Filled with world premiers and special features, the festival has released its final wave of films and it is GLORIOUS! You can read about all the films that will be showing during the 3 weeks celebration on the official festival site, as well as find information for tickets. There are so many amazing films to see this year and we covered a few in our first Fantasia Preview article, but now there are even more to add to our watch list! Here’s what’s got us excited from the final wave of films…
WE ARE ZOMBIES- directed by RKSS
The 27th edition of the festival will end on an especially riotous note with the World Premiere of WE ARE ZOMBIES, the latest from internationally beloved Quebecois cult collective RKSS-François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. Based on the comic LES ZOMBIES QUI ONT MANGÉ LE MONDE (The Zombies that Ate the World), the film is set in a society where zombies, referred to as “living-impaired,” roam among us with no urge to eat flesh. The film stars Megan Peta Hill (RIVERDALE), Alexandre Nachi (1991) and Derek Johns (THE BOYS).
TIGER STRIPES- directed by Amanda Nell Eu
The first amongst her group of friends to hit puberty, 12-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) feels her body changing. In the small rural village in Malaysia where her life is structured around the rules of school and Muslim faith, this could become a problem…a monstrous problem. The first Malaysian film to win the Grand Prize at Cannes’ La Semaine de la Critique, Amanda Nell Eu’s TIGER STRIPES is a delightful addition to the canon of feminist, horror-tinged coming-of-age films: a striking debut that showcases an infectiously rebellious filmmaking spirit and aDIY energy that comes once in a blue moon.
DEVILS- directed by Kim Jae-hoon
Motivated by anger and revenge, homicide detective Jae-hwan is hellbent on taking down a dangerous serial killer named Jin-hyuk. During a frenzied chase, Jae-hwan finally captures the perpetrator but a disastrous accident sends him to the hospital. Upon waking, Jae-hwan finds something is terribly off: he now looks and sounds like Jin-hyuk Director Kim Jae-hoon makes his feature debut with the FACE/OFF-inspired body-swap thriller DEVILS: an over-the-top, thoroughly entertaining thrill ride starring Oh Dae-hwan (DELIVER US FROM EVIL) opposite Jang Dong-yoon (PROJECT WOLF HUNTING) in a gory, cinematic showdown for the ages.
PANDEMONIUM- directed by Quarxx
Winner of Fantasia’s 2016 Jury Prize for Best International Short for A NEARLY PERFECT BLUE SKY, celebrated writer/director Quarxx returns to the festival with the stunning new feature PANDEMONIUM. Drawing on themes found in Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost, the film is a multi-textured existential fantasy topped with signature notes of visceral horror, disturbing fairy tale, wry comedy, and thrills. Exploring the many faces of death — suicide, murder, illness, accident — Quarxx dives deep into the notion of sin without redemption and the frailty of the human condition through the waking nightmare of one confused traveler (Hugo Dillon) who refuses to abandon all hope as he enters the gates of hell.
EIGHT EYES- directed by Austin Jennings
At the breaking point of their dysfunctional marriage, Cass (Emily Sweet) and Gav (Brad Thomas) take a trip through Serbia. After meeting a mysterious local, Saint Peter (Bruno Veljanovski), who eagerly offers to be their guide, the couple embark on an impromptu sightseeing expedition that soon takes a series of sinister turns. The inaugural production from beloved restoration label Vinegar Syndrome, co-produced with the team behind Shudder’s The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs Not the Funeral Home, shot on location in 16mm with mind-bending cinematography, EIGHT EYES shocks hard. Director / co-writer Austin Jennings’ feature debut channels the spirits of exploitation cinema’s past to construct a film that is as ghoulish as it is captivating. Featuring an original score by Morricone Youth.
HOME INVASION- directed by Graeme Arnfield
“Made in bed during the pandemic” by playful experimentalist Graeme Arnfield, HOME INVASION is one of the most chilling cinematic experiences of the year. A nightmarish essay film doubling as an experiential horror film framed through an oppressive peephole, this genre-defying documentary takes the viewer from the invention of the doorbell to the arrival of Amazon’s ghoulish Ring, showing how this history intertwines with film technology, horror cinema and labour struggles. Composed from a mix of archival patent illustrations, domestic security footage and classic film clips from Hitchcock to Haneke, HOME INVASION asks what happens when our homes and dreams have been invaded.
All film synopsis courtesy of Fantasia Festival.