Sure, there’s Sundance, Cannes, even Tribeca earlier in the calendar, but for me film festival season really starts with the annual celebration of the craziest cinema from around the world, Fantasia. The annual festival comes from Montreal and drives some of the most exciting films and filmmakers from around the world to La Belle Province each summer to show their work to one of the best audiences for horror, sci-fi, animated, and off-the-wall cinema that the film world has to offer.
This year’s edition of Fantasia features some big names and even bigger projects (even in the Shorts categories!) and your faithful roving horror reporters Jeffery X Martin and Sachin Hingoo are here to give you the skinny and help you navigate it all.
Witchboard (dir. Chuck Russell)
A robbery at the New Orleans Museum of Natural History goes awry, and the object of the theft—a circular “pendulum board” that predates the Ouija by centuries—is discovered by Emily (Madison Iseman, ANNABELLE COMES HOME). She and her fiancé Christian (Aaron Dominguez, ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING) are getting ready to open a restaurant, and at first Emily thinks the board is simply a mysterious and possibly valuable antique. Then it helps her find a missing engagement ring, and Emily becomes fascinated by the board’s spiritual powers. As she falls under the board’s sway, Christian calls on occult expert Alexander Baptiste (Jamie Campbell Bower, STRANGER THINGS)—who has his own connection to the board’s history, and his own dark secrets.
SH: Before the Ouija board, there was its sinister and circular cousin, the Witchboard. 1986’s Witchboard is one of the first horror movies I ever saw, on a well-worn VHS tape in an even more worn VCR. The film that brought Tawny Kitaen to the world of horror is a kind of perfect encapsulation of 80’s schlock, and it lowkey slaps. This year, absolute king Chuck Russell (Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, 1988’s The Blob) brings a fresh take on the Witchboard concept and I cannot wait to see what he’s done.
Dark Match (dir. Lowell Dean)
Amid fighters duking it out over chances with talent scouts, Rusty (Jonathan Cherry, SUPER GRID, WOLFCOP) gets a mysterious call offering $50K to bring headliners Miss Behave, aka Nick (Ayshia Issa, TRANSPLANT, UNITÉ 9), Kate the Great (Sarah Canning, SUPERHOST, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES), and Mean Joe Lean (Steven Ogg, THE WALKING DEAD, WESTWORLD) to a private event called “The Dark Match.” It’s too good to pass up, so, along with their rival fighters, they arrive at a secluded compound to a scene of bacchanalia, or as they learn, “Lupercalia,” headed by a mysterious leader called The Prophet (WWF/WWE eight-time champion, Chris Jericho).
SH: Keeping with an 80’s theme, Wolfcop director Lowell Dean’s Dark Match plants it’s wrestling boot straight into the late 1980’s underground wrestling scene. Let’s be honest – putting horror and wrestling together is a pretty easy way to at least give something a shot, and Dark Match feels like it’s everything I like in one package. It’s also pretty fortuitous to cast Chris Jericho as a cult leader when he’s doing the same in the actual wrestling arena in AEW with his surprisingly compelling Learning Tree gimmick.
JXM: I think Sachin and I may be equally stoked for Dark Match, starring The Man of Infinite Gimmicks, Chris Jericho. People accuse wrestling fans of behaving like cult members, devoted to the product and their favorite performers. Why not have Jericho portray a deranged cult leader? I’m beyond intrigued by the concept, but I’ll be sad if Jericho doesn’t yell “ARMBAR!” at least once.
Timestalker (dir. Alice Lowe)
Agnes (writer/director Alice Lowe, PREVENGE) in 1688 Scotland, attends a village-square execution. In a soul-altering instant, she locks eyes with the condemned (Aneurin Barnard, DUNKIRK). Agnes can sense that she’s encountered the man she’s destined to be with, rushes towards him and dies quite spectacularly in the process. In her last breaths, she vows to find him in her next life. Over a century later, Agnes has been reincarnated and is now a 1793 English noblewoman, soon to come across the reincarnation of her past life’s love. Things… could go better. And again, she dies. Next, 1847, third verse, no different from the first. The cycle continues. Can Agnes ever move on from the presumed love of her lives?
SH: Between screamingly funny roles in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers and her own directorial debut with Prevenge (along with a laundry list of great roles), Alice Lowe is a personal favourite and, in my opinion, can do no wrong. Her sophomore feature, Timestalker, is already her most ambitious as it spans nearly two centuries (and perhaps more) in a tale of love across the ages. Lowe is no less than a comedic mastermind that has worked with some of my favourite directors before turning into one herself, and I have no doubt that Timestalker will be a screamer in at least one sense of the word.
