Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. First of all, Happy Day-After-Fourth-of-July to all my American brethren! To show that my timing is constantly and irreversibly off I’m here to talk about my plans for the Canadian film festival dubbed Fantasia Fest. Canada Day passed me by and I decided to instead use my down time on the Fourth of July holiday to begin gathering my plans for the Montreal based genre festival. Somewhere Uncle Sam is loading his flintlock pistol with a pissed off gleam in his eye.
I remember years ago following Drew McWeeny’s reports from the Fantasia Film Festival with an equal measure of jealousy and enthusiasm. Fantasia seemed like the perfect type of festival, its focus on foreign and weird cinema right up my alley.
In the years since we’ve gotten our own like festival in Austin, Fantastic Fest, but I still always held the desire to jump up to Fantasia.
This year seems to be my year. Unfortunately due to Comic-Con and other commitments I can’t stay for the whole she-bang, but I will be there for the first week of the epic 3 week long fest.
I wanted to give you guys a little rundown of what I’m looking forward to, what I plan to see in my 7 days in Montreal and what I have seen that I whole-heartedly recommend to any other Fantasia festers that may be reading this.
The big flicks of the fest are The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Scott Pilgrim. The former opens the festival and the latter closes it. I’m actually excited for both, but will not be there for Pilgrim, sadly. At least I’ll get Alfred Molina and Nic Cage fighting with magic for a couple of hours.
Here’s what I plan on seeing during the fest. These all run during my time on the ground and caught my eye for one reason or another:
IP MAN 2 – Sequel to the kick-ass period China flick starring the badass Donnie Yen. This time Donnie Yen’s main bad opponent is none other than the great chubby martial arts star Sammo Hung! Which, I believe, guarantees this movie to be far superior to the first, which was already pretty damn good.
Check out the trailer:
PHOBIA 2 – Anthology horror film from Thailand. The first Phobia didn’t do much for me, but I’m a sucker for anthology horror, so I’ll give the sequel a shot.
Watch the trailer:
RUBBER – Giant hit from Cannes about a serial killer who also happens to be a tire. If you watch the below trailer and have no desire to see the movie then you and I, my friend, are done professionally. The filmmakers brought the tire to Cannes and gave it its own seat, as the star of the film. I hope to meet the tire myself, ask it some questions about its rise to fame and how that has affected its life.
Watch the trailer:
SECRET REUNION – South Korean flick about an agent trying to capture North Korean spies. Song Kang-ho (The Host, The Good, The Bad and The Weird) stars as the good hearted South Korean agent. Kang-ho is one of my favorite working international personalities. He’s got such a great face and personality. I’ll see anything he’s in.
Watch the trailer:
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS: THE GODFATHER OF GORE – Doc directed by Basket Case’s Frank Henenlotter about the infamous director of Wizard of Gore, Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs and the man who paved the way for modern gore horror. I don’t hold HGL in the same esteem as a lot of my fellow horrorphiles, but this doc looks like a ton of fun.
Watch the trailer:
EVIL IN THE TIME OF HEROES – Greek zombie flick featuring… Billy Zane?!? Looks like a little on the cheap side from the trailer, but there’s a chance it could be fun as shit, too.
Watch the trailer:
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A PORNO GANG – Serbian dramatic comedy with tons of nudity. After A SERBIAN FILM I’m curious to visit some other works of wonder from this deliriously twisted country.
I dug up this clip:
MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD – This is supposedly what happens with the directors of VERSUS, MACHINE GIRL and TOKYO GORE POLICE team up… a twisted take on an X-Men style movie. Although with about 500 million more gallons of blood. It might be cheap, it might be ridiculous, it might be distasteful, but I guarantee it will not be boring.
Watch the bloody trailer:
ALIEN VS. NINJA – Yep. Look at that title. Crazy Japanese movie from the directors of Death Trance that looks like it has more than a spoonful of Dead Alive in it.
Watch the trailer:
CLASH – Vietnamese martial arts flick. Judging by the trailer it’s of the high-impact variety, with kicks that really look like they connect and stunt men left with many bruises, bumps and broken bones.
Watch the trailer:
OUTCAST- European-made first time flick. It’s a horror film that I missed at SXSW, but Scott Weinberg calls it “creepy,” and that dude knows his horror, so I’ll give it a view.
Check out the poster:
I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE – It looks like this remake is chasing the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake. Both are similar stories and I’m hoping this remake makes the same impression on me the LAST HOUSE remake did. I like the original, but it isn’t close to my heart really. We’ll see.
Watch the trailer:
GOLDEN SLUMBER – This is a Japanese twisty-turny political thriller. Don’t know much more than that and I don’t want to know. Looks worth a view.
Watch the trailer:
POSSESSED – Korean exorcism tale. Demonic possession stuff is always of interest.
Watch the trailer:
HEARTLESS – Jim Sturgess in a “Satanic Odyssey.” There looks to be a little pinch of ANGEL HEART in there. Okay. Seat meet ass.
Watch the trailer:
Those are the ones I can feasibly see, but here are a few that I will be missing since they run after I leave.
A SERBIAN FILM – I’ve seen it, but there will be very little chance of me ever seeing this film with an audience again, so I envy the Fantasia audiences. It’s a hard film to watch, but it’s worth it. Check out my review from SXSW here.
Watch the NSFW trailer if you dare:
BLACK DEATH – From the director of Severance and Creep comes a plague tale that Harry flipped out over. Sean Bean looks to be at his Boromiriest here.
Watch the trailer:
THE LAST EXORCISM – Reviews out of the LAFF have been very complimentary towards this flick. Like I mentioned above in the tidbit on POSSESSED I’m a lock for exorcism movies. There’s something about ‘em I’m drawn to even if there aren’t a ton I can point to as being successful.
Watch the trailer:
DELIVER US FROM EVIL – From the director of The Substitute (Ole Bornedal) comes this tale about hatred out of control after a long haul truck driver frames a local refugee for the death of a woman he accidentally killed. Unbeknownst to him, the lynch mob that goes after the refugee also has his employer in their sights… who happens to be the long haul truck driver’s brother and his family.
Watch the trailer:
METROPOLIS: THE RESTORED CUT – While Scott Pilgrim premieres the night before, this is the real closing night film of the fest. Gabriel Thibaudeau is writing a new score for this specific presentation that will be played in a 3,000 seat house with a 13 piece orchestra. I’ve seen this cut, but not in this way.
Watch the trailer:
Those would all have been on my list if I stayed the entire run of the fest.
Others films of interest: Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, Crows Zero 2 (From Takashi Miike), Re-Animator with Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs in attendance, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Birdemic and Ken Russell showing The Devils.
And I’ve seen all these films already and can vouch for them: Rec [2], Doghouse, High School, The Revenant, The Loved Ones, Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, Mesrine and Mandrill.
For a full rundown of the flicks playing, check out the Fantasia Fest schedule here!
I’m sure I’ll see some of you folks up in the Great White North! Feel free to say hi!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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