Tag Archives: film festival

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: The Old Man and the Demon Sword — Fantasia Festival 2024

The Old Man and the Demon Sword is screening as part of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 18 to August 4.

Despite being extremely talky with heavily expository dialogue, the plot of Fábio Powers’ The Old Man and the Demon Sword is immediately confusing. Something meant to resemble a force field is cut through by a swordsman and his demon-possessed sword, initiating a battle against skeletal shadow people that no one else can see (save for the random older man of the title, who pops out of the bushes with a knife). The sword wants the barrier to be breached, for reasons I could not quite identify. And some sort of grand council is pulling the strings of the skeleton army, it seems.

The hooded hero has what is meant to be witty banter with the demon sword (João Loy), a trait carried over to the old man Tonho (Antonio da Luz) once he acquires the sword. The film, ostensibly, is an Continue reading Review: The Old Man and the Demon Sword — Fantasia Festival 2024 →

Horror, Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

2024 Fantasia Film Festival Program Preview

It’s time again for the Fantasia International Film Festival. I really enjoy writing about the Montreal-based festival, whose films span multiple genres and celebrate the diversity that the term “genre film” has to offer. As per usual, I want to outline a few titles of interest being featured at this year’s festival.

Fantasia will hold its 28th edition from July 18 to August 4.

Frankie Freako (dir. Steven Kostanski)

Steven Kostanski’s Psycho Goreman was a clever play on a children’s fantasy film (not a children’s film, to be clear). The genre riffs Kostanski has been involved in have Continue reading 2024 Fantasia Film Festival Program Preview →

Lists

Fantastic Fest 2022 Lineup Preview — 5 Films to Watch For

Austin’s Fantastic Fest returns for a 17th year this September, and CineFiles is happy to be covering it again (albeit virtually, but you could experience the fun in person). Fantastic Fest has a number of high profile releases on the docket this year — Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, The Menu, Smile. I want to highlight for you, instead, a few other titles worth keeping an eye on.

 

Give Me Pity

I saw Amanda Kramer’s two new releases, Give Me Pity! and Please Baby Please, at the Fantasia Festival, and I Continue reading Fantastic Fest 2022 Lineup Preview — 5 Films to Watch For →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Next Sohee — Fantasia Festival 2022

July Jung’s Next Sohee is a story told in two nearly equal halves. In the first half, high schooler Sohee (Kim Si-eun) is awarded an externship to work at a call center office. Conditions at the call center are tense and only get worse as Sohee tries to acclimate to a highly competitive environment and training which has her doing everything in her power to delay unhappy customers’ service cancellations.

As Sohee tries to weather the hostile work environment, she grows distant from her friends, suffers in school, and amplifies her alcohol consumption. When she hits the brink, the film fades to black and we switch perspectives to Continue reading Review: Next Sohee — Fantasia Festival 2022 →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Leave it, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

2022 Fantasia Festival Movie Reviews — Megalomaniac, Incredible But True, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra

Megalomaniac, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra and Incredible But True are screening as part of the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 14 – August 3.

Megalomaniac

Megalomaniac is the bleakest film I’ve seen at this year’s Fantasia (and I also watched Speak No Evil, so that’s a high bar to clear). In the case of Speak No Evil, I could better stomach the Continue reading 2022 Fantasia Festival Movie Reviews — Megalomaniac, Incredible But True, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Speak No Evil — Fantasia Festival 2022

Bjorn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) are on holiday in Tuscany with their daughter (Liva Forsberg), where they meet a Dutch family of similar makeup. They share a day or two together and then part ways. Back home in Denmark, Bjorn and Louise receive a postcard from their newfound acquaintances with an invitation to come stay in the family’s home in Holland. They agree, and slowly, methodically, this second vacation becomes one of nightmares.

For the first significant stretch of Speak No Evil, everything reads exceedingly normal, almost unremarkable. Save for that foreboding score. And that Continue reading Review: Speak No Evil — Fantasia Festival 2022 →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Skinamarink — Fantasia Festival 2022

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. There’s so much visual noise in these dark shots that you have to squint just to make out the outline of objects in the frame. Camera placement is often very low or very high, capturing fragments of doorways and hallways. A child hits his head, we’re told, but he won’t require stitches. 15 minutes go by before we see a room in this house fully illuminated. The light at the top of the steps clicks off. Darkness. The boy calls out for his father. No answer. Continue reading Review: Skinamarink — Fantasia Festival 2022 →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Punta Sinistra — Fantasia Festival 2022

Director Renaud Gauthier came into my radar with the 2019 film Aquaslash, a bare-bones slasher film taking place in a water park where a serial killer has inserted large blades inside of a water slide. It appeared to me that Aquaslash was the sort of movie that hearkened back lovingly to the B-movie slashers of the day. The problem was that the film was not well-made in its own right, so instead of coming off as a B-movie homage it came off as a purposeful attempt at the “so bad it’s good” variety (emphasis on the bad). At the very least, Aquaslash was good for a few cheap laughs.

Gauthier’s newest feature, Punta Sinistra, is an ultra low-budget crime film set in Mexico. From its protagonist’s half-baked voiceover, it feels like Gauthier is going for a neo-noir vibe. This hero, a journalist from Canada, travels to the island of “Punta Sinistra” to investigate a Continue reading Review: Punta Sinistra — Fantasia Festival 2022 →

All Movie Reviews, Animation, Comedy, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

2022 Fantasia Festival Movie Reviews — Sissy, Deadstream, The Girl From the Other Side

The Girl From the Other Side, Sissy, and Deadstream are screening as part of the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 14 – August 3.

The Girl From the Other Side

The Girl From the Other Side is a ruminative fairy tale about isolation and family. In a place divided by “inner” and “outer” lands, humans fear the curse given when touched by Continue reading 2022 Fantasia Festival Movie Reviews — Sissy, Deadstream, The Girl From the Other Side →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), musical

2022 Fantasia Festival Movie Reviews — Shin Ultraman, Country Gold, Give Me Pity!

Shin Ultraman, Country Gold, and Give Me Pity! are screening as part of the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 14 – August 3.

Shin Ultraman

Shin Ultraman is the second Toho Pictures reboot of classic characters to be written by Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno, with a third film planned. And Shin Ultraman immediately comes across as a sibling to the 2016 Shin Godzilla, with its Continue reading 2022 Fantasia Festival Movie Reviews — Shin Ultraman, Country Gold, Give Me Pity! →