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 tomorrow.
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.
Thursday, September 29th
THE LOVED ONES
Sean Byrne 2009 | Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror, Thriller | 84 min.
There are always certain films that you catch that unexpectedly stick with you for days, weeks, and often, months. You can’t stop thinking about them because their contents are so powerful and they touched you in some way or another. If you could drill a hole in your head and let those film bleed out, you wouldn’t; it becomes a happy burden. This year at Fantastic Fest, one of those films (maybe the film) will be Sean Byrne’s THE LOVED ONES.
Brent (Xavier Samuel) is a lost cause. In the first scene of the film, he kills his father in a car accident. It wasn’t his fault, there was a young man covered in blood walking in the middle of the road. Months later, Brent descends on a downward spiral of self-inflicted wounds to still feel something – to still feel alive.
Our protagonist then becomes a victim of torture – first figuratively, then literally – when he kindly rejects classmate Lola’s (the very excellent Robin McLeavy) proposal to the school prom. We soon find out Lola isn’t nearly as naive as she appears, but sick and sadistic – when she and her daddy (John Brumpton) kidnap Brent and take him to their own prom – a “prom” much more terrifying than anything you can possibly imagine.
In his feature film debut, writer and director Sean Byrne perfectly synthesizes graphic violence with genuine dialogue and honest teenage emotions to tell a great horror story. THE LOVED ONES could have turned gross for the sake of being gross, but Byrne assures the audience that the violence used was necessary to push the narrative forward. In Byrne I trust. (Chase Whale)
THE STOKER
Alexey Balabanov 2010 | Drama, Feature | 87 min.
screens with…
PROFILE | Timo Pierre Rositzki 2011
The work of Russian director Aleksei Balabanov has become a constant at Fantastic Fest. The reason is simple. Balabanov’s past films — CARGO 200 and MORPHIA — provide a window into the ugliest aspects of humanity with skill and morbid wit. THE STOKER (Kochegar) continues this fine tradition of nihilistic feel-bad cinema.
A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.
THE STOKER, which is set against the backdrop of the Russia’s transition from a command economy, presents a series of interlocking stories that revolve around the life of Ivan Skryabin. Russia is presented as a cut-throat environment where only the strongest survive. War vets whose specialized skills are no longer needed by the government find new opportunities with the mafia. A world of opportunity is opened up for the younger generation, yet the path to prosperity is paved with jealousy and greed. The lives of the characters eventually intersect in an ironic — and brutal — fashion. (Rodney Perkins)
COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE
Morgan Spurlock 2011 | Documentary, Feature, Guest in attendance | 88 min.
Producer Harry Knowles, James Darling (lead role) and Se Young (lead role) live in person!
One of the most potentially traumatic situations in my position is having a friend submit a film they have either produced, written or directed. At first you are thrilled for the person for even completing such an epic task. That thrill is quickly tempered, however, by the dread of having to let them down gently if it doesn’t quite measure up. With such dread in my heart did I drive up to festival co-founder Harry Knowles’ house last month to check out a screening of COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE in his living room. Harry is a producer on Comic-Con and helped Morgan Spurlock navigate some of the more hard-core corners of the epic convention.
I had a sinking feeling that Spurlock himself would be in front of the camera snarking around the festival in a stormtrooper outfit taking low-blow potshots at our nerd family like some sort of schoolyard bully. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead of a SUPER SIZE ME deconstruction, Morgan Spurlock chooses to show us the magical journey that is Comic-Con. Seven disparate individuals are all planning to attend, each with their own hopes, dreams and aspirations. A soldier wants to become a comic artist; a San Bernardino goth girl makes animatronic monsters in her garage; an oldguard comic-book vendor is concerned about the changing marketplace of the convention; a twenty-something movie geek is looking for romance; and a bartender at perhaps the nerdiest bar in the known universe aspires to be a graphic illustrator. We are along for the ride from beginning to riveting conclusion.
In the end, Morgan Spurlock has respectfully captured the magic and wonder of nerddom better than any other filmmaker. Harry was reticent to suggest playing the film at Fantastic Fest, but I forced the issue. No other film I have seen this year captures the spirit of the Fantastic Fest audience like COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE, and I am proud to select it as our 2011 Closing Night fi lm. (Tim League)
My reviews and coverage of events begin tomorrow (or maybe Friday morning depending on my energy/time).
Fantastic Fest preview Day 7 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon