Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world, starts here in Austin in just 5 days.
As a lead up, I’m previewing the movies that I’m planning on attending and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.
Saturday, September 24th
DRAWN AND QUARTERED: Animated Shorts
various | Feature, Short | 91 min.
screens with…
PATH OF BLOOD: DEMON AT THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY | Eric Power 2011
A lone samurai sets his course towards the path of blood where unknown dangers and terrors await.
TWO FRIENDS | 2010
Albert and his best friend Jonas are orphans. They live in the future in a harsh dystopia where the women and children are all dead and the men have begun to change.
BEDTIME FOR TIMMY | Thomas Nicol 2010
Night falls, shadows creep out, and the time has come for little Timmy to go to bed. But can he brave the ominous gaze of his closet door?
SK8RZ | Robin Todd 2011
Set in a world where love exists as forward momentum, sk8rz carry each other over precarious obstacles until they crash in bitter disagreement.
THE LAST NORWEGIAN TROLL | Pjotr Sapegin 2010
Three young goats decide to get rid of an old Troll who lives under a bridge. Little do they know that he is the last survivor of his species, the very last Troll of Norway…
THE HOLY CHICKEN OF LIFE AND MUSIC | NOMINT 2010
The magnificent Holy Chicken is worshiped and exploited in this tale of love and regret, art and science, life and music.
LADY CRUSH | Hanna Sköld 2011
An unhappy couple long to be other than they are in this absurd, associative tale about love, role-playing and the longing to be seen.
BLACK DOLL | Sofia Carrillo 2011
Two sisters share their life imprisoned in a strange place. The mundane routine, along with their curiosity, will cause them to break their boundaries.
CREATE | Dan MacKenzie 2011
A young mad scientist sets out to create a pet monster within the parallel worlds of an imaginary laboratory and the reality of the boy’s bedroom.
YUICHI : THE BEGINNING OF THE END | Aaron D. Guadamuz 2011
After the planet is decimated, Yuichi and his dog venture into the charred landscape of cult film artifacts in search of a television tube.
THE LADY PARANORMA | Vincent Marcone 2011
Estranged from the rest of the townsfolk, an eccentric lady is haunted by ghostly whispers and follows an eerie call to an unusual happily-ever-after.
INNERCITY | Alain Fournier 2011
In a lonely city, a young boy has only pigeons for company. When he spies a pretty neighbor, he tries all manner of inventions to catch her eye.
LAZAROV | NIETOV 2010
Refusing to accept the decline of the USSR, a handful of Russian scientists work secretly to resurrect the Soviet power.
DICKFACE | Thomas Seeberg Torjussen, Eric Vogel 2011
Portrait of the artist as a young man…if he had no hands and a dick for a nose.
CALIBRE 9
Jean-Christian Tassy 2011 | Action, AMD Next Wave, Bizarre, Fantasy, Feature, Guest in attendance | 84 min.
screens with…
SHIFTER | Ben Parker 2011
Director Jean-Christian Tassy & Producer Axel Guyot live in person!
Sarah is a down-on-her-luck hooker. She’s been trying to get out of the life and has one last client scheduled, a big spender whose money will allow her to move on. But while he’s getting ready in the next room, her pimp Frank drops in. A fight breaks out and Sarah manages to stab him, get his gun and kill him. Sarah is badly hurt but before she dies, her client returns to the scene. He happens to be from Senegal and was paying Sarah to be a participant in a supernatural ritual. He decides to do a favor for her.
Yann is a pretty typical guy. He goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, checks on his mom, goes to bed, gets up and does it all again. He works as a city planner in the mayor’s office. Unfortunately the mayor is an asshole, and the entire city government is corrupt, Yann included. Bribes and intimidation are standard tactics. While delivering falsified construction authorizations to a job site, a threatening note is discovered in the paperwork. When Yann is confronted about it, he hears voices from his briefcase. He opens it to find a gun that jumps into his hand and fires on its own, killing the rich land developer and his bodyguards. When the mercenaries hired by the land developer show up to avenge him, all hell breaks loose.
Director Jean-Christian Tassy defines what we are seeking in our AMD Next Wave showcase: fresh young debut director with an alarmingly original story up his sleeve. CALIBRE 9, the action-packed story about a gun possessed by the soul of a dead hooker is sleazy, bloody and more than somewhat crazy. What more do you need?(Luke Mullen)
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
John Landis 1981 | Comedy, Fantasy, Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror, Repertory | 97 min.
Let’s be blunt… John Landis directed one of the most important movies ever made. Prove it? Ok! Lots of people credit this as being the movie that ushered in the horror comedy genre and its “star” is widely considered to be Rick Baker’s special effects. In fact, the effects were so mind blowing that the Oscars created an awards category to recognize their importance. The King of Pop himself liked this movie so much that he called Landis to make a video for one of his songs that was slipping in the pop charts. This video became the most influential music video of all time. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is a lot of things to a lot of people and like a stone being tossed into a stagnant lake, the ripples it created are still being felt in Hollywood 30 years later. (Justin Ishmael)
KNUCKLE
Ian Palmer 2010 | Documentary, Feature, Guest in attendance | 93 min.
When videographer Ian Palmer was hired to film a Quinn family wedding, he unexpectedly stumbled upon a documentary subject that would occupy him for over a decade. KNUCKLE centers around a feud between the Quinns and a neighboring clan, the Joyces. Both are part of a large group of ethnic Irish known as Travellers. Travellers are generally poor, travel from place to place in search of lodging and work and are often the victims of discrimination in Ireland.
In addition to sharing a Traveller heritage, the Quinns and Joyces are united by mutual hatred. Instead of resolving their issues in court or killing each other, the menfolk engage in bare-knuckle fights for honor and cash. One would think that a couple of fights would be enough to end a feud. However, the two families hated each other so much that they have continued to beat each other up for over 12 years.
Director Ian Palmer followed the Quinns and Joyces for years to document the arc of their long-running dispute. He captures numerous fights, most of which are brief and brutal, as well as the daily routines of various participants. The individual incidents that lead to the fights seem petty and slight, giving the impression that the family dispute has more to do with adrenaline and testosterone than family honor. However, a serious grudge borne of a real tragedy fuels the flurry of smashed faces. KNUCKLE isn’t just about fighting; it’s about a group of outsiders trying to survive in a world that is hostile to their way of life. (Rodney)
KNUCKLE will also be the theme of our signature festival event: Fantastic Debates. At the Fantastic Debates, press, filmmakers & film professionals enter the arena for a formal debate followed by two rounds of boxing. In the ring, the great issues facing the fan community are solved once and for all, first by words, then by fisticuffs. Four debates are scheduled, culminating in the main event, a bout featuring KNUCKLE star and undefeated bare-knuckle brawler James Quinn McDonagh versus Fantastic Fest Co-Founder Tim League. (Rodney Perkins)
Fantastic Fest preview Day 3 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon