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 two days! Over the next several days, I’m previewing the movies I plan on seeing and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.

The Warped Forest

Plays with “Crown”: A gang of street kids turns an unassuming house into a haven for middle aged junkies hooked on a most bizarre narcotic. Doug, a habitual user, returns to experience a surreal high from which he may not return.

In 2005 a trio of directors combined to unleash one of the most deliriously silly, surreal, and psychedelic experiences ever witnessed on theater screens on to an unwitting audience. Loaded with absurdity and stylistic excess THE FUNKY FOREST was like a guided tour through the subconscious minds of its creators, a visual guide to the adolescent fantasies of a trio of immensely talented directors who refused to acknowledge any limitations whatsoever.

And now one of them is back to do it again.

Entirely self funded with money squirrelled away during a decade of directing high-end television commercials, Shunichiro Miki’s THE WARPED FOREST will delight and confuse – and delightfully confuse – fans of the esoteric and strange. Follow the adventures of a young girl tracking down the elusive Pinky-Panky with her trusty penis-rifle at her side! Marvel at the normal sized girl working in a Very Small Shop! Wonder at the psychic powers of the inverted pyramid hovering deep in the nearby forest, the strange pod-like growths that pop up throughout and the furry, nipple sucking creature on hire at the local brothel!

Just a touch less manic than its predecessor, THE WARPED FOREST is every bit as much a delicious sensory experience. There are narrative threads holding it all together, to be sure, but this is film as experience far more than film as story and what an experience it is. Fans of THE FUNKY FOREST will recognize Miki’s distinctive touch immediately while those walking into this bizarre world for the first time will want to seek out that earlier effort immediately. (Todd Brown)

The Collection

Elena has always been a survivor. As a child, she and her father lived through a horrific car accident. That propensity toward survival may be what made her such an attractive specimen for the infamous serial killer known as The Collector. The Collector’s last find, a petty thief named Arkin, escapes during a massacre that lands Elena in his clutches. Arkin is then hired by a mysterious mercenary to return to the site of his captivity and save Elena. Will any of them make it out alive, or will they all become permanent fixtures in THE COLLECTION? (Brian Salisbury)

Holy Motors

Mr. Oscar is a busy man. Obviously quite wealthy and important, he bids his young daughter good day while walking from his expansive home to his limousine to start the day’s appointments, as his bodyguards follow in a BMW. Seemingly exhausted already, he speaks with his driver, Celine, who informs him that he has 9 appointments scheduled for the day. But it quickly becomes apparent that these are not normal appointments and Mr. Oscar is not your normal businessman.

A film that’s far better to experience than to read about, Holy Motors is a wild ride down the proverbial rabbit hole. Directed by Leos Carax, a Frenchman perhaps best known for his 1999 film Pola X, and starring Denis Lavant in an unbelievably difficult and demanding role, Holy Motors is a film that is constantly changing and evolving into something different. Carax and Lavant previously collaborated on Merde, the triumphant centerpiece of the anthology film Tokyo!, a Fantastic Fest alum from 2008. Fans of that film will find an extra layer of appreciation for Holy Motors.

An absurdist adventure featuring everything from a random musical number to an impromptu fashion show in the Paris sewers, Holy Motors is crazy but not without purpose. It is hilarious and completely insane yet strangely brilliant at the same time. An incredibly astute and acute meditation on acting and identity and the needs we have as audience members as well as the increasingly blurry line between fantasy and reality, Holy Motors is exactly the type of film you hope to discover at Fantastic Fest. (Luke Mullen)

Miami Connection

THE ULTIMATE ACHIEVEMENT IN TAE KWON DO ANTI-SANITY! The year is 1987. Motorcycle ninjas tighten their grip on Florida’s narcotics trade, viciously annihilating anyone who dares move in on their turf. Multi-national martial arts rock band Dragon Sound have had enough, and embark on a roundhouse wreck-wave of crime-crushing justice. When not chasing beach bunnies or performing their hit song “Against the Ninja,” Mark (kung-fu master/inspirational speaker Y.K. Kim) and the boys are kicking and chopping at the drug world’s smelliest underbelly. It’ll take every ounce of their blood and courage, but Dragon Sound can’t stop until they’ve completely destroyed the dealers, the drunk bikers, the kill-crazy ninjas, the middle-aged thugs, the “stupid cocaine”…and the entire MIAMI CONNECTION!!!

Real life martial arts grandmaster Y.K. Kim only made one film in his life, but it’s without a doubt the most rampaging crowd-pleaser of the ’80s, bursting with vibrance, violence, honor and hilarity. Completely lost for decades, a 35mm film print has been unearthed by the Alamo, and its first viewing opened a dimensional portal to pure, unstoppable FUN. After demolishing the crowd with it at select festivals, we’ve allied with writer/producer/star Y.K. Kim and the rest of the cast to detonate Fantastic Fest with the supreme synth-rock anti-ninja experience. Miss this epochal screening event and you’ll hate yourself for a thousand lifetimes…guaranteed!!! (Zack Carlson)

Vegetarian Cannibal

Dr. Danko Babić (Rene Bitorajac) is a studly gynecologist with a lust for life. Snorting drugs, having sex, and playing the drums are as routine for him as delivering babies or performing abortions. A crooked cop (Leon Lučev) introduces Babić to a crime boss (Emir Hadžihafizbegović) who offers him a sweet deal: perform illegal abortions to a stable of high-end prostitutes in exchange for fast cash. He accepts the offer and is soon faced with series of decisions that test the limits of his already questionable ethics.

