After covering the festival remotely last year, I made the return to Montreal this year to cover the 22nd annual Fantasia Film Festival. It was definitely a very busy festival …
Fantasia 2018
Here are my thoughts on the few short films I saw at the 2018 Fantasia Film Festival. Fauve Two boys play a seemingly innocent power game, which quickly turns dire. …
Four friends discover a portal leading to alternate realities in Parallel. Josh (Marc O’Brien), Lena (Georgia King), Devin (Aml Ameen) and Noel (Martin Wallström) are four members of an upstart tech development company, …
A comic artist gains superhuman abilities after undergoing an experimental transplant procedure in Lôi Báo. Tam (Cuong Seven) is a young artist striving to make Vietnam’s first superhero comic. However, Tam …
A 12 year old boy struggles to survive a trip to his grandfather’s farm in Knuckleball. Despite some apprehension from his mother Mary (Kathleen Munroe), 12 year old Henry (Luca Villacis) is dropped …
A woman spends Halloween night with her PTSD-suffering husband in Hurt. It is Halloween night in the small town of New Caney, Texas and Rose (Emily Van Raay) is reunited with her …
An unconventional police force tries to take down a deadly gang in The Outlaws. Inspector Ma (Don Lee) is the head of the Serious Crimes Unit in Seoul’s Garibong neighbourhood, which is …
A middle-aged rock star takes a soft-spoken street musician under his wing in LOUDER! Can’t Hear What You’re Singin’, Wimp!. Sin (Sadao Abe) is a middle-aged rock star, who has been injecting …
A teenage girl undergoes some unexpected changes in Blue My Mind. Mia (Luna Wedler) is a 15 year old girl, who has just moved to a new town and has lived for …
A trio of college freshmen get more that they bargain for they try to join an extremely exclusive fraternity in Pledge. David (Zack Weiner), Ethan (Phillip Andre Botello), and Justin (Zachary …
A geochemistry professor is asked to consult on a murder case in Laplace’s Witch. Within a short period of each other, two individuals are killed of hydrogen sulphide poisoning near a hot spring. …
An undead teenage girl befriends blind boy in The Dark. Mina (Nadia Alexander) is a cannibalistic undead teenager, who haunts an isolated forested area known as the “Devil’s Den.” After dispatching …
A group of teenage punks find themselves stalked by a psychotic park ranger in The Ranger. After her boyfriend Garth (Granit Lahu) stabs a police officer during a drug raid at …
A high school student who sees dead people finds himself recruited to a group of spirit-hunting warriors in Bleach. Ichigo Kurosaki (Sota Fukushi) is a teenager, who has had the power …
A young woman’s past catches up to her in The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion. A decade ago, Ja-yoon (Kim Da-mi) escaped from a facility experimenting with telepathic kids and found refuge …
Multiple individuals are tormented by supernatural creatures emerging from a haunted hotel in Rokuroku: The Promise of the Witch. One day out of the blue, Izumi receives a call from her old …
The best goddamn cop on the force has to deal with an infestation of vampire tramps in Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires. Chuck Steel (Mike Mort) is a jacked up …
A taxi driver is pursued by a demon in Luz. One night, Luz Carrara (Luana Velis) stumbles into a police station, in fear of a demon that is pursuing her. Elsewhere, the …
A shapeshifter tries to reconnect with a past love in Lifechanger. For most of his life, Drew (Bill Oberst Jr.) has had the ability to take on the form of other …
A slacker goes to great lengths to find out what happened to his neighbour in Under the Silver Lake. Sam (Andrew Garfield) is directionless man in his mid-30s, whose daily routine involves …
A webcam model’s life falls apart after being replaced online by a doppelganger in Cam. Alice (Madeline Brewer) is a young woman, who performs nightly webcam sex shows under the alias …
An actress working on a horror film develops a connection with her deformed co-star in Chained for Life. Mabel (Jess Weixler) is the lead in a horror film directed by a pretentious …
A number of individuals receive unforgettable birthday gifts on the day before the world ends in I Have a Date with Spring. A struggling filmmaker (Kang Ha-neul) sits by the lake …
A family experiences paranormal activity following the death of their mother in Satan’s Slaves. Rini (Tara Basro) lives with her parents and brothers Tony (Endy Arfian), Bondi (Nasar Annuz), and Ian …
A morgue attendant, who can talk to the dead, ends up cursing himself and his family in The Nightshifter. Stênio (Daniel de Oliveira) works night shifts at the morgue in São Paulo and …
A low-level thug gains the ability to travel in time in Mega Time Squad. Johnny (Anton Tennet) is a low-level drug dealer in Thames, New Zealand, who hangs with his friend Gaz (Arlo Gibson) …
A British journalist seduces an ISIS recruiter online in Profile. As a means to do research for a news story, Amy Whitaker (Valene Kane) creates a fake Facebook profile in an …
A young gang member is taken in by a pair of assassins in Neomanila. In the near future, extrajudicial executions of drug dealers have become a way of life in Manila. In …
A broken hearted warrior goes on an epic quest in a dystopian world in Crisis Jung. The love between Jung and Maria is disrupted by the arrival of Petite Jesus, who …
A man is stationed on an island inhabited by amphibious creatures in Cold Skin. In the fall of 1914, a young man (David Oakes) sails to an isolated island in the …
Two brothers seek revenge for the murder of their father in Buffalo Boys. After spending two decades in exile in the American Wild West, Arana (Tio Pakusadewo) and his two nephews …
The story of the only American artist convicted for obscenity is told in Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana. In the late 1980s, Florida-based teenager Mike Diana began his underground …
A young man suspects his next door neighbour of being a serial killer in Summer of ’84. Davey Armstrong (Graham Verchere) is a fifteen year old paperboy in the small town of …
This review was originally published as part of my coverage of Hot Docs 2018 The development of a video game is followed from start to finish in Playing Hard. Jason Vandenberghe …
A mysterious figure tells four stories to a bigoted industrialist in Tales from the Hood 2. Portifoy Simms (Keith David) is invited to Dumass Beach Industries to help with the programming of …
A 20-something man’s new laptop puts him into the cross-hairs of a shadowy hacker group in Unfriended: Dark Web. Matias (Colin Woodell) is a young man, who acquired a new laptop that …
Tomorrow marks the start of the 2018 Fantasia International Festival, which will be taking place from July 12 to August 1 in Montreal. After covering the festival remotely from Toronto …
In just over a week, I will be heading to Montreal to attend the 2018 Fantasia International Film Festival. In advance of this, I recorded a Patreon-exclusive podcast, where I …