We'll see how well he does. Showing something does not necessarily mean you are critiquing it!
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| Writer/Director/Star Marianna Palka loses it in her latest film Bitch (2017) |
Another woman-directed gem at Fantasia--this one follows a woman who undergoes a psychotic break and "assumes the psyche of a vicious dog" as IMDB explains. Looks like it might be darkly funny and perhaps a bit too real...and I heart Jason Ritter, even if he plays her philandering, no-good husband.
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| Voyeurism can get you into trouble in Stefan Ruzowitzky's Cold Hell (2016) |
I've been hearing about
Cold Hell for quite some time, and I feel incredibly lucky that Fantasia is screening it in the big SGWU Hall, where it will get the dazzling display it so richly deserves. Ozge witnesses a serial killer next door, and he
sees her looking, and goes after her. She's no "damsel" though, more a worthy adversary for this misogynist piece of trash. The film just looks gorgeous. Check out the trailer
here.
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| A Mashup of Italian Gothic and Giallo on offer in Giordano Giulivi's The LaPlace's Demon (2017) |
I think Ariel Estaban Cayer describes this film so perfectly: "Short of bringing Rod Serling back to life, THE LAPLACE’S DEMON – unfolding like an all-time great TWILIGHT ZONE
episode directed by Guy Maddin, in turn channeling his inner Mario Bava
and Val Lewton – will send you right over the edge, and into a new
dimension of terror, madness… and cinematic pleasure." Indeed, I'm so excited to see this film! It does
look like a cross between
The Cat and the Canary with a classic Bava or Freda film, and a dash of
The Legacy thrown in for kicks. And it's in Black and White. Sold!
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| Jun-young must escape a deadly time loop in Sun-ho Cho's A Day/Haru (2017) |
Two summers ago, Fantasia seemed to be obsessed with time travel, with film such as
Infinite Man and
The House at the End of Time as two prime examples. Properly intrigued by the trendiness of the concept, last fall I decided to teach a Puzzle Films class, where we explored all manner of repeating storylines and time loops (a la
Looper, Groundhog Day,
Source Code). Call me hooked, but I have to see this new South Korean time loop thriller, AND the director will be on hand to experience what's sure to be thundering applause.
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| A hallucinatory image from the pagan Eston, an fable November (Rainer Sarnet, 2017) |
This Estonian B & W beauty,
November, is supposedly based on a popular Estonian novel
Rehepapp, which combines "magic, black humor, and romantic love." After watching the
trailer, I really do not ultimately care what it's about, for the film looks utterly gorgeous. When contemporary filmmakers do black and white, that choice is very deliberate, creating a very specific mood and atmosphere. The rich and evocative cinematography of this film is enough to convince me--but I am a sucker for a beautiful image. This film has so many.
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| Ana Asensio writes, directs, and stars in the harrowing Most Beautiful Island (2017) |
Another triple threat woman director arrives at Fantasia with a film that is far too timely--the story of an immigrant woman who comes to the U.S. and struggles to stay above the poverty line. As the U.S. has become increasingly inhospitable to immigrants, women, and especially immigrant women, Ana Asensio reveals this living nightmare in horrible and revelatory detail. I'm going to miss her discussion at Fantasia because I'm going to see
A Day. I'm torn!!
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| Depraved fantasies reign in Gabriela Amaral Almeida's Brazilian Thriller Friendly Beast (2016) |
Some of the most exciting work I've seen at Fantasia can come from films of which I know nothing, debut features by directors (sometimes women) just bursting with talent. Sarah Adina Smith's
The Midnight Swim (2014) immediately comes to mind. That film was revelatory, and she continues to make strong, compelling work. So I'm enthusiastic for Brazilian director Almeida's debut feature,
Friendly Beast, and she will be there to talk about her film. Love all the Q & As!
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| Noelle seduces with malevolence in M.F.A.(2017), Natalia Leite's take on the Rape-Revenge thriller |
You'd have to be living under a rock to miss that the U.S. has a rich and varied rape culture, and that sexual assault statistics do not begin to describe the realities of the physical and emotional violence perpetrated on women. I think that's why the horror genre can be so satisfying for female spectators--it gives us a safe space to experience fear, violence, and sometimes, vengeance. More than any other genre, in horror, women
fight back. While the genre has its share of women monsters, the ones with which we can sympathize are often the most powerful and persuasive. Natalia Leite will be at Fantasia to talk about her film, and I'm sure she'll address some of these issues.
