Art by Chris Bilheimer

It’s that time again for my 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 24-October 1, here in Austin at the South Lamar location.

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

Fantastic Fest Preview Day Seven

L’affaire SK1

In the 1990s, Guy Georges killed seven young women in different cities during one of France’s more notorious crime waves. Frederic Teller’s debut recreates the complex events that led to the arrest while also jumping ahead ten year to the trial. At first, rookie detective Frank Magne is given his first assignment, to reread unsolved cases to see if anything was missed. In this case, something was: two murder victims had the same person install a utility. For the next decade, Frank becomes obsessed with finding the killer and fighting corruption inherent in the police bureaucracy, especially after Georges was questioned and released several times over the eight year investigation.

It’s easy to see SK1 as the “French Zodiac,” but Teller goes for a clinical and nearly emotionless docudrama while Fincher dealt with the frustration his main characters encountered while wrestling with the unknown. Teller’s approach is to allow the audience to witness events with nearly no manipulation. One understands how far we’ve come with murder investigations. In the past, crimes scenes were contaminated, footprints were stepped on, and different departments withheld information so they could break the case. The Beast of the Bastille case was the investigation that changed everything in France. After it was over, DNA databases were created that helped solves thousands of cases. SK1, or Serial Killer 1, was the first.L’AFFAIRE SK1 starts with a James Jones quote: “This force of evil… Where does it come from?” The film itself never really tries to answer this question. Instead, Teller builds with almost no commentary, just recreation that allows the events to speak for themselves. Ultimately, it deals with the force of humanity and the events that elevate us all into a greater society in the face of evil forces. (James Shapiro)

Lazer Team

In the late 1970s, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project receives a message from outer space. There IS intelligent life in the universe, but their message is not one of peace. Instead, they tell Earth that they’ll be challenging us to a duel, and a mysterious package is on its way.

Fast forward to 2015; the government is on full alert, monitoring the skies for the signal that would indicate the delivery of the package. Meanwhile, the hand-selected “one true warrior of Earth,” raised from birth to represent the best of us, waits and trains, trains and waits.

Unfortunately, before the package from space can be retrieved and delivered to Earth’s chosen warrior, four morons manage to get their hands on it. Each of them ends up with an individual piece of intergalactic battle armor. Now, all that stands between Earth and complete destruction is this ragtag band of idiots, the self-proclaimed Lazer Team. Survival may prove to be a lot more difficult than anyone ever anticipated.

Channeling the blockbuster science fiction comedies of the ‘80s, Rooster Teeth’s first feature-length effort is the kind of super-enjoyable silliness that we don’t get at the movies anymore. Without ever losing track of its science fiction ideals, LAZER TEAM concocts a improbable yet somehow plausible scenario packed with weird aliens, romantic entanglement, massive explosions and enough crude humor to fill three features. Add in some wonderful visuals, high quality special effects, and hilarious performances from the boys, and you have an enticing cocktail that’s sure to put a smile on the face of every audience member. (Evrim Ersoy)

The Passing

Stanley has been alone with his ghosts for as long as he can remember, living an isolated life in his slowly crumbling family home in the Welsh hills. For years, it’s been only Stanley and his memories, eking out a quiet existence, until the day a distant horn leads him to a young couple on the run, their car sinking slowly into the passing river. With no other options and nobody else to help, Stanley does the only thing he can: He takes the couple home to nurse them back to health. And it turns out that Stanley’s ghosts may not be only his own.

The creative team behind acclaimed BBC crime series HINTERLAND delivers a something unique with THE PASSING. The first ever Welsh language genre film, THE PASSING is a classy, artfully executed supernatural drama. Director Gareth Bryn draws stellar performances from his entire cast as he builds a subtle, nuanced tale of isolation and loss. The Welsh countryside provides a striking backdrop, the environment proving every bit as significant a character as any of the three principal actors while Bryn handles the entire affair with a confident hand that marks him as a talent to watch.

With the bulk of Welsh talent confined to the television world – particularly when it comes to those working in the Welsh language – with minimal crossover to film, Bryn has quite a lot to prove here. And with such a polished and accomplished first effort, it would appear that not only should we be looking out for whatever comes next for Bryn himself, but also try to develop an ear for the Welsh language. Because this feels a lot less like a one-off than the leading edge of many more to come. (Todd Brown)

Men and Chicken

If Dr. Moreau pulled out the DNA of the best comedies that have ever played Fantastic Fest, and threw them all in his genetic blender to create the perfect mutant comedy, the end result would surely be MEN & CHICKEN, Anders Thomas Jensen’s first directorial film in ten years. To explain all the reasons would completely spoil the movie, but feel confident that Anders is playing in the same world that FLICKERING LIGHTS, THE GREEN BUTCHERS and ADAM’S APPLES all existed in, and he’s still trying to top himself.
Mads Mikkelsen, now an A-list Hollywood star and debonair leading man, allows his long-time collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen to transform him into Elias, one of the least appealing humans ever to shine on the silver screen. Elias and his better-adjusted brother Gabriel find out after the death of their father (through a bizarre videotaped will/confessional) that they were adopted and have different mothers. In their search for their real parents, they stumble upon three new brothers who are living in an abandoned and decaying sanatorium. All five of them share similar traits including a severe cleft lip and a problem with anger management. More importantly, however, they are varying degrees of strange and none seem quite capable of living a normal life in Danish society. To make matters even more unsettling for Gabriel and Elias, their new brothers have a penchant for unexpected blunt force head trauma. And there’s something about the chickens wandering the off-limits basement that’s more than a little bit foreboding… (James Shapiro)