The 24th edition of Fantasia Film Festival is, like several other high-profile festivals, taking place in the virtual world this year. The event will run from 20th August – 2nd September and will celebrate the best and brightest of all facets of genre cinema. Last week saw the final list of titles revealed, which means that now is the perfect time for us to share with you the films that we’re the most excited to see.
12 Hour Shift
First up we have 12 Hour Shift, directed by Brea Grant. Grant is one of those annoyingly talented people that appears to excel at all they try. Initially starting her career as an actor, these days she also hosts a podcast, writes comics and screenplays, and directs. We spoke to her earlier in the year to talk about her beautiful performance in the stunning After Midnight ,where she also shared enough about this project to hook us. Since that conversation, we’ve been dying for the opportunity to get the film into our eyeballs, and it looks like the wait is almost over.
The film tells the story of Nurse Mandy (Angela Bettis) as she experiences a very tough double shift. She’s an addict also involved in the black market organ-trade, and complications arise when her cousin botches a kidney delivery. Mandy now has to hustle to find a replacement organ at any cost. Could fresh patient and injured convict, Jefferson (David Arquette), be the answer?
Lucky
Another project that our chat with Brea Grant got us pumped for is Lucky. Grant wrote the script and also stars in the film. If that wasn’t enough, Lucky has the added bonus of being directed by Imitation Girl‘s‘ Natasha Kermani. That film followed a shape-shifting alien whom began to explore the world around, whilst assuming the face of the first human she see – a porn star from a magazine. It is a beautiful film filled with visual flair and a haunting score. Both Grant and Kermani are very talented on their own and the combination of both of them together is a thrilling proposition. In Lucky, Grant plays May Ryer, a self-help author whom finds herself repeatedly tormented by a masked intruder. Luckily, one of May’s many books is entitled Problem Solving for Staying Alive, but will her very own words be enough to keep her one of the living?
Slaxx
At Canadian Cotton Clothiers, where the motivating slogan is “Make a better tomorrow today,” the staff are preparing for Monday Madness. Joining the store’s stock of organic, GMO-free, fair-trade, sweatshop-free, ethically sourced tops and bottoms, is the eagerly awaited new line of Super Shaper jeans – thermally activated denim that adapts to any body size. Not only that, but hot social-media influencer, Peyton Jules (Erica Anderson), will be paying a midnight visit. As if things weren’t tense enough, one pair of Super Shapers proves to have a mind of its own, and can not only think, but leap, bite, choke, and otherwise attack unwary members of the Clothiers team. New hire, Libby (Romane Denis), is the first to discover that these jeans have jaws, but can she successfully alert her co-workers so that they have a chance of living to see that better tomorrow?
Slaxx has been on our radar since the trailer first hit the Internet a couple of months back. It’s a film about a killer trousers, how could it not grab your attention? From everything we’ve heard so far, Slaxx is clearly the more grown-up sequel to The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants movies that we’ve been waiting for.
The Mortuary Collection
The Mortuary Collection is the first film on our list that we’ve actually managed to see already. The film screened earlier in the year at Arrow Video FrightFest’s Glasgow event. There’s a clue in the title to its format, and with a word like collection, it is of course an anthology film. In recent years, the anthology film has been a series of short films stitched together with a theme. Here though, each and every story comes from the sole mind of director Ryan Spindell. The setting for our story is Raven’s End Mortuary. This is where Montgomery Dark (Clancy Brown) presides over the funeral rites of corpses, whose histories he keeps recorded in the countless books on his shelves. One day, a young woman named Sam (Caitlin Fisher) answers his ‘Help Wanted’ sign, and her curiosity about death and his past “clients” leads Dark to relate a few of the most bizarre tales.
Five Rules of Success
A couple of years ago, Orson Oblowitz screened home invasion nightmare Hell is Where the Home is (also known as Trespassers) to Arrow Video FrightFest. The film added some nice spins on expected tropes, and was an intriguing enough prospect that Oblowitz went straight onto our ‘directors to keep an eye on’ pile. Now Fantasia will host the debut of his next project, The Five Rules of Success, and it’s sure to be something special. In it, Santiago Segura stars as X, an ambitious ex-con determined to make a better future for himself, no matter the adversity. Just from watching the trailer, it’s clear that the film is going to be a thing of cinematic beauty, which looks like it’ll juxtapose nicely against the harshness of X’s nature.
The Travelling Cat Chronicles
In addition to a ton of new movies, Fantasia will also be hosting some Fantasia Classics, including Kôichirô Miki’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles, which originally screened in 2018. Due to the nature of the film, the fact that watching the trailer alone brings a tear to the eye, and that this writer was pregnant and highly emotional when it last screened, it was missed from our coverage. Fingers crossed two years is enough time to have steeled myself, as despite the inevitable need for tissues, this film looks like a feel-good crowd-pleaser. Based on the novel by Hiro Arikawa, the film follows Satoru (Sôta Fukushi) and his beloved cat Nana (with the voice of Mitsuki Takahata). Devastatingly, Satoru has to give Nan away and the pair travel across the country as he tries to find a suitable new owner. The cats have already dominated the Internet; it looks like they’re coming after Fantasia now.
Hail to the Deadites
Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead is a horror film that has inspired a whole generation of filmmakers, and is seen by many as a true classic. Over the following years, Raimi also made Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, and established Bruce Campbell’s Ash as one of horror’s great heroes. There has also been a fairly faithful remake, a television show, and even a musical, based around the film, so it’s safe to say that it has become somewhat of a phenomenon. Documentary Hail to the Deadites, from director Steve Villeneuve, offers an in-depth look into what makes the films so bewitching. It’s the perfect excuse to give the originals a (re)watch in preparation for the doc.
Jumbo
Another one that we were able to catch earlier in the year; we simply adored Jumbo, and Abi Silverthorne gave it the full five-star treatment. In her review, she described it as being ‘electrifyingly good, irresistibly funny, and visually stunning’. It stars Portrait of a Woman on Fire‘s Noémie Merlant as devastatingly shy and socially awkward fairground worker, Jeanne. When Jumbo (the latest ride addition to the park), stirs itself to save Jeanne’s life after she slips off a metal arm whilst cleaning it on a night shift, their relationship deepens. That’s right, this is a romantic dramedy that is all about a woman falling in love with a fairground ride. It is based on the real-life reports from a few years back that covered a woman whom got the world’s attention when she legally married a fairground ride.
These films are just the tip of the iceberg of what Fantasia has to offer. For a sneaky peak at some of the other films screening during the festival, check out the official trailer below:
Fantasia Festival kicks off online on 20th August and runs until 2nd September 2020. For more information head to their website.
