Hey folks, Harry here with Massawyrm's wrap up. After I finish me DVD report - I'll finish up my coverage - and hopefully Quint and some others will be chiming in with their looks at the fest. I have to say, this thing came off without a hitch, with nice crowds and with a slate of films that I was just very very happy with. This was a great first outing and everyone behind this year's fest is set to make next year's fest something even more special. As for me, I'm finishing up programming on BNAT - which is going to absolutely own. Here ya go with the canker...
Hola all. Massawyrm here. Well, having been waylaid by an incredibly long game of cricket (is there any other kind?) I’m finally sitting down to wrap up my coverage of Fantastic fest. It was a great Fest overall, albeit an exhausting one (I did all 19 screening times seeing 17 of the 18 premieres) and I’m already putting in for time off next October so I can do it all over again. While neither Saturday nor Sunday lived up to the glory that I wrote about on Friday, each day had some wonderful surprises to offer. So let’s jump into it.
Hostel
Oh gee, wow. Here’s a shocker. An AICN critic talking about an Eli Roth film. “Gee, I wonder. Will he like it?” Fuck off. Of course I liked it. Guys Like Eli, del Toro, Quentin – the guys we’re always accused of sucking the asses of – well, they’re guys like us. They love movies more than breath. And they make movies FOR US. Sure they want everyone to dig them, but ultimately they’re a group of geeks taking expensive toys and making movies that they – and we – have been dreaming of. Hostel is no exception.
Hostel couldn’t be more of an Eli Roth film if it tried. Hell, I could almost smell Eli in the theatre right next to me – it’s a musky scent mixed with the sweet hint of the body spray that rubs off onto you at a strip club. It’s breasts, gore, more breasts, gore, a dozen bared breasts in a single tracking shot, gore and oh yeah, a plot that serves as an excuse for more tits and gore. Eli makes the kind of films you’d expect to have appeared in the 80’s with the sensibilities of someone who knows how to avoid the trappings that made so many of those films we love so damn cheesy. He lets you laugh, but always with the film, not at it. And this film is hard fucking core.
And yet there was a part of me that felt it wasn’t sick enough – it wasn’t deranged enough. And I wasn’t sure if that had to do with the fact that it was movie 17 of a 19 movie spree in which I saw no less than 150 people die (not including puppets and aliens) and get tortured on screen or if I really just need therapy before I start in on the neighbors cat. Because, frankly, this movie is pretty fucking warped. As simple as the premise is, Eli puts these characters through fucking hell. He starts off slow, giving us hints of the sickness to come, and while never quite attaining Miike’s Audition level of torture, the movie builds to some pretty fucked up forms of agony. And while I really enjoyed the first two acts, Eli kicks it up in the third and puts the audience through the ringer. Hostel builds to a gut-tightening, toe clenching conclusion that makes you celebrate some pretty gory death scenes. He gets you to cheer at some really messed up shit, and to his credit creates a mesmerizing, memorable movie experience.
But as much as I felt he pulled back, I’m afraid that maybe he didn’t pull back enough for those that aren’t gore hounds like myself. No way does this cut get an R rating. Too many tits, too much sickness and a few too many strewn body parts for the MPAA to just sit back and let this one slide by. Hell, there’s one prolonged shot on a guys laptop DVD player that I’d put money down that Eli left in just to get cut in hopes of saving another few seconds. But thank god for the popularity of same day Unrated DVD cuts – because this is one of those films you’re going to want to savor every gory second of.
Hostel is pretty fucking great. While not my favorite of the fest (that was Night of the Living Dorks), the goriest (that was Feast), or the darkest (that was the aptly named The Dark Hours) it is a close second on all counts. Eli succeeds in avoiding the things that many of you complained about with Cabin Fever, although those with a real hard-on for hating him will find plenty of things to bitch about here. It’s intentionally goofy at times, not even remotely complex and pathologically, profoundly gratuitous. But for those that loved Cabin Fever, well, Hostel is easily a MUCH better film. It’s going to convince many who disliked CF that he’s worth watching out for and those that loved it that he needs to make another movie right this fucking second. For those that aren’t gorehounds, well, frankly, this film is gonna scar you for life – there are some images you will never shake. And woe to the 8 year old who sneaks a peek of this on late night cable. Dear god. For those of you that are gorehounds, however, well, it’s going to make you giggle and flinch something awful. I fucking loved it, start to finish. Highly recommended.