Branko Schmidt’s VEGETARIAN CANNIBAL is an indictment of corruption in Croatian society. Babić, whose profession is supposedly one of health and healing, is used as a prism through which analyze the ills of the entire nation. Babić is a cocky manipulator with a complete disregard for laws and ethics. Babić blasts his way through a series of dilemmas and makes the bad choice every time. It is hard to fault him however, because his transgressions are continually rewarded with money, power, and sex. Despite the film’s focus on social ills, VEGETARIAN CANNIBAL isn’t simply dour agit-prop. It’s very affecting, albeit in an extremely negative way. What’s more, the film boasts some scenes that will test the tolerance of even the most hardened viewers. In other words, VEGETARIAN CANNIBAL is right at home at Fantastic Fest. (Rodney Perkins)

Day Three preview

Day One preview

http://youtu.be/JDkVW8IXkWQ

Doomsday Book

Kim Ji-Woon is one of Korea’s most fascinating directors, and a new movie from him is always an event. Whether it’s the stylized horror of A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, the intense action of A BITTERSWEET LIFE, the wild spaghetti western madhouse of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD or even the dark psychodrama I SAW THE DEVIL, he has consistently delivered some of the most challenging, gorgeously shot, innovative genre movies to come out of Korea.

Originally planned to be a three-part omnibus directed by Kim Ji-Woon, Yim Pil-Sung (director of HANSEL & GRETEL and ANTARCTIC JOURNAL) and Han Jae-Rim (THE SHOW MUST GO ON), production started on DOOMSDAY BOOK in 2006, and then fell apart when Han’s film (a retelling of an O. Henry short story) proved to be unworkable. With only two-thirds of the movie completed, it was shelved. Then, after a new influx of cash in 2010, Kim and Yim worked together to complete the movie’s third segment. Now their collaboration about the end of the world is finally ready for the big screen.

Outlining three ways in which the world ends, DOOMSDAY BOOK starts with Yim Pil-Sung’s “A Brave New World,” a rollicking, hilarious tale about rampant pollution that leads to an outbreak of zombie-ism that robs man of even his ability to choose to die. The second short, Kim Ji-Woon’s “The Heavenly Creature” is about a future where robots have become our main source of manual labor. One android, which resides at a Buddhist temple, achieves enlightenment, and the company that produces robot workers realizes that it’s got a crisis on its hands. The movie wraps up with the two directors collaborating on “Happy Birthday,” about a young girl whose wish results in a giant meteor heading straight for the planet Earth. Injecting welcome doses of comedy into three hard science fiction scenarios, this two-fisted dose of apocalypse is the smartest sci-fi flick to hit movie screens all summer. (NYAFF)

http://youtu.be/XIZb50HiBCo

Antiviral

The Lucas Clinic exists to serve – or prey upon, depending upon your perspective – the most celebrity obsessed elements of our society. Striking exclusive deals with major celebrities to harvest their illnesses, the Clinic offers a most intimate communion between the famous and their admirers. For a price you can be infected with the very same viruses that grew within their very cells. What was part of them can be part of you.

Syd March is an up and comer within Lucas, a salesman adept at capitalizing on patients’ yearning for connection. He’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear as he injects herpes into your lip or influenza into your veins. But Lucas isn’t enough for Syd. Whether for boredom or greed Syd is playing both sides of this particular game, peddling Lucas’ wares by day but also infecting himself with their most rare and elusive offering so that he can incubate them within his own body, break the patented copy protection and sell them on the black market. So when he sees the opportunity to harvest a new virus from the famed Hannah Geist – Lucas’ top seller – Syd sees a chance to profit and injects himself with Hannah’s blood. And then Hannah dies.

Brandon Cronenberg makes his feature debut with ANTIVIRAL, a film that would do his father David proud. A jet black satire of celebrity obsession run through with enough needles and body fluids to make even the most hardened squirm, ANTIVIRAL is an icily precise affair. Star Caleb Landry Jones (THE LAST EXORCISM, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS) delivers a mesmerizing performance as the inscrutable March, his physical breakdown as the virus takes hold an alarming yet compelling sight to behold. (Todd Brown)

http://youtu.be/jDGcTn1YDcs

Dredd 3D

The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One – a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called “Judges” who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge – a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of “Slo-Mo” experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson, a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture – a 200 story vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma and her ruthless clan. When they capture one of the clan’s inner circle, Ma-Ma overtakes the compound’s control center and wages a dirty, vicious war against the Judges that proves she will stop at nothing to protect her empire. With the body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson must confront the odds and engage in the relentless battle for their survival.

Final Member

Since 1974, Sigurdur “Siggi” Hjartarson has run the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of mammalian penises. Siggi’s private collection runs the gamut from microscopic to gargantuan, including penises from whales, dogs, pigs, bears, bulls and hamsters. Siggi believes that his museum—and his legacy—will be incomplete without an important addition to his museum: a human penis of “legal length.” After years of searching, he tracks down two donors: an aging Icelandic philanderer and a weirdo from California who refers to his penis as “Elmo.” Siggi’s quest for penile perfection morphs into a race against time as the donors compete to become the first human to have their members severed and preserved for posterity.

With THE FINAL MEMBER, co-directors Jonah Bekhor and Zack Math have created one of the most unique and memorable documentaries in recent years. The film initially seems like a quaint exploration of a single man’s weird obsession, but evolves into a deep character study of three dudes who are pathologically obsessed with male genitalia—human or otherwise. Siggi uses his museum to break sexual taboos and educate the public. The Icelandic ladies’ man wants to preserve his rapidly aging penis before it shrinks down to the size of a raisin. Unlike his aging counterpart, the cowboy wants to chop his off before he dies. THE FINAL MEMBER delivers everything one could want from a documentary—it’s emotionally engaging, funny, and highly disturbing. (Rodney Perkins)

Day Two preview

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Category Archives: Movies

Fantastic Fest Day Two Preview