Hell Hole (dir. Toby Poser, John Adams)
In the desolate Serbian wilderness, a U.S.-led fracking crew uncover a dormant monster gestating inside a centuries-old French soldier. Now awakened and exposed in its most dangerously fragile state, it tears through the men on the grounds in search of a new womb.
JXM: I enjoy movies by the Adams Family, even if they don’t always hit for me. Hell Hole promises to be a different kind of Serbian film with monsters, biological horror, and some goop. I don’t know what the frack is going to happen, but I can’t wait to find out.
SH: The Biff Bam Pop crew have gone on record as being big fans of the Adams Family (still not that one) and their DIY sensibility that ropes the whole family into making some of the spookiest, most off-the-wall films out there. This one takes on the horrors of resource extraction and fracking, and the descriptions of people being torn asunder by a world gone mad has me absolutely giddy.
Note: as a bonus, the Adams Family will present a haunted doll-themed short film alongside Hell Hole called Plastic Smile. Lucky Fantasia fans!
Frankie Freako (dir. Steven Kostanski)
Conor (Conor Sweeney, MANBORG, THE EDITOR) is a square. He doesn’t swear, thinks holding hands with his gorgeous wife Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth, BLAZE) is a wild night, and goes to bed well before 9pm. When his slimy boss, Mr. Buechler (Adam Brooks, THE EDITOR, PSYCHO GOREMAN) and Kristina call him out on his squareness, Conor is deeply offended. Determined to prove them wrong, he’s lured by a 1-900 ad promising the party of a lifetime with a creature named Frankie Freako. Calling the hotline opens a world of chaos, and Frankie, joined by two other “Freako” friends, trash his house. Who are these little monsters, and why have they decided to torment him endlessly? Conor must get rid of them before his wife returns from a weekend trip, plus appease the creepy Buechler. These interdimensional beings are more than pesky, bringing their troubles and interplanetary terrors right to Conor’s door!
SH: Steven Kostanski has been a busy guy since unveiling his masterpiece, Psycho Goreman on the world in 2021. The already-prolific director and prosthetic effects master has been hard at work on both his own projects (a Day of the Dead TV series, a short for V/H/S/94) and doing the effects for In A Violent Nature and tons more. Does this guy ever sleep?
Kostanski returns with a lovingly-crafted 80’s sendup that features some of his most wackadoo creature designs yet. Frankie Freako is near the top of my list of things to catch at this year’s Fantasia.
House of Sayuri (dir. Koji Shiraishi)
After years of savings and sacrifice, the Kamikis, a tight-knit family of seven, are elated when their dream of owning a home in the countryside finally comes true. Sure, the house is a bit old and creaky, but nothing could possibly ruin this fresh start for them… Except for the vengeful ghost of a murdered girl, of course, and it doesn’t take long until fleeting shadows and eerie voices start disrupting their haven of peace. So, when things turn violent and inexplicable accidents befall his parents and siblings, eldest son Norio is shocked to see his sweet, dementia-ridden grandmother suddenly step up as the family’s protector. Refusing to let any kind of evil spirit bully them out of their house, she’s come up with a master plan, and needs Norio’s help to uncover the truth about poor little Sayuri’s untimely death.
SH: J-Horror is back on the menu with a brand new one called House of Sayuri from the legend Koji Shiraishi, of Noroi and Occult fame. This one’s a haunted house thriller that has one badass grandma facing down a vengeful spirit. Watch as young and old unite against the forces of evil in this creepy outing from a bonafide master.
Sunburnt Unicorn (dir. Nick Johnson)
A sudden car accident on a desolate stretch of desert highway leaves teenager Frankie alone in the sun-scorched and seemingly empty landscape. He’s not in the best shape—roasted red from exposure, without water, and disfigured by a jagged chunk of metal lodged in his forehead—but he can’t just stay where he is. His father is missing, and Frankie must find him. His search takes him ever further into the inhospitable environment, which begins to reveal its mysterious locales and unusual inhabitants. These include a truncated tortoise, a lively family of kit foxes with a dark secret, a phantom aviatrix lurking in a nocturnal oasis, and ultimately, the desert’s dreadful despot, the terrifying Cactus King.
