From today until 26th September, Austin Texas’ Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar cinema will play host to this year’s Fantastic Fest. The film festival champions work within the genre realm and has its finger well and truly on the pulse of movies certain to generate buzz in the weeks and months to come. One such success story from the 2023 edition was J T Mollner’s Strange Darling. The film, which stars Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner has dominated online chatter for weeks and arrives in UK cinemas this week.
As with previous years, THN will be bringing our loyal readers a selection of reviews via our remote coverage and we cannot wait to unearth 2024’s gems. We’ve already been fortunate to see several titles and can confirm that the programmers have once again cooked up a heavenly, or should that be hellish, line-up. Whilst everyone is excited to see the likes of the Terrifier 3, VHS:Beyond, and Apartment 7A, THN are here to offer a list of titles further off of the beaten path that we are most looking forward to audiences discovering.
Daddy’s Head
In 2017, Benjamin Barfoot’s comedy horror, Double Date, seduced audiences with its wicked sense of humour. Now, Barfoot is back with their new genre film, Daddy’s Head, which veers off in a very different direction to its predecessor. A slow burn psychological chiller, Daddy’s Head features some genius nightmarish imagery that will rattle around your brain. The isolated rural location ramps up the claustrophobic feelings, and when viewed in the dark and enclosed environment of the cinema, the tension will only be heightened.
When a boy’s father passes away, he is left alone with his young stepmother on a rambling country estate. While they are both wracked with grief, the stepmom struggles deeply with her new role as a single parent. Their relationship becomes strained and difficult, and the beautiful house becomes a prison of pain. The young boy begins hearing ominous sounds and is soon visited by a creature who bears an uncanny, if extremely grotesque, resemblance to his father. However, as is often the case, the grown-ups around him refuse to believe his stories until things spiral so completely out of control that he can be ignored no longer.
Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire
Presented as a true-crime documentary, Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire might have fictitious roots, but that does not stop it from being utterly terrifying. Director and writer Stuart Ortiz has crafted a truly wicked faux true-crime story that, like the best out there, constantly raises the bar. Mixing brutal and graphic crime scenes with supernatural elements, Strange Harvest has plenty going on to entertain a wide variety of tastes.
A faux true-crime documentary about two detectives’ pursuit of an infamous serial killer named Mr. Shiny, who terrorised Southern California for almost two decades.
She Loved Blossoms More
We first caught She Loved Blossoms More at TriBeCa and loved every moment of its surreal and grotesque beauty. Our review spoke highly of the films ‘ability to tantalise and disturb on every level.’ Disappointingly, the film hasn’t been present on the line-up of many festivals since, but we promise that She Loved Blossoms More is going to knock the socks off of Fantastic Fest attendees.
For three brothers racked with grief over the loss of their mother, a wardrobe in their parent’s bedroom is a chance to bring her back into the world of the living. Unfortunately for them, anything that enters comes back… changed. Their tenuous grip on reality loosens even further with the possibility of romance and the re-introduction of their wily magician father (played by Jean-Pierre Jeunet favourite, Dominique Pinon), giving way to Lovecraftian terror.
The Rule of Jenny Pen
James Ashcroft immediately shot to the top of THN’s filmmakers to keep an eye on with 2021’s Coming Home in the Dark. Since then we have waited with baited breath to see what film Ashcroft will cook up to follow his debut. Thankfully our wait is almost over as The Rule of Jenny Pen is set to screen at Fantastic Fest. Whilst we’ve not been able to get our eyes on the film yet, we have no doubt it’s going to be another stone-cold banger, especially with the inclusion of both John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush in the cast.
Confined to a secluded rest home and trapped within his stroke-ridden body, a former Judge must stop an elderly psychopath who employs a child’s puppet to abuse the home’s residents with deadly consequences.
Fantastic Fest runs from 19th September – 26th September 2024.
