It’s that time again for my annual sojourn to Fantastic Fest, the annual Alamo Drafthouse week long love letter to horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world. This year’s festival runs from Sept 18-25, here in Austin in the South Lamar location.

As in year’s past, I begin my coverage with a multi-part/day preview.

Fantastic Fest Preview Day Seven

Shrew’s Nest

Montse has had a rough life. Her mother died while giving birth to her sister and her father disappeared during the war. She’s raised her younger sister on her own, a task complicated by her extreme agoraphobia. Montse never leaves the apartment, but works as a seamstress for clients that come to her. Combined with her sister’s work at a local store, they just manage to squeak out a living. But the girl is curious and she has questions about their past that Montse can’t or won’t answer.

All Montse will say about their mother is that she died giving birth to the girl. That answer has never been satisfying, and the girl envies Montse because she has pictures with their mother. And then there’s their father who just disappeared one day during the war. Maybe he left to fight, or maybe the death of his wife was too much for him, or maybe there’s something else… something more sinister behind his disappearance.

Montse’s agoraphobia is tested when their upstairs neighbor falls down the stairs and lands just outside their front door. Montse decides to help him, bringing him into the apartment and propping him up in bed. But it quickly becomes apparent that Montse has an agenda of her own, and while it may endanger everyone involved, the girl may just get the answers to the questions she’s had for so long.

Produced by Fantastic Fest alum Alex de la Iglesia, SHREW’S NEST explores the different types of fears that plague us all. With an enigmatic score and a fantastic lead performance, the filmmakers have crafted a fascinating descent into madness. (Luke Mullen)

The Absent One

It’s been twenty years since young twins were discovered slain in a remote community. It was a brutal crime that pointed to students at a nearby boarding school for the extreme upper crust until an outsider stepped forward to confess and the whole thing was just swept away. Twenty years also since Kimmie, a young woman who left a frantic message to the police about the crime, also disappeared. It’s too unlikely to be a coincidence, and when the case file crosses the desk of detective Carl Morck (the fabulous Nikolaj Lie Kaas), it plunges him into a decades-old cover-up and into direct conflict with the powerful elite.

It was back in 2010 that director Mikkel Norgaard launched an all out assault on the Danish box office with outrageous comedy KLOWN—the film that proved a monstrous hit here at Fantastic Fest while breaking stacks of box office records in its home country. In the aftermath of KLOWN, the safe thing for Norgaard to do would be to stick with comedy, but instead he took a hard left turn into the world of crime literature with THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES—the first of Jussi Adler Olsen’s hugely popular Department Q series of cold case crime novels—and set the box office on fire again. This time he followed up with the “safe” thing and moved on to book two for his next project.

Yet another high point in what seems to be a neverending string of high quality crime offerings out of Scandinavia, the Department Q novels have won a loyal following around the globe amongst fans of Jo Nesbo and Steig Larsson for the simple reason that they’re very, very good; loaded with complex characters and compelling mysteries while Norgaard and his cast have proven a perfect match to the source material. Fans of THE KILLING, THE BRIDGE and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, take note. Here comes your new favorite thing. (Todd Brown)

Open Windows

Elijah Wood is Nick Chambers, admin of the Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey) fan site and all-around internet nerd. In Austin live-streaming a Q&A after a screening of Jill’s latest film (taking place in Fantastic’s Fest home at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar), he’s the winner of a contest that will afford him the opportunity to have dinner with the object of his obsession. His hopes are dashed when a stranger named Chord calls to inform him that Jill has had to cancel. But then, in a strange and convincing display of his powers, Chord turns Nick’s computer into the ultimate Jill Goddard spy machine, hacking cameras at the theater and even her cellphone, and allowing Nick an all-access pass into the star’s life. Before long, it becomes apparent that Nick is trapped in some sort of sick game and Jill may be in danger.

Taking place entirely on Nick’s computer screen—the action jumping from window to window on the desktop—OPEN WINDOWS embodies everything we love about director Nacho Vigalondo’s wild imagination. From his award-winning shorts to TIMECRIMES to EXTRATERRESTRIAL and beyond, Nacho consistently displays a knack for inventive plot devices that transform the mundane into the extraordinary, throwing his stories’ characters into the most thrilling of circumstances. To that effect, OPEN WINDOWS is his most ambitious project yet.

You’ll hear names like Hitchcock and DePalma thrown around in discussions about OPEN WINDOWS. Make no mistake; while such influences may be evident, what you’re left with after they’re processed through the wit and insanity of the man’s brain makes OPEN WINDOWS pure Vigalondo. (Brian Kelley)

Norway

The year is 1984. Zano (Vangelis Mourikis) —a vampire who must dance to keep his heart beating—arrives in Athens, Greece to meet his friend Jimmy (Yannis Bostantzoglou). While waiting for Jimmy, Zano ends up at a dive bar called Disco Zardoz. He meets a prostitute (Alexia Kaltsiki) and a Norwegian dope dealer named Peter (Daniel Bolda). Zano and his new friend go on an adventure that leads them to the bowels of the earth.

NORWAY is the result of the creative marriage between first-time Greek director Yiannias Vesleme and DOGTOOTH producer Yorgos Tsourgiannis. As one might gather, NORWAY is no ordinary vampire film. In fact, it turns vampire mythology inside out to create something genuinely weird. Zano is a burned out disco dancer prone to drug and alcohol binges. He maintains a code of ethics; he only kills people when he has to. In the case of NORWAY, the manner in which the story is told is as important as the story itself.  Director Yiannis Vesleme’s background in short films and music videos is reflected in the film’s distinct visual style. Athens is depicted as a psychedelic alien dream world full of vivid colors, dark spaces and blown out landscapes. NORWAY is a spectacular trip unlike anything you’ve seen before. (Rodney Perkins)