With 125 features and over 200 shorts, there’s a lot to see at this year’s Fantasia, Montreal’s beloved genre film festival. Given the breadth of cinema being shown at the festival, you’ll want to make the most of your time, so we’ve collected some recommendations, as a quasi-curtain raiser. Of course, you may want to seek out the big name titles of the show, Ari Aster’s COVID-themed Neo-western Eddington and Michael Shanks’ buzzy symbiotic body horror debut Together, but consider that our note on both of those films. Naturally, this should not be taken as a ranking of the quality of the films, but simply a list promoting the films which we feel may be of the most interest to our readers. Preamble out of the way, here are the ten films we think you might want to see at this year’s Fantasia:
Fixed
It’s taken Genndy Tartakovsky’s passion project about a dog and his last night before getting neutered 16 years and 3 studios until it’s finally found release. It began at Sony Pictures, set to be the company’s first adult animated film, eventually was revived at Warner Bros., and finally, landed safely at Netflix, premiering at this year’s Annecy Film Festival (the premier market for buying and selling animated films). Just ahead of its August 13 streaming date on Netflix. Tartakovsky holds high status among animation aficionados as the creator of much-respected series like Dexter’s Laboratory (1996), The Powerpuff Girls (1998), Samurai Jack (2001) and Primal (2019). As a consolation for the film’s original cancelation, Tartakovsky got to direct a few Hotel Transylvania projects for Sony and almost got to make his dream Popeye movie. Alas, here we are this many years later, and he’s still thinking about a dog’s last night of testicular freedom. You win some and you lose some.
Dog of God
We know listing back-to-back animated films about testicular trauma is a bit extra, but Dog of God isn’t even about dog testicles. The film begins with a man’s testicles being removed forcefully by a demon in the opening shot. Some call that foreplay. We just call it our idea of a good time. Dog of God is about men turned into werewolves, is about the faults and fury of the patriarchy and divine femininity. Image burying the lede: It’s also built off dope rotoscoping, with its unique form following in the paw prints Latvian animated sensation Flow (2024). A community of bright minds in animation seems to be flourishing in Latvia and this darkly aesthetic new take on werewolves is more than enough to pique our interests.
Redux Redux
We burnt through the concept of the multiverse very quickly. What felt, a few short years ago, like the big idea at the movies, has been diminished by lame genre entries that do not add meaning beyond the initial concept. Adding value is hard work because it takes original thought. The latest effort from Kevin McManus and Matthew McManus marks some new territory. A mother is grieving the loss of her child by the hand of a killer when she discovers a connection to the multiverse and traverses time and space, as she spends every new permutation of the day tracking down the killer and taking justice into her own hands. Every day she kills him, again and again, until her own sense of moral justice and connection to reality begins to slip away. The directors’ previous film, The Block Island Sound (2020), had good horror concepts with mixed results in execution. Sometimes a missed opportunity can point toward fulfilling that opportunity the next time and that’s what Redux Redux offers, an inflection point where the directors can ideally blend their good ideas with steadier execution.
Terrestrial
From Steve Pink, director of Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), comes a sci-fi infected thriller about the dangers of idolatry. Notable for its performance by Jermaine Fowler (Sorry to Bother You, 2018), Terrestrial finds a sci-fi author hosting friends for a reunion at his home, when his fiction and experience of reality blur into an abstract array of extraterrestrial possibilities.
A Grand Mockery
A Grand Mockery is deep-fried 8mm horror done with aesthetic enthusiasm. A study of self-decay, when one man begins to lose his association with his physical self, his mind also begins to unravel. An Australian indie horror with an Art House ethos, A Grand Mockery is a must-see slice of genre at this year’s Fantasia Festival.
I Live Here Now
Julia Pacino, daughter of Al Pacino, sees here feature debut as director of I Live Here Now, a Lynchian psychodrama wherein a woman is stuck in the limbo of a hotel room where reality begins to seriously fracture. Shot on crisp 16mm, Pacino seeks to breathe new life into ethereal genre filmmaking.
Mother of Flies
Horror filmmakers The Adams Family — John Adams, Toby Poser, and daughter Zelda Adams — continue their legacy of terror with Mother of Flies, a film about a woman who gets a bad diagnosis and seeks the help of a witch from the woods. Morbid and dark, The Adams Family may have another hit and newly joined by their daughter, may keep this train going for generations to come, devil-willing.
Reflections in a Dead Diamond
Experimental directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani bring their stylish surreal spy thriller to Fantasia, a French-Belgian pastiche or retro-modernism. By using the visual language of classic giallo films, mixed with new aesthetic concepts for framing, the filmmaking duo continue their work on their ongoing project to make nostalgia new again.
Bullet Time
Short form throwback to ‘90s cartoons Bullet Time centers on Bullet, a bull terrier who unravels as he competes in an online videogame tournament. Using the imaginative mechanical invention of game language alongside retro toon aesthetics, even in short-form, Bullet seeks to overdeliver. Having taken a whole four years to animate (it’s beautifully hand drawn) and featuring a score from Danny Elfman, it might do just that.
All You Need is Kill
Adapted from the origin manga for the popular Westernized time loop movie Edge of Tomorrow (2014), All You Need is Kill brings the philosophical roots of the story to screen in a visceral new anime, in its first proper feature adaptation. Produced by Warner Bros. Japan and animated by Studio 4°C, All You Need is Kill brings stylish verve to an evergreen concept. Changes are still afoot: The new adaptation adapts the story from a new perspective and traces the philosophy of Nietzschean Recurrence, wherein we obtain mastery by repetition but may wear down our sense of self. A good concept can carry an anime all the way and this is as good as anime concepts get.