25YL
It’s July, and around here, that can only mean one thing: the Fantasia International Film Festival is gearing up for another year of amazing genre cinema. The 2024 edition of the festival is set to run from July 18 to August 4, and we here at 25YL are ready to bring you all the highlights. We’ll be covering as many movies as we can from this year’s exciting slate, and if you’re wondering what to expect, here’s a sneak peek at some of our most anticipated titles.
JP Nunez
I love Fantasia. It was the first film festival I ever covered, so it holds a very special place in my heart. But even aside from that nostalgia, Fantasia is just one of the best festivals around. It features a nearly unbeatable mix of action, fantasy, and horror every single year, so I’m always grateful when I get a chance to cover it. I absolutely can’t wait to see what fun thrills the 2024 edition has in store, so without further ado, here are my five most anticipated films of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
Shelby Oaks
Let’s start with my most anticipated film at Fantasia this year, Shelby Oaks. It’s about a woman who tries to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of her ghost-hunting sister, but as she delves deeper into the mystery, she gets a bit more than she bargained for. That premise alone is enough to pique my interest, but I knew I wanted to see this movie even before I heard what it was about.
Shelby Oaks was written and directed by the popular YouTube critic Chris Stuckmann, and I’ve been a fan of his for about a decade. In fact, he’s one of my inspirations for becoming a critic, so I’m dying to see what this guy can do as a filmmaker. His keen insights as a reviewer make me confident that he’ll knock it out of the park behind the camera as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being one of the best films of the entire festival.
Brush of the God
Next up, we have Brush of the God. This is a kaiju movie about a pair of teenagers who have to save the world from a many-headed dragon, and if you know anything about my taste in movies, it should come as no surprise that I can’t wait to see this one. I’m a giant monster fanatic, and this film promises to deliver a near overdose of kaiju goodness.
Brush of the God was directed by longtime suit designer and creature sculptor Keizo Murase, and this guy has been around for decades. He’s worked in some of the best giant monster franchises of all time, including Godzilla, Ultraman, Gamera, and even Daimajin, and at the age of 88, he’s finally stepping into the director’s chair. He’s the perfect man to helm a movie like this, and as a super fan of the genre, I can’t wait to see it.
The Chapel
If you’ve seen the fantastic Spanish horror film Piggy, you know why I’m excited for The Chapel. It was directed and co-written by Carlota Pereda, the same woman who wrote and directed Piggy, and that’s enough to make this a must-watch for me. Piggy was one of the best movies of 2022, and I have no doubt that Pereda will totally crush it once again.
On top of that, The Chapel also features one of the most fascinating plot synopses of the entire festival. It takes place during an annual ritual in which people open a sealed chapel said to house a ghost that must be appeased with gifts, and the two main characters are a fake medium and a little girl who needs to get in touch with this spirit. I’m obviously not sure how that story is going to play out, but I can tell you one thing: it sounds intriguing as hell.
Rita
Rita follows a young teenager who finds herself stuck in an abusive all-girls custody facility, and she just might be the hero prophesied to free the residents from their exploitation and mistreatment. That plot synopsis is admittedly a bit vague but consider this. According to Fantasia’s description of the film, Rita is a fantasy horror story in the vein of Guillermo del Toro’s early works, so it’s bound to be an amazing ride
What’s more, Rita was written and directed by Jayro Bustamante, and when I heard that, it sealed the deal for me. This guy also made the fantastic 2019 ghost movie La Llorona, so his name will always pique my interest. He’s proven himself to be an exciting and inventive genre filmmaker, and I absolutely can’t wait to see how this latest project turns out.
House of Sayuri
Last but not least, we have House of Sayuri, a J-horror flick about a family whose new home is inhabited by the vengeful ghost of a murdered girl, and surprisingly, the one who steps up to protect them is the dementia-ridden grandmother. It promises to put a fun, comedic twist on a classic horror trope, and if that’s not enough to grab your attention, the filmmaker behind it has proven himself to be more than capable of crafting a ghostly masterpiece.
