Montreal’s Fantasia Festival is officially underway and although we’re only finishing up the first week, I already caught a handful of discussion-worthy titles. Below you’ll find my thoughts about the South Korean dark comedy Next Door, the wilderness horror
8
With six Academy Award nominations for visual effects, including two wins (Jurassic Park, Return of the Jedi), it’s safe to call Phil Tippett an animation legend. Mad God is Tippett’s passion project, made up entirely of traditional, stop-motion animation and creature fabrication.
7
Not the most suspenseful or terrifying body-horror creature feature, but its unique metaphorical approach leaves us with something to ponder about regarding family relationships and parenting.
5
leaves Seriously Red toothless for a film patterning itself after a woman known for her indomitable gumption.
In a secluded room above a church, a group of posh and affluent white women sip tea and eat dessert while making polite conversation. Then, like a switch being flipped, casting all their pleasantries into a new light, school teacher Emily (Stefanie
7.5
The still relatively new phenomenon of YouTube fame has brought about a new breed of celebrity with the platform’s ascension to the upper echelons of popular media and, with it, new inquiry into the accountability of the YouTuber star. While it might
7
The slapstick, heavy-found-footage horror Deadstream works much better as a sendup of exploitative YouTuber culture than as a Raimi-esque horror comedy.
7.5
The world of professional skateboarding during its ascendance into mainstream popularity inarguably has the aura of an insulated “boys club,” born out of and maintained within California. For those not entrenched in the skating community, the likelihood of their familiarity with any
2
With a meaningless story, underdeveloped plotlines, and a cringe-worthy performance from Emory Cohen, Big Gold Brick makes for a disappointing feature debut from Brian Petsos.
6.5
The horror genre has always wrung tension and thrived around the plausibility of the supernatural and stringing the audience along over whether what they think is happening is actually happening. As of late, this quality has been invoked by what was once
6.5
You expect food to be the central focus of A Taste of Hunger, given the title and the fact that the film centers on a chef named Carsten (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). What’s unexpected is the references to food and cooking that exist outside
5.5
With Freeland, filmmakers Mario Furloni and Kate McLean deliver a small and intimate story embedded within the politics of marijuana legalization, that, while decent, just ends too soon for us to get emotionally involved.
While Devi (Krisha Fairchild) walks around the Cannabis
7.5
Taking a human-centric look at platform capitalism, The Gig is Up is an informative and succinct approach to the nuances and trappings of the gig economy.
5
Video game adaptations are often a precarious prospect when it comes to transitioning to the big screen; studios can’t seem to get the transition right, either losing sight of – or perhaps just not recognizing – what makes the game so successful
8
I have no idea what compelled director Aristotelis Maragkos to remix the 1995 TV miniseries The Langoliers, but I’m very glad he did because this is certainly one of the most unique storytelling methods I’ve experienced this year, and it’s one that
5
The atmosphere of South of Heaven feels like an action movie shoved inside a drama with a love story and a life-threatening-disease crisis sprinkled on top, yet even its charming leads can’t dig their way out of this one.
