There’s a great deal to choose from at this year’s Fantastic Fest, with stylishly presented traditional horror like Dolly and The Curse rubbing shoulders with sensational queer titles like Body Blow, The Restoration At Grayson Manor and The Cramps: A Period Piece. Some titles, though, you just can’t afford to miss. Here we look at five of the best, each of which comes with an impressive pedigree from some of the year’s biggest festivals to date.
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| Mother Of Flies Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
This year’s Cheval Noir winner at Fantasia and a hit at Frightfest too, the Adams family’s latest work is a cut above anything they’ve done before and has wowed audiences and critics alike. It tells the story of Mickey (Zelda Adams), a teenager with a terminal cancer diagnosis who persuades her sceptical father (John Adams) to accompany her on a visit to a witch (Toby Poser). Out in the woods, she endures a gruelling series of alternative ‘treatments’ in a last-ditch attempt to find a cure, but the witch has an agenda of her own, and nothing is what it seems. Chilling in places, rapturous in others, the film features an outstanding performance from Poser that’s up there with the very best of the year.
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| Bulk |
Perhaps the best British filmmaker at work today, and certainly one of the most distinctive, Ben Wheatley can always be relied upon to deliver something different. In this nightmarish take on conspiracy theories, complexity and the multiverse, which features some stunning black and white imagery, he is closer to the hyper-specificity of In The Earth and A Field in England than the more accessible style of Sightseers or Free Fire, but if you don’t have the literary background to connect with it thoroughly first time around, you’ll be left with plenty to explore afterwards. Fresh from the Edinburgh International Film Festival, it’s likely to be a great fit for Fantastic Fest audiences, and it’s a treat for anyone who enjoys puzzles.
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| Top prize for A Useful Ghost by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke in Cannes Critics’ Week Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Critics' Week |
In many different cultures there is a belief that ghosts return because they still have something they feel compelled to accomplish in the world of the living, so the family of devoted wife Nat (Davika Hoorne) can only be so surprised when she manifests by possessing the hoover. Determined to do right by her husband, she sets out to rid the home of other ghosts, in a film that deals with themes of grief and family conflict with equal parts tragedy and wild, unhinged comedy. Political corruption and social hypocrisy are also targets for Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke in a film that launched at Cannes and has also made a splash in Toronto.
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| Sirat Photo: Quim Vives/Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival |
The intensity of a father’s quest for his missing daughter combines with the hypnotic power of surging, experimental music in Oliver Laxe’s latest take on the generative power of unlikely cultural interactions. Having toured all the big festivals this year, winning great word of mouth from all of them, it took the Jury prize at Cannes, whilst canine stars Pipa the Jack Russell, and Lupita the Podenco mix shared the equivalent Palm Dog prize. Laxe presents viewers with a quest through wild landscapes and the social outcasts who inhabit them, whose faces those landscapes have shaped. Different forms of obsession shape the narrative and see the tension rise even as the story gets stranger, gradually leaving familiar landscapes behind.
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| Shelby Oaks |
Shelby Oaks When it comes to mystery, there’s very little out there this year that’s as chilling or as intellectually satisfying as Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks. A slow burner on the festival circuit, having played at Fantasia and Frightfest last year, it’s preparing for release next month, but you’ll want to catch it as soon as you can. It follows Mia (Camille Sullivan) as she searches for her missing sister over the course of years, finally deciding to make a documentary about the case, and in the process uncovering clues which lead her to a much bigger mystery. Conventional genre tropes intersect with something closer to real world horror in disconcerting ways, and the devil’s in the details.