House of Sayuri was directed and co-written by Koji Shiraishi, the man who gave us Noroi: The Curse, quite possibly the scariest movie of all time. Seriously, if you haven’t seen Noroi: The Curse, find a way to watch it, and you’ll know why I’m so excited for House of Sayuri. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it might be the scariest film of all time, and if Shiraishi’s latest feature is even half as good as that underseen gem, we’re in for one hell of a good time.
Sean Parker
What’s not to love about the Fantasia Film Festival? Hundreds of movies, brimming with genre weirdness, mouth-covering horror imagery, and just general WTFness. Every year it’s Christmas in July with presents that keep dropping straight into August! This year is no different, and there are so many good selections it wasn’t easy to widdle this list down to just five unmissables. I mean, come on! Jackie Chan is reteaming with his Rumble in the Bronx director for a feudal Kurosawian epic! AND IT DOESN’T MAKE THIS LIST? A Chainsaw-wielding musical summarized as “Monty Python meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Les Misérables,” and IT DOESN’T MAKE MY TOP FIVE? This is where I pull a Tim Robinson and ask you, “What even is this world?” So enough about what didn’t make it, here’s what did:
Azrael
After a stellar outing at SXSW a few months back, I’ve had my radar set on Azrael. Like last year’s No One Will Save You, Azrael is a film of few words that manages to say a lot. Samara Weaving plays the titular character who’s escaped into the woods from the clutches of a cult of mute religious fanatics with her partner Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett). After becoming recaptured, Azrael learns she’s meant to be a demon’s sacrificial offering. A non-stop heartbeat-driven bloody fight for survival and freedom ensues, with bullets and weaponry staining the ground red as our heroine battles her way out.
It’s the job of these summaries to pump you up, but I also want to manage your expectations. The way Azrael is summarized suggests The Last of Us meets John Wick with the pulse-pounding pace of an Evil Dead movie, which is a fun Venn diagram even if it sounds slightly difficult to construct. It just sounds like it may be too good to be true. What I do know is that Simon Barrett, the writer behind The Guest and You’re Next, is penning this one with Channel Zero: The Dream Door and Cheap Thrills director E.L. Katz at the helm. Add to that Samara Weaving (Scream VI, Ready or Not, The Babysitter), who is just utterly fantastic in everything, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, who is revelatory in Femme, and I know Azrael is going to mesmerize me from start to finish. There’s just too much talent here not to get excited for this one.
Rats!
I believe it was Pierce Berolzheimer, director of Crabs!, who told me any film with an exclamation mark at the end is going to be a good time. I may be paraphrasing, but I don’t know that he’s wrong. Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky’s Rats! kind of looks like a chaotic off-the-rails carnival ride that’s headed straight into a brick wall, and I’m here for it. I’m a sucker for a good off-kilter flick.
Beginning in the now seventeen-year-old past of 2007, Raphael (Luke Wilcox) is arrested on a graffiti charge and forced to do community service as penance. Serving only fifty days of that sentence, Raphael is given the option to turn informant so he can move in with his drug-dealing cousin, who has been accused of trafficking WMDs by a delusional local officer. Absurdity follows by way of punk rock music while a plethora of subcultures get involved in the madcap genre comedy reminiscent of Dinner in America or what a Youth in Revolt movie could have been. The Press release also states that Rats! is “Channeling the filth of films like Street Trash and The Greasy Strangler,” so I imagine this one is going to get a little wild and visceral.
Párvulos
We need to talk about Párvulos. Do you know Isaac Ezban’s work? If you’re familiar with The Incident (El Incidente), The Similars (Los Parecidos), or Evil Eye (Mal de Ojo), then you already know Ezban is a low-key genius. When I first came across The Similars, I didn’t stop talking about it for a week. Such a dense love letter to Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, ‘50s pulp comics, monster movies, and perhaps a touch of 2003’s Identity. Whenever I see Ezban’s name now, I take notice. But Párvulos (Toddlers) has all my attention.
The synopsis of Párvulos doesn’t offer much, stating three young brothers live in a woodsy cabin, hiding a dark secret in their basement. Fantasia’s press release gets slightly more in-depth, informing us that this is a dystopian coming-of-age tale and a “horrific vision of childhood’s end at the end of the world.”. Instead of purporting a bottleneck experience, this is a horror film that will forcefully expand the brothers’ world into something they no longer recognize. The Fantasia also reveals that portions of the film were inspired by the director’s familial experiences as one of three brothers, something I can totally relate to, and characterizes the film as somewhat personal while also boasting its compassion and cruelty. Fantasia is promising Párvulos will feature “the most gruesome practical make-up effects the screen has seen in years” as well as promoting a resonating experience that will “stay with you.”
While everything here is vague, I have to admit the mystery carries more of an allure for me. I’m not someone who rushes to see a trailer once it’s released. I appreciate letting the storyteller do their job, enjoying the experience by avoiding spoilers. I’m a huge fan of films like Summer of ’84, Tigers Are Not Afraid, basically anything where kids are the protagonists, and agree with Ezban when he says, “I believe the horror and coming-of-age blend very well, as these stories are a great metaphor to what growing up and discovering another world means. This is not only a story about family, but a story about trying to save a family.”
HEAVENS: The Boy and His Robot
If you thought things were bleak now, just wait for the future HEAVENS: The Boy and His Robot has in store for you. When resources on Earth have dried up, humans begin looking on other planets for what they need, pitting a water-rich Earth against an arid Mars in a decades-long war. Eighteen-year-old Kai (Jonathan See) enlists in Mecha Corps Academy to follow in his late father’s footsteps in the hopes of possibly finding his missing mother on Saturn. Though fiercely intelligent, Kai has to hide his asthma from the military or risk being kicked out of the Mech Corps. With the help of his robot and a group of mercenaries, Kai finds he has to work together to
A labor of love, HEAVENS: The Boy and His Robot took the multihyphenate Rich Ho over a decade to create. Ho serves as the writer, director, producer, art director, composer, VFX co-supervisor, and more. He even invented new cutting-edge VFX technology to take advantage of GPU processors and cloud computing to render post-production imaging in the film and move the process along quickly. This allowed Ho to take his time and creatively focus on building a world that’s uniquely imaginative and intrinsically memorable.
To be honest, I’ve been watching a ton of movies with my nephew lately. Where his tastes are currently of the Iron Giant and Godzilla variety, not only do I think HEAVENS is a movie he’s absolutely going to love, but it’s one my nostalgic self is pretty excited for too. HEAVENS: The Boy and His Robot brings my love for Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim to the surface and combines it with the apropos war satire elements of Paul Verhoven’s Starship Troopers while inferring a Power Rangers kind of multiculturism and teamwork aspect. In our heavily divisive world, a movie about relying on others with different backgrounds may be exactly what we need right now.
Infinite Summer
INFINITE SUMMER – Trailer
Three young women’s week at the beach turns into a transhumanist mystery romp in one Estonian summer. While spending the summer together at a beach house, Grete, Sarah and Mia meet a guy who calls himself Dr. Mindfulness and sells his own meditation app.
Maybe it’s just the title and the time of year, or perhaps it’s my love for the off-beat weirdness that was Jesus Shows You The Way to the Highway because Miguel Llansó’s latest film, Infinite Summer, looks infinitely messed up. The story concerns two young women on the cusp of adulthood who get involved with an app maker with body-altering gasmasks somehow related to the Tallinn Zoo that may or may not induce possession.
This one is gonna get weird! My initial reactions to the film relate mainly to the production quality, a jump up from Llansó’s last film though maintaining the director’s one-of-a-kind cinematic instincts. Infinite Summer is being produced by producers Alison Rose Carter and Jon Read, the team behind Everything Everywhere All At Once, so you know it’s going to be the embodiment of the Fantasia spirit. Moreover, Llansó’s filmmaking talents are unlike anyone else working today, utilizing the exceptionally talented cinematographer Israel Seoane to provide color pops and artistry in every shot. So, Infinite Summer is not going to look like anything other than a Miguel Llansó picture.
I think Infinite Summer is going to present a genre mash-up with a little bit of something for everyone, and honestly, those are always movies that end up being my favorites.
