The Fantasia International Film Festival kicks off this week in Montréal, ushering in an exciting new slate of feature films and selected shorts.

According to their official website, the festival, which is celebrating its 28th edition this year, aims to explore genre cinema while providing a festive environment where emerging artists can generate exposure alongside some of their local and international counterparts. The festival highlights both Canadian and world cinema as it celebrates established voices and nurtures new filmmakers into the industry.

This year, the festival will showcase more than 150 feature films and 200+ shorts throughout the coming weeks. Fantasia kicks off with the world premiere of Ant Timpson’s Bookworm (2024), a fantastical adventure film starring Elijah Wood of Lord of the Rings fame. The festival will also feature workshops and various awards; the 2024 Cheval Noir career award, for instance, will be presented to U.S. filmmaker Mike Flanagan — known for his work on titles like Midnight Mass (2021), The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and Doctor Sleep (2019).

Our very own Danny Jarabek and Paul Rai, who will be attending Fantasia Fest virtually, outline their most anticipated titles for the festival.

Chainsaws Were Singing

Part of what makes Fantasia Fest such a unique experience are the bizarre, out-of-the-box ideas that would not make sense for a traditional studio to invest in making. The idea of a bloody, campy horror musical involving a chainsaw-wielding killer chasing two lovers would not make sense to most people. Yet, enter writer/director Sander Maran, who took ten years to bring his gonzo-crazed vision to life that fuses sing-a-longs, bloody, goopy kills, tonal clashes of romance and horror and you have a film that may be just crazy enough to work. Fantasia Fest is meant to spotlight the do-it-yourself energy and spiritedness that calls back to the works of independent filmmakers of the 1990s like Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith. Chainsaws Were Singing (2024) is not meant to be taken seriously, yet, the commitment and effort by Maran can’t help but make you feel like it should be considered seriously, as one could seriously consider maximalist, exploitative violence. – Paul Rai

Oddity

With a world premiere at SXSW earlier in 2024, Oddity from writer/director Damian McCarthy has already staked its claim amongst the year’s best horror. Even as the genre has produced a whirlwind of successful titles through the midpoint of the year, Fantasia Fest looks to add to the conversation with further promotion of this Irish supernatural story that follows a psychic medium who attempts to uncover the truth behind her sister’s murder at the site of the crime. Early reactions have praised McCarthy as a future voice of horror, putting it firmly within my most anticipated of the festival. – Danny Jarabek

The G

One of the fun surprises when it comes to genre films is seeing veteran actors lend their talents to small projects that benefit from having immensely talented actors helping to give more attention than otherwise would normally be afforded. Dale Dickey is one of Hollywood’s most unsung heroes, with her uniquely-distinct look that could stop you in your tracks and piercing eyes that could cut through butter, no acting veteran like Dickey can transform characters the way she does. Karl R. Hearne writes and directs Dickey as Ann, a vengeful grandmother (referred to as “The G” by her granddaughter, played by Romane Denis) after she is placed in in-home care through a dishonest maneuver by an insidious legal guardian, Rivera (Bruce Ramsay). She embarks on a cold road of revenge in her wintery industrial town. There are so few roles for older women to play, and in a year where June Squibb at 94 years old can still prove she’s got it with the crowd-pleasing Thelma (2024), and for Dickey to take it in the opposite direction of not winning sympathy or endearing herself to the audience only proves this is a must-watch for movie lovers to appreciate the on-screen talent of a great actress. – Paul Rai

Rita

Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante burst onto the scene in 2019 with La Llorona, and he is bringing his follow-up feature, Rita, to Fantasia Fest this year. Starring Giuliana Santa Cruz, the story follows her as a 13-year-old girl, who runs away from her abusive father to the big city. She finds solace until she’s placed in a safe house run by the State. Rita and her cellmates plot an escape that ends in a shocking act of violence. The story is expected to tread into the territory of magical realism wrapped in the tragedy of real-life events where 41 women were burned to death in a Guatemalan orphanage. Newcomer Santa Cruz has a challenging set of tones to balance at the center of the film, and if she pulls it off, Rita may be another major step forward for Bustamante. – Danny Jarabek

The Tenants

The Tenants (2023) is a science-fiction examination of a future that values human life as commodities for capitalist convenience which is horrifying. Writer/director Eun-Kyung Yoon creates a dystopic world of Seoul, where citizens combat issues of housing costs and loneliness by implementing a program that allows tenants to rent out part of their spaces to other people. But unlike the rent roommates, which most of us utilize today, the lines between privacy and boundaries are crossed as young Shin-dong (Heo Dong-won) finds himself struggling with maintaining a standard of living that will soon unravel his life into an unsettling nightmare. Shot in beautiful black-and-white cinematography, The Tenants looks to be a great mark of a filmmaker using the science fiction genre to tell a personal story of adapting to the pressures of the modern world and what we end up inviting that comes at the cost of our personhood.  – Paul Rai

Bookworm

Although Fantasia Fest may be best known for its selection of genre and horror films, this year’s opening night selection, Bookworm, is a heartwarming affair for the whole family. Director Ant Timpson reteams with Elijah Wood (after working together on Come to Daddy in 2019), in an adventure comedy where Wood as an estranged father takes 11-year-old Mildred (Nell Fisher) camping to find a mythological beast known as the Canterbury Panther. Unexpected familial relationships immediately bring to mind Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and a necessary feel-good venture to explore on Fantasia’s slate. – Danny Jarabek

Article Courtesy of Danny Jarabek, Paul Rai, and Carson Burton

Feature Image Credit to Fantasia Fest via Nerd Reactor

All Images Courtesy of Fantasia Press