SH: One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn’t belong. Or does it? Smack dab in the middle of all this horror is an animated Canadian feature that calls back to the best of 1980’s kids movies that weren’t afraid to mess you up a little. The animation looks stunning, and I’m intrigued by the use of Inuit throat-singing duo Piqsiq for the score. This could be Fantasia 2024’s biggest surprise, I daresay this year’s Mad God.
The Soul Eater (dir. Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo)
A pair of quite different investigators arrive in Roquenoir, a town in the French mountains, and wind up approaching the same case from two different directions. Commander Elisabeth Guardiano (Virginie Ledoyen, 8 FEMMES) has been sent to look into a married couple’s grisly murder, and Captain of the Gendarmerie Franck De Rolan (Paul Hamy, DESPITE THE NIGHT), from the “department of alarming disappearances,” intends to track down a group of missing children. Their missions turn out to be linked, and one of the elements tying them together is “The Soul Eater,” a local bogeyman legend intended to encourage kids not to wander off into the woods. This creature may not be a myth after all, and as strange details about that double killing come to light and more bizarre deaths occur, Guardiano and De Rolan are drawn toward discovering a shocking truth.
JXM: Maury and Bustillo have made a career out of movies that cut close to the bone. Horror movies have classically stayed away from perpetrating violence upon children. It sounds like that caveat has been hurled out of the window in The Soul Eater. I feel both excitement and dread about watching this movie.
SH: Bustillo and Maury earned my trust long ago with stone-cold classics like Inside and Livid, and most recently with the underwater thriller The Deep House. The Soul Eater sounds like a really fucked up episode of The X Files, and I am so here for it. I’m eagerly awaiting the reveal of if, and how these sickos incorporate a pair of scissors like they did in their best outings.
Azrael (dir. E.L. Katz)
It’s the post-apocalypse and after escaping captivity from a cult of mute religious fanatics, losing their ability to speak in the process, Azrael (Samara Weaving, READY OR NOT) and her partner Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, FEMME) are traversing the treacherous forest in an attempt to evade their captors and keep their freedom. However, after falling back into the clutches of evil, Azreal learns that she will be sacrificed to appease an ancient evil that lurks within the shadows of the trees. Not willing to become demon food for a cult that has only caused her harm, Azrael must fight tooth and nail to secure her and Kenan’s freedom in E.L. Katz’s (CHEAP THRILLS) vicious AZRAEL!
JXM: With their off-the-wall belief systems and strange directives, cults are scary because of the things they say. Imagine a cult that says nothing! That’s even more frightening. Samara Weaving takes on a group of mute cultists in Azrael, a movie that promises violence and bloodshed. When the press assets include a photo of Weaving covered in gore and grue, I take that as a sign of quality.
SH: If the directing chops of E.L Katz (who made the criminally underrated Cheap Thrills) and the screenwriting skills of Simon Barrett (You’re Next, The Guest) and the undeniable screen presence of Samara Weaving isn’t enough to sell you on Azrael, the reviews that proclaim it as a mix of ‘survival and folk horror’ and a ‘tribute to silent film’ absolutely should.
4PM (dir. Jay Song)
Jung-in has been working as a professor his whole life, but he decides to take a break from his job and move into the countryside with his wife Hyun-sook. They notice another house in their area, so they leave a note inviting the resident for a visit to their humble abode. As they’re settling into their new home, a man named Yook-nam pays them a visit on the first day. However, they notice he starts stopping by their home every day at 4pm sharp in front of their door. When it’s 6pm, that’s when he decides to leave. Each visit entails two hours of agonizing, awkward and/or unsettling moments, which drives the couple absolutely crazy. They try to get rid of him, as he becomes more and more unbearable to be around. What started out as a peaceful gathering has become a nightmare for the couple.
JXM: In 4PM, a teacher on sabbatical is visited every afternoon (at 4 PM, surprisingly enough) by a weird neighbor. Those daily meetings become progressively stranger and more uncomfortable. I love movies where two characters are forced to figure out each other’s secrets in close quarters. 4PM should be a delightful mind game.
What we’ve listed here would make for a pretty sick Festival on it’s own, but would you believe that we’ve only scratched the surface of this packed lineup? Check out the entire schedule over at the Fantasia website, and stay tuned to Biff Bam Pop as X and Sachin cover all the ghastly delights on offer.
The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 18 through August 4 from Montreal, Quebec. Ticket and venue information can be found on the Festival’s official website here.
