Fantasia 2018: ‘Wilderness’ Barely Overcomes its Excessive Runtime
Focused on the youth of Japan, Wilderness is an oddly assembled film. Its main narrative centered around Shinji (Masaki Suda) and Kenji (Ik-joon Yang) is...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Rondo’ Starts Strong, Ends Strong, But Suffers In Transition
by Shane Dover
There’s a whole underground world of deviant sexual play out there that most people don’t encounter, and Rondo is one of the few films to...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Tokyo Vampire Hotel’ Somehow Condenses Sion Sono’s Madness
Released originally as a ten-episode series for Amazon, Tokyo Vampire Hotel is the kind of film that could only have come from the mind of Sion Sono....
Fantasia 2018: ‘Tigers are Not Afraid’ is a Morbid Fantasy About Youth
Akin to last year’s The Florida Project, Tigers Are Not Afraid centers around youth trapped in an inhospitable environment. They are always on the run, always keeping an eye...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich’ is a Mean and Gory Kill Compilation
Mean-spirited, bloody, and over-the-top; these seem to be the driving forces behind the creation of Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich. Serving as a soft reboot to...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Bodied’ Muddles Its Raps
by Brian Marks
Battle rap, the musical subspecialty that’s better known today for its parodies, makes a triumphant return in Joseph Kahn’s Bodied. Kahn’s film is often thrilling,...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Heavy Trip’ Provides Entertainment for a Niche Audience
'Heavy Trip' has got enough jokes to sustain itself, and the music is all really good — if you like metal....
Fantasia 2018: ‘Cam’ is Peak Internet Horror
The internet is a scary place. But it’s just the internet, right? At least, that’s what you tend to hear whenever someone falls victim to...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura’ Is Saved by Its Strong Cast
by Brian Marks
Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura is a film displaced in time. It seems to yearn for a simpler time, free of worry and constraint, imbued...
‘The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot’ — A Fascinating Exercise in Genre Reinvention
From the title alone, you might expect The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot to be a grindhouse spoof with excessive violence, exploding pustules, and...
Fantasia 2018: ‘The Nightshifter’ is a Promising but Inconsistent Debut
Stênio talks to the dead, and the dead talk back. A coroner in the crime-ridden city of São Paulo, he’s not lacking for people to...
Fantasia 2018: ‘Last Child’, ‘The Scythian’ and ‘Maquia’
The Fantasia Film Festival’s 2018 installment has already had some incredibly strong entries this year, and while we can’t cover them all with full-length reviews...
Fantasia 2018: ‘The Vanished’ Thinks its More Clever Than it Really is
What begins as a mystery involving a missing body and a tormented detective devolves into a boring procedural that by its conclusion thinks it’s the...
‘Pledge’ Digs Into the Horrors of Frats
by Brian Marks
'Pledge' succeeds in large part due to the strength of Weiner’s screenplay about a horrific fraternity, as well as the talents of the actors involved....
Fantasia 2018: Hide Your Children from ‘Satan’s Slaves’
While 'Satan’s Slaves' doesn’t quite reach lofty heights, it carries itself with enough confidence and tension to satisfy horror fans....
‘Number 37’ Is a Taut Update of ‘Rear Window’
by Brian Marks
One of the highlights of Fantasia 2018 is this update on Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window," now transported to a crime-riddled neighborhood in South Africa....