Our Most Anticipated Films Playing At Fantasia’s 25th Edition Next Month!

The Fantasia International Film Festival is an almost month-long film festival that I have always wanted to physically attend ever since reading about it in Rue Morgue Magazine. The festival typically takes place in Montreal, Quebec and is one of the top genre film festivals in the world. Due to the world not getting its act together, Fantasia will be a virtual event accessible to audiences across Canada but we will be covering some of the films on Destroy the Brain in the upcoming weeks.

To celebrate, we wanted to give you some of our most anticipated films of the festival!

THE LAST THING MARY SAW

The synopsis for this is definitely hitting some sweet spots for me:

A period occult drama set in an isolated farmhouse in the winter of 1843, where a young woman is under investigation following the mysterious death of her family’s matriarch. It soon becomes apparent that ageless forces are at play, from within and without. An eerie and hypnotic nightmare vision from debuting writer/director Edoardo Vitaletti, starring Stefanie Scott (INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3), Isabelle Fuhrman (ORPHAN), Judith Roberts (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE), and Rory Culkin (LORDS OF CHAOS).

KING KNIGHT

This is the new film by Richard Bates Jr. who directed Excision, Trash Fire and Suburban Gothic. While the film seems more comedy oriented, I’m sure there’s some messed up stuff in it knowing good ol’ Ricky.

STRAIGHT TO VHS

Reading the synopsis sounds right up my alley:

The 80s were the most fruitful years for direct-to-video oddities and in Uruguay, ACT OF VIOLENCE IN A YOUNG JOURNALIST, by Manuel Lamas, is the strangest of them all. Never seen outside of its country of origin, the film has been celebrated as a cult film (à la THE ROOM) by homegrown cinephiles and camp aficionados, while its origins have remained shrouded in mystery for decades… Until now! The behind-the-scenes mystery thickens in Emilio Silva Torres’ feature debut STRAIGHT TO VHS as we tag along on a quest with eccentric characters and through creepy locations to find the man behind one the oddest VHSes ever made.

#BLUE_WHALE

Screenlife films are definitely hit or miss but they seem to be a sub-genre within itself as it seems like it is the new “found footage”.

Spiraling paranoia and gut-wrenching dread tear through #BLUE_WHALE, the feature debut from Russian writer/director Anna Zaytseva, whose shorts have won no less than 16 awards on the festival circuit. A provincial town is shaken by a wave of mysterious teen suicides. Researching the death of her younger sister, schoolgirl Dana (Anna Potebnya) comes across a sickening social media game that encourages youths to take horrific self-harm challenges. Aiming to hunt down those responsible for her sister’s death, she registers for the game, opening a doorway into the cruelest of hidden online worlds. Co-produced by Timur Bekmambetov and shot in the Screenlife storytelling format that he pioneered, #BLUE_WHALE taps into something insightfully disturbing about the ways that teens can find themselves manipulated online.

WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR

I believe this one got picked up by HBO Max and Utopia for release next year.

“Casey here. Today I’m going to take the World’s Fair Challenge.” A lonely teen (Anna Cobb) stares at her computer screen, partaking in a viral game that soon takes hold of her increasingly dissociating mind. A disquieting take on the coming-of-age film, Jane Schoenbrun’s breakout Sundance hit WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR harnesses the potent aesthetics of found-footage horror and YouTube culture to craft a quietly devastating look at loneliness and despondency in the Internet age.

WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR

While I’m sure this will be released this November by Severin Films, it doesn’t make me any less excited to see it. Especially given Kier-La Janisse’s work on Tales of the Uncanny.

Winner of the Midnighter Audience Award at SXSW, Kier-La Janisse’s WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR navigates through over 200 films and 50 interviewees, including Robert Eggers (THE VVITCH), Alice Lowe (PREVENGE), and Piers Haggard (BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW). Starting with British cult classics of the 70s, then travelling to all continents and beyond, and landing in our era alongside the films of Ari Aster and others. A groundbreaking, extensively researched work made over a span of many years, truly no stone is left unturned in this definitive documentary on the expansive genre of folk horror.

JUNK HEAD

I’ve been meaning to see this since it showed at Fantasia previously but there will be a different edit for the film premiering this year.

In 2017, Fantasia revealed to the world Takahide Hori’s one-man stop-motion project, the ambitious, existential, cyber-horror concoction JUNK HEAD. A surprise hit at the festival, it then vanished for five years. At last, this year, a tighter, meaner theatrical edit of JUNK HEAD has been produced, and Fantasia is proud to once again open this portal into Hori’s mind.

BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION

As a huge fan of The Signal, David Bruckner is always on my radar. He has a new film coming out through Searchlight Pictures called The Night House that will be in theatres next month but one of the other contributors to The Signal is Jacob Gentry and he has a film at Fantasia that I’ve been wanting to check out as well. Not to mention, it feels like a more tech-savvy Videodrome.

In the late 90s, a video archivist (Harry Shum Jr) unearths a series of sinister pirate broadcasts and becomes obsessed with uncovering the dark conspiracy behind them. A freakish new nightmare from the director of SYNCHRONICITY, BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION uses real-life broadcast hacks as the jumping-off point for an engrossing technological thriller. Co-starring Kelley Mack and Chris Sullivan. Official Selection: SXSW 2021.

WHAT JOSIAH SAW

“Southern Gothic nightmare”. Shiiiit. That’s all you had to say.

THE SADNESS

This film has been making some waves. While I hear it’s divisive, I also hear it is gory as all get out. I want it in my eyeballs.

In an alternate version of Taiwan, a rapidly spreading pandemic suddenly mutates into a rabies-like affliction, and the infected find themselves unable to control their id. A nightmare vision steeped in unspeakably upsetting moments of violence, Rob Jabbaz’s THE SADNESS plays like a return to the no-holds-barred shock sensibilities of ’90s Hong Kong Category III films. Electrified with an existential fear that punches spikes of panic energy straight into your nervous system, and told with incredible style, THE SADNESS is a force to be reckoned with. Fantasia is proud to be bringing this extreme horror rollercoaster to North American shores, hot off its bow at Locarno.

Phil Tippett’s MAD GOD

Look, if you’re a huge fan of genre film, you should know who Phil Tippett is. He is responsible for revolutionary stop-motion special effects ranging from Star Wars to Robocop to Jurassic Park. Tippett has finally completed his work on his first stop motion feature-length film, Mad God and I cannot wait to see it.

These are just a few highlights of films that have some buzz about them and sometimes the best stuff seen at any film festival are premieres, films that haven’t shown before. Fantasia delivers such a broad spectrum of multiple genres that I can’t wait to dig in. We hope you look forward to our coverage as well as add some films to your watchlist!