Take a trip to the dark side and indulge your taste for wild films, outrageous events, and shocking surprises all under one roof. World-famous genre festival Fantastic Fest is back for its eighteenth edition featuring twenty-nine World Premieres, twenty-four North American Premieres, and eighteen U.S. Premieres. The festival will once again possess Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX from 21st – 28th September.
“The Fantastic Fest team is ready to take you on a journey you won’t ever forget. We’ve taken the best week of the year and supercharged it: more movies, more parties, more fun,” says Festival Director Lisa Dreyer. “If you want to see the best new movies from around the world first with the best audience, Fantastic Fest is the place to be.”
The opening night film for Fantastic Fest 2023 is the world premiere of Legendary Pictures’ The Toxic Avenger, a hilarious and action-packed re-imagining of the classic Troma film from director Macon Blair that features an all-star cast including Peter Dinklage who will pick up the infamous mop to become the toxic hero that no one knew they needed (or wanted) as well as Jacob Tremblay and Taylour Paige with Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon.
The closing night film will be the world premiere of Director Nahnatchka Khan’s slasher-comedy from Prime Video and Blumhouse Television, Totally Killer. Starring Kiernan Shipka as a time-travelling teen out to stop the infamous “Sweet Sixteen Killer,” Totally Killer is equal parts comedic charm and tense thrills. Shocking kills will keep the Fantastic Fest audience on their toes, and the outrageous 1980’s setting will be a fitting lead-in to the closing night festivities.
Fantastic Fest is also honoured to present one of Angus Cloud’s final performances in the world premiere of the thriller Your Lucky Day. Cloud gives an incredible performance as a charismatic and opportunistic criminal in the tense debut feature from Dan Brown.
Other major studio films include NEON’s noir thriller Eileen, director William Oldroyd’s pitch-perfect adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s acclaimed novel, starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway, 20th Century Studios’ sci-fi epic The Creator from FF alumnus Gareth Edwards, Paramount+’s Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, a prequel to the iconic Stephen King novel, and Bleeker Street’s stone age thriller The Origin.
Fantastic Fest is also proud to present the World Premieres of two highly anticipated limited series: the second season of HBO’s 30 Coins, from renowned Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia, and Netflix’s The Fall of the House of USher from genre maestro Mike Flanagan.
Other World Premieres include:
- Director JT Mollner’s Strange Darling, starring Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. Shot on gorgeous 35mm film by Giovanni Ribisi in his feature debut as Cinematographer.
- Jackdaw, an outrageously entertaining action film from Jamie Childs (The Sandman and His Dark Materials).
- A brand new installment of our favorite found footage horror anthology V/H/S/85 from Shudder.
The full line-up of films is listed below:
30 COINS (Season 2, Episodes 1 & 2) – Director – Álex de la Iglesia
100 YARDS – Directors – Xu Haofeng & Xu Junfeng
ACID – Director – Just Philippot
THE ALL GOLDEN – Director – Nate Wilson
THE ALTMAN METHOD – Director – Nadav Aronowicz
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM – Director – Thomas Cailley
ANIMALIA – Director – Sofia Alaoui
BABY ASSASSINS 2 – Director – Hugo Sakamoto
BARK – Director – Marc Schölermann
BLONDE DEATH (Presented by Bleeding Skull) – Director – James Dillinger aka James Robert Baker
BLOOD DINER – Director – Jackie Kong
THE BOOK OF SOLUTIONS – Director – Michel Gondry
BUGGED! (Presented by AGFA and Troma) – Director – Ronald K. Armstrong
CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT
CENTIPEDE HORROR (Presented by AGFA and Error 4444) – Director – Keith Li
COBWEB – Director – Kim Jee-woon
