In Review: Fantastic Fest 2021

Plot: A young lady moves to London to attend a fashion design school. Almost right away, she begins having very vivid dreams about an aspiring singer