Fantastic Fest Is Bringing Us More Fantastic-ness!
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The third wave of content for Fantastic Fest was recently announced, and it totally rocks. That’s especially true if you dig vampires, ninjas and super scary stories about spooky things. We couldn’t be more enthused about the programming if we’d been abducted by an alien ship and had the special “Fantastic Fest souvenir mind control device” implanted in our brains.
On the surface, Antichrist is about a couple escaping to a secluded cabin in the woods to try to put their marriage back together after the sudden and brutal death of their son. Yet with the descriptions about the film’s sexual violence (there is an FX penis involved!), its alleged misogyny, and with a goodly number of trained animals in the cast, it’s clear that there is a lot going on here.
While we don’t know exactly what to expect after watching the trailer, Antichrist has clearly been pushing a lot of audience buttons all over the world. We’re totally expecting to have our buttons pushed—or maybe even torn off—given what we’ve read about this film.
The Vampire’s Assistant combines vampires and a freakshow, and will have stars John C. Reilly, Josh Hutcherson and Chris Massoglia live in person at the screening! Luckily for Austin, Vampire’s Assistant is one of the FFest “Gala Films†where non-badgeholders are able buy advance tickets for the screening.The film is adapted from Darren Shan’s popular Cirque Du Freak books. The film’s basic plot centers on a young man who, bored with suburban life, becomes a vampire, takes up with a freakshow, and inadvertently breaks the truce between warring factions of vampires. The visuals in this trailer look freaking awesome, but that’s to be expected in any film where the cast of characters includes: Evra the Snake Boy, Mr. Tall, Loaf Head, Wolfman and a bearded lady (Salma Hayek).
As Shan himself was in the ATX around Halloween just last year, it’s no surprise that this film would have an early showing at Fantastic Fest!
Ninja Assassin will include Director James McTeigue live in person at the screening. From the trailer, it looks like McTeigue (V for Vendetta) might have delivered a thrill-ride of a movie. As a small boy Raizo (Rain) was taken from life on the streets, then is brutally trained as a Ninja by the secretive and near-mythical Ozunu Clan. Years later, Mika (Naomie Harris) becomes a target for the clan’s assassins, something Raizo doesn’t want to happen. From this film we’re expecting European chases, awesome fight scenes and totally kick-ass visuals; we count the actor Rain as one of those totally kick-ass visuals.
Paranormal Activity might be the scariest film in years, if reviewers from Ain’t It Cool News and Bloody Disgusting are to be believed. Here, a day-trader named Micah shares a presumably haunted starter home with his sweetie Katie. Suspecting otherworldly events, Mitch breaks down and buys a high-tech video camera that he sets up at the foot of their bed, in order to provide proof of the spectral events at night. Apparently, the presence doesn’t much care for being photographed. This simple and superficial description only hints at the movie mayhem to come. Remember, one could describe The Blair Witch Project as a film about a bunch of people out in the woods with a camera. What little we’ve read about the film has us totally stoked. Made for a reported $11,000 by Israeli emigre Oren Peli, and shot in the director’s own house, this microbudget film looks totally killer.
Spanish-language [REC] 2 is a sequel to [REC], and is about people trapped in a space where something horrible happened, and the events have been filmed. In the original [REC]—remade as Quarantine in the States—:(slight spoiler alert for [REC]) a news crew goes to an apartment building, and when it becomes clear that it is the epicenter of a violent plague, the building is sealed by the authorities with the news crew and residents inside. The story of what happens next in the apartment building is documented by said news crew.
(Spoiler alert over) This sequel picks up hours after the events of the original; this time a SWAT officer takes a hand-held camera into the quarantined space, providing the movie with that hand-held video footage that’s been so popular in horror films like George Romero’s Diary of the Dead and Cloverfield .We’re anxious to compare this film to The Cold Hour, another Spanish film about people who were trapped in an enclosed space, trying to avoid being contaminated with consciousness-altering plague, which screened at FFest 2007.
Fantastic Fest still has daytime-only badges available, as well as tickets to the Gala screenings at the Paramount.