THE COFFEE TABLE – Director – Caye Casas
CONANN – Director – Bertrand Mandico
CONCRETE UTOPIA – Director – Um Tae-hwa
THE CREATOR – Director – Gareth Edwards
CRUMB CATCHER – Director – Chris Skotchdopole
THE CULT OF AGFA TRAILER SHOW (Presented by AGFA) – Director – Joseph A. Ziemba & Bret Berg
THE DEEP DARK – Director – Mathieu Turi
DIVINITY – Director – Eddie Alcazar
DOOR – Director – Banmei Takahashi
EILEEN – Director – William Oldroyd
ENTER THE CLONES OF BRUCE – Director – David Gregory
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (Episodes 1 & 2) – Director – Mike Flanagan
FALLING STARS – Directors – Richard Karpala & Gabriel Bienczycki
THE FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS – Directors – Burnin’ Percebes
FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL VOL. 10 – Directors – Joe Pickett & Nick Prueher
FOUR’S A CROWD – Director – Álex de la Iglesia
A GUIDE TO BECOMING AN ELM TREE – Directors – Skye & Adam Mann
I’LL CRUSH Y’ALL – Director – Kike Narcea
IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN – Director – Kenneth Dagatan
THE INVISIBLE FIGHT – Director – Rainer Sarnet
JACKDAW – Director – Jamie Childs
THE JAR (CHARON) – Director – Bruce Tuscano
KENNEDY – Director – Anurag Kashyap
KILL DOLLY KILL – Director – Heidi Moore
KILLING ROMANCE – Director – Lee Won-suk
KIM’S VIDEO – Directors – David Redmon & Ashley Sabin
THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY – Director – Francis Galluppi
THE LAST VIDEO STORE – Directors – Cody Kennedy & Tim Rutherford
LETTERS TO THE POSTMAN – Director – Felix Dembinski
MANCUNIAN MAN: THE LEGENDARY LIFE OF CLIFF TWEMLOW – Director – Jake West
#MANHOLE – Director – Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
MESSIAH OF EVIL (Presented by AGFA and Radiance Films) – Directors – Gloria Katz & Willard Huyck
MUSHROOMS – Director – Pawe? Borowski
THE NEST (Presented by AGFA and Shout! Factory) – Director – Terence H. Winkless
NOWHERE – Director – Gregg Araki
ONE-PERCENTER – Director – Yûdai Yamaguchi
THE ORIGIN – Director – Andrew Cumming
THE OTHER LAURENS – Director – Claude Schmitz
THE PEOPLE’S JOKER – Director – Vera Drew
PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES – Director – Lindsey Anderson Beer
PROJECT SILENCE – Director – Tae-gon Kim
PROPERTY – Director – Daniel Bandeire
RAGE – Director – Jorge Michel Grau
RESTORE POINT – Director – Robert Hloz
RIDDLE OF FIRE – Director – Weston Razooli
RIVER – Director – Junta Yamaguchi
THE SACRIFICE GAME – Director – Jenn Wexler
SALEM – Director – Jean-Bernard Marlin
SCALA!!! – Directors – Jane Giles & Ali Catterall
SLEEP – Director – Jason Yu
SO UNREAL – Director – Amanda Kramer
SPOOKTACULAR! – Director – Quinn Monahan
SRI ASIH: THE WARRIOR – Director – Upi Avianto
STOPMOTION – Director – Robert Morgan
STRANGE DARLING – Director – JT Mollner
THE STRANGLER – Director – Paul Vecchiali
SUBURBAN TALE – Director – Stephen Alexander
SUITABLE FLESH – Director – Joe Lynch
THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE BARN – Director – Magnus Martens
TIGER STRIPES – Director – Amanda Nell Eu
TOTALLY KILLER – Director – Nahnatchka Khan
THE TOXIC AVENGER – Director – Macon Blair
TRIGGERED – Director – Richard V. Somes
UFO SWEDEN – Director – Victor Danell
THE UNCLE – Directors – David Kapac & Andrija Mardeši?
V/H/S/85 – Directors – David Bruckner, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, Mike Nelson, & Scott Derrickson
VERMIN – Director – Sébastien Vani?ek
VISITORS (COMPLETE EDITION) – Director – Kenichi Ugana
THE WAIT – Director – F. Javier Gutiérrez
WAKE UP – Directors – RKSS
WE ARE ZOMBIES – Directors – RKSS
WHAT YOU WISH FOR – Director – Nicholas Tomnay
WHEN EVIL LURKS – Director – Demián Rugna
WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS – Directors – John Adams, Zelda Adams, & Toby Poser
YOU’LL NEVER FIND ME – Directors – Josiah Allen & Indianna Bell
YOU’RE NOT ME – Directors – Marisa Crespo & Moisés Romera
YOUR LUCKY DAY – Director – Dan Brown
Badges are available now at FantasticFest.com.