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| Nothing like Horror for the Holidays in in Chris Peckover's Better Watch Out (2016) |
I love a good holiday horror film. Last year's
Tales of Halloween (2016) was a pretty fun anthology that premiered at Fantasia, but Halloween
is the typical holiday for horror. Xmas is supposed to be about family, giving, community--so violating those precious experiences is that much more horribly satisfying. My favorite Holiday horror movie is
Rare Exports, but I'm willing to try out other options. This Aussie film has a dumb adolescent boy crushing on an older girl (his babysitter), and I guess we're supposed to find that charming, but I'm still trying to get over the abject creepiness of
Crazy, Stupid, Love and it's deranged babysitter crush. Ugh. Despite that premise, its been touted as a mashup of
Home Alone and
Funny Games, and I certainly love the latter, so I'll give it a shot.
Okay, I'm on the fence about these next two films playing at the exact same time in different theaters. As I said, I have to make the hard choices. First up, Takashi Shimizu, of
Ju-on fame, has a new film with scary ghost children, and he really knows how to do scary ghost kids.
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| Not just one scary ghost kid, but a passel of them in Takashi Shimizu's Innocent Curse (2017) |
The
trailer has some pretty cool imagery as it intimates a creepy pied piper story, and the kid's homework: BRING DEATH TO ADULTS! This kind of sh** happens when you piss kids off. Looks super fun. The competing films are two female directed exploitation films--A Double Feature and a World Premiere:
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| Latina women tearing it up in Jenna Cavelle's Blood Heist (2017) | |
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| An all-female biker gang delivers expected violence in Melanie Aitkenhead's Blood on Wheels/Blood Ride (2017) |
I teach a cult and exploitation film class and I'm always searching for female directors. We've got Doris Wishman....and that's mostly it. Stephanie Rothman a little bit, Roberta Findlay, maybe. So two women directors premiering their films at Fantasia--awesome! Here's the catch: both are produced by James Franco. You might have heard of him, right? The multi-degreed, multi-hyphenate cinematic "auteur?" I'm not a fan of his, to put it nicely. The question is: are these films going to be groundbreaking, or are we looking at female wannabee
Grindhouse or
Machete films; films that do women no favors whatsoever. I guess these films will test the "female gaze" at work, and I'm super-intrigued. But Ghost kids!! What to do?
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| Moscow gets its own destructive alien fantasy film with Fedor Bondarchuk's Attraction (2017) |
I saw a trailer for this gonzo Russian alien film nearly a year ago, and I never forgot it. Now the film is playing at Fantasia at a blink and you'll miss it afternoon screening, so I encourage everyone to GO!! The
trailer is super intense, and the alien ships lay waste to Moscow beautifully. I do have a soft spot for aliens blowing sh** up, but I still think the way to go (in case of alien invasion) is the "peace-loving" exceedingly smart
Arrival (2016). Loved that film, but excited about this one too.
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| Right wing fu**wits turn the U.S. into an even more dangerous place in Bushwick (2017) |
As you may likely know, the political climate in the U.S. right now is acutely polarized, with both sides vehemently opposing the other. The country is filled with depressed people mainlining drugs and alcohol, and a bunch of sore winners endlessly tweeting that the Declaration of Independence is just some "liberal propaganda." Cognitive Dissonance abounds as some of us cannot even comprehend the mindset of some others of us. So imagine this turn of events leading to a rather logical conclusion, and some of the Southern states attempt to secede, starting a new civil war. Fiction or Premonition? I just have to see
Bushwick, if only to prepare for our inevitable future.
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| Majestic natural beauty meets animal rights eco-horror in Agnsieska Holland's Spoor/Pokot (2017) |
Agnieska Holland is one of the most brilliant women directors on the planet (see her early work like
Europa, Europa, and
Olivier, Olivier for starters), and she's been really busy with television work (as women directors are wont to do between their far too few films). So imagine my heart-stopping thrill when I saw that her latest film,
Spoor, would be making its North American debut at Fantasia! As per usual, the
trailer reveals a film that is equal parts poetic and mysterious. She is such a talented artist, and this film will certainly showcase her gifts. And nature fights back!!
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| Haunted men amongst haunting imagery in The Endless (2017) |
Anyone into horror knows Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Their debut feature
Resolution (2012) put them on the map, and their follow-up,
Spring (2014) solidified their cred. I'm embarrassed to say that despite knowing all about their films, I've yet to see one. To remedy that, I'll be watching their latest
The Endless (2017), which focuses on two men returning to an ominous cult from which they escaped years ago. Fascinating, and they'll be at Fantasia in person!
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| The rampaging monster of Dick Maas's Prey/Prooi (2016) |
The Dutch horror film
Prey (2016) has a killer lion in it. Do I really need to say more? Watch the
trailer and you'll be convinced. A giant lion chases a famed lion hunter who is stuck in a motorized wheelchair (the hunter only has one leg--coincidence?) OMG this film is going to be tons of fun!
I haven't listed all the films that I want to see, but these films are the definites, with still some decisions up in the air. Stay tuned for my coverage of the 2017 Fantasia Film Festival and all its wonders!!