The Birthday
I’m very torn on this one. It is one of only two truly experimental films that played at Fantastic Fest this year, and well, it’s the first experimental horror film I’ve seen in a hell of a long time. Experimental and horror are two genres that rarely mix well together, but director Eugene Mira gives it one hell of a shot. Told in real time, The Birthday is the story of a nervous guy meeting his rich girlfriends father for the first time at a hotel where the staff is preparing a Lovecraftian ritual to birth their dark god into human flesh. Making things even stranger is that Mira sets the film in 1987 and casted the lead role with none other than Corey Feldman (who seems to be channeling Jerry Lewis for no apparent reason.) The end result is a magnificently shot, brilliantly designed film that just gets stranger and stranger as it progresses – and will either delight you or drive you right up the fucking wall.
Personally, I felt that the real time nature of the film really made the beginning drag far too much – however, what is a flaw in the beginning really pays off in the last 20 minutes as the movie just becomes batshit crazy and puts you smack dab in the middle of a profane, diabolical ritual that get closer to the true feeling of H.P. Lovecraft than any filmmaker has ever come. In real time. This ritual is entirely dark elder gods, murder and encounters most foul, without the inherent silliness of robes, masks or a naked woman strapped to an altar. It’s fresh, inventive and the sound design is so amazingly original that fans of experimental film are really going to want to pat Mira on the back for it. Ultimately it’s a film well worth watching for film lovers and Lovecraft fans, but for few else. I probably won’t watch it all the way through one more time, but I very well might bust out the last 20 minutes for buddies to show them Lovecraft done right. When all is said and done, the biggest problem with this film is its experimental nature – but Mira really has an eye on him, a real sense of style. I’m dying to see what he does when he settles down to do a more traditional film.
Oh, and Feldman fans rejoice – this is one of his best performances ever. Despite the weirdness, you stop giggling at him a moment or two in and really get taken in by him. This role may actually get him a serious role again. Who knows. Recommended for very specialized taste – not for everyone.
Strings
Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Strings is a perfect companion piece for those of us who love watching The Dark Crystal. Conceptually brilliant, Strings is a film that immediately offers up the concept that this isn’t a fantasy film told through puppetry, but rather it is a fantasy film about a world OF puppets. Using the strings that give them life as an allegory, everything in this world is well thought out and carefully constructed. The weapons, fighting techniques, economy and even the architecture itself is designed around what a world inhabited by puppets would be like. It’s not remotely our world – it is very much theirs.
The story is very classic and simple, hitting upon most of the focal points that fantasy films revel in, but because of the premise, Strings proves to be the most original, wildly imaginative fantasy concept in decades. You’ve never seen anything like it, you haven’t been introduced to a world so rich in a unique culture since you first cracked open your first Lord Dunsany or Tolkien. This is one of those movies fantasy geeks live for, and yet, few have heard of. If you love inventive fantasy, you must see this now.
Malefique
Leave it to the French to make a film this strange. The second of the festival’s very Lovecraft inspired films, Malefique is the story of four prison inmates who find an arcane text hidden behind a stone in their cell that may offer them their freedom – but at what price? Despite being set almost entirely in one small 10x10 room, this film manages to keep you engaged while offering up some of the most fucked up images I’ve ever seen. One image in particular will never leave me, no matter how long I live, and assured that this film would never, ever get any distribution in the states.
Malefique takes the ‘Ancient Evil Text’ concept and breaths fresh, new life into it, replacing the ‘Mad Arab’ of Lovecraftian fame with an imprisoned sorcerer, trying desperately to remember enough of his spells to find his way out of a doorless prison – while following these four inmates, three of which are completely insane, as they struggle with whether or not to follow the text through to its inevitable conclusion. This movie is just plain evil, examining classic themes but getting so dark and bizarre with them that there’s no way anyone but the French or the Japanese would ever have the stones to make it. A perfect blend of Horror and Fantasy, just as Lovecraft liked it, this is one of those films well worth tracking down for those who consider dark fantasy their cup of tea. Highly recommended for Lovecraft fans, simply recommended for everyone else.
Pulse
This is the movie that never ends. It just goes on and on my friends. Some people started making it not knowing what it was and they’ll continue making it forever just because this is the movie that never ends, it just…
This one’s been around a while and the only reason it’s really worth mentioning is that there’s an American remake in the works. The problem with this film is that while some of the images are great and the concept is fairly novel, it finishes explaining itself about 2/3rds the way through but continues on as you watch people face an oblivion you cease to care about. My hope is that this becomes one of those American remakes that fixes what went wrong with the original rather than becoming another Dark Water that just makes the same mistakes all over again. I’m a J-Horror fan and I couldn’t bring myself to like this one very much. It’s not terrible, but it’s not really worth much of your time either, especially not as much time as it wants to take up.
P
The only other disappointing film of the fest, P is the film I was most excited by simply from the description. It promised to be a bizarre exploitation film surrounding a Thai sorceress who gets caught up in the Thai sex industry only to be possessed by a flesh craving demon when she begins to ignore the bans required of her. Instead it turns out to be amazingly tame and nothing even resembling exploitation – despite its premise. While the investigation of the Thai Sex Industry and how girls can get caught up in it is intriguing, it never gets really disturbing nor makes you care too much about the girls involved. And once the blood letting starts, it plays out like your typical bad monster movie without offering anything worth mentioning. It’s very by the numbers and proves to be more of a tease than anything. I didn’t hate it, because it was interesting at points, but I wouldn’t recommend it to even my most hard core of film buff buddies. Pass.
Creep
Okay, now this is a pretty cool little film. Easily the most cliché and least complicated film of the fest, this is a film about a woman locked in the London subway underground overnight who is forced to run from a monster for an hour and a half. That’s it. That’s the whole plot. And it is as perfectly executed as a film of this nature can be. Effectively just a girl-running-through-the-woods movie in a different setting, Creep almost blows what works in its favor Jeepers Creepers style by revealing its extremely simple, very clichéd monster halfway through the film. However, ‘almost’ is the operative word. What follows is just enough exposition tempered with mystery to keep us interested and some really cool ‘feral beast’ moments that do some new and interesting things with the monster.
Punctuated by a number of jump scares, some decently gruesome kills (including two wonderful cringe inducing kills) and some interesting character moments, Creep is probably the one horror film that played Fantastic fest with the most potential to have widespread appeal here in the States. This movie is gonna scare the crap out of the average filmgoer without ever going TOO far, and yet still offers enough interesting moments to keep horror fans watching. It’s certainly nothing special and is more akin to the horror film I’d recommend to one of my ‘average’ video store customers who want a ‘really scary’ horror film while waiting for the next Dark Castle film to hit the shelves. This movie isn’t going to go down in the classic column for us discriminating cinema-philes, but if someone actually releases it here in the states it would certainly play to the 13 Ghosts/Ghost Ship/Jeepers Creepers loving crowd as it gets right what all those films get wrong. Definitely worth checking out when you’re in the mood for fairly mindless, nonstop monster scares done well. But caught between a choice of this and films like Feast, Hostel, The Dark Hours or Malefique, this certainly takes a back seat. I’d watch it again, though, and wouldn’t feel the least bit bad about it.
Sin City Recut
Cool and neat to see, Rodriguez’s new cut offers us some new glimpses at the characters many of us have come to love, if we didn’t love them in comic form. There are several additional scenes that either tie the film even closer together (like a great sequence between Carla Gugino’s Lucille and Bruce Willis’s Hartigan) or makes certain aspects of the film more pronounced and heartfelt (like a great scene between Mickey Rourke’s Marv and his mother, further accentuating the aspect of Marv’s mental disability.) It’s great material I’m glad I got to see in this form. The downsides are that the way Rodriguez has them cut now are into their own isolated stories and, at least how it was presented to us, doesn’t have the flow that his theatrical cut has and more importantly this cut isn’t going to make converts out of those who are already unbelievers. Unlike great extended or directors cuts like Daredevil, The Lord of the Rings, Aliens or the ‘Untitled’ Almost Famous cut, this version doesn’t really expound enough upon things we really wanted to see or change the film substantially in any way. Here are six directors cuts of films I patently refuse to watch the theatrical versions of ever again. Sin City, at least in its current form, isn’t among that list. Frankly, I’d rather watch the original theatrical version (which I simply adore – Rodriguez’s finest work by far) and pull this out if I want a 45 minute dose of a single Sin City story. It’s great stuff, but easy to see why these scenes didn’t make the cut to get Sin City to theatrical length. Sin City fans rejoice at new footage! Those unconvinced, this ain’t gonna convince you.
Hagukei: Legend of Moby Dick
It’s Moby Dick in space. This one’s only really for anime fans. A 26 episode series, we were treated to the first 4 episodes, and you know what? They were pretty cool. It takes all of the first four episodes to actually get into the story – up until that point the only thing this shares in common with Moby Dick is a Captain Ahab and the fact that they are called ‘Whale Hunters’. But once the 4th episode kicks into gear, you can really see where this is going and you really want to watch. The animation looks a bit old school and retro 80’s rather than something that I believe is fairly new, but this is one of those animes that brings it conceptually rather than visually. The Characters and plots are intriguing and the conversion of the setting is pretty freaking cool, but this series is VERY, VERY Anime. Utilizing a lot of stock Anime motifs and archetypes, Anime fans will have a fun time with it, but those who hate or only like a smattering of anime might find themselves bored or annoyed by episode 2. Recommended for anime fans and pretty much no one else.
Narnia Panel: Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe footage
Okay, I gotta lay this out. Of everything coming out in the fourth quarter this year, Narnia is the one big thing that I just couldn’t get it up for. I’ve never been in love with the world, never got into the idea of talking animals – especially talking beavers – and to be truthful, my first experience of being drunk around my parents while trying to conceal that fact occurred while my mother was watching the PBS version of the films and that damned robotic lion really fucked with me and almost blew the whole thing. I’ve hated that lion ever since. Watching the trailers, the only thing that made me want to watch it at all was seeing the few scattered shots of Minotaurs. I. Love. Minotaurs. And seeing them for the first time in a live action film without it simply looking like a dead bull head atop a stunt man got me a little piqued. But the film I was watching ended before the Narnia panel did, so I snuck in to check out the footage.
Holy fucking Christ on a cracker, this movie is going to own my ass. I now officially cannot fucking wait. That’s how good this 10-minute reel was. The Beavers, the fucking beavers, my god. They’re real honest to god characters. They really come across on screen as fanciful humans in beaver bodies – and I have to admit, they look pretty cool. Aslan, the wolves, all of the animals look really cool. Rather than going full CG they mixed CG with practical, trained animals and manage to get this otherworldly, but still very realistic quality to them. The battle sequences are jaw dropping. While the scope and vastness of Jackson’s LoTR is certainly far larger than what we’re treated to here, the broad daylight battle scenes between so many different races and animals couples with great cinematography just got me amped up to see this thing in context.
The opening sequence of the Blitzkrieg over London, while described to me several months ago by someone close to the project, turned out to be better than I imagined. I was picturing a Bay Pearl Harbor knock off, and yet, this sequence has a fanciful, frightening originality all its own. This was footage that made a believer out of an unbeliever. And I can’t fucking wait. Must have this now.
If, somehow, you end up at a fest or anything showing this footage, check it out immediately. If you’re on the fence, it’ll definitely change your mind. It looks gorgeous. Just gorgeous.
Well, that’s it for Fantastic Fest. If you didn’t get to make it, make plans for next year. Easily the best four days I spent this year, several of these films are going to be the ones I recommend for months to come.
Until next time, friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. I know I will.
Massawyrm
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