Next week sees Canada's largest genre film festival Fantasia kick off its 28th edition and with it an incredibly stellar line-up of international, acclaimed films that we are super looking forward to checking out. Based in Montreal, the festival has become one of the fastest growing attended and culturally important genre film festivals in the world.
This year sees one of our favourite filmmakers Mike Flanagan being honoured with the festival’s Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award. He will also be a featured guest during the festival aswell as introduce 'Shelby Oaks', which he produced. Lauded by industry professionals and film fans alike and described by Quentin Tarantino as "The most important and prestigious genre film festival on this continent", this year's festival runs from July 18th to August 4th
For the second year in a row we'll be covering the festival remotely and now that the final wave of films has been revealed, here's some of the top horror and thriller feature films (in no particular order) that we can't wait to see.
ODDITY - Canadian Premiere
Fellow Irishman Damian McCarthy's follow-up to his 2020 creepfest 'Caveat' follows Darcy, played by Carolyn Bracken, as she attempts to find out more about her sister's murder a year prior. Like his previous feature film, 'Oddity' features a strangely sinister creature, this time an ominous looking wooden mannequin and the trailer promises unsettling imagery. Bracken was fantastic in Kate Dolan's 'You Are Not My Mother' Very excited.
HELL HOLE - World Premiere
Horror's most amazing indie filmmaking family return to Fantasia with another World Premiere on the back of their gloriously southern gothic 'Where the Devil Roams' from 2023. Being described as an old school sci-fi horror 'Hell Hole' was inspired by a family road trip through Canadian oil fields and will reportedly feature a monster of some kind. Every film the Adams' release gets better and better and their writing and style of filmmaking is maturing. Hard work pays off.
PÁRVULOS - World Premiere
Described as a "dystopian coming of age horror story" and a "a nightmarish vision that he’s spent the last seven years bringing into light" Párvulos is Mexican filmmaker Issac Ezban's most personal film to date and follows three brothers who try to deal with a monstrously dark secret hiding in their basement. Ezban reveals that he is trying to keep the majority of the film underwraps right now because where the film goes will "pull the breath from your lungs".
THE BEAST WITHIN - World Premiere
Everybody loves a good werewolf movie right? The problem is that it's hard to find a good werewolf movie these days. Well we are confident that this is going to change once Kit Harrington morphs into a beast in Alexander J. Farrell's debut feature film. The director's previous experience in documentary filmmaking might add something a bit different and the "modern day fairytale" comparisons are making us salivate.
AZRAEL - Canadian Premiere
This film will likely be a bit like marmite, you either LOVE it or HATE it. 'Azrael' is a survival folk horror with a gimmick - there's almost zero dialogue. But we love and admire films that challenge themselves and the status quo so we have very high hopes for this one. It also helps that the titluar character is played by the amazing Samara Weaving, who happened to pick up Best Actress at Panic Fest for her performance. And it was written by Simon Barrett of 'You're Next' and 'The Guest' fame.
Honourable mentions go to Chuck Russell's reimagining of 1986 ouija themed horror 'Witchboard', the masterfully crafted single location thriller 'Confession', the gripping Cronenbergian 'Electrophilia' and Japanese groundhog day inspired 'Penalty Loop'. The quirkly talented Alice Lowe has returned behind the camera for her "Monty Python-esque" anti-comedy 'Timestalker' and Dan Stevens & Hunter Schafer lock horns in Tilman Singer's highly anticpated 'Cuckoo'. Yet another hot looking genre film distributed by Neon. What a line-up we think you'll agree.
Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 18th - August 4th
Be sure to check back to our website on a regualr basis during this period to read film reviews and more.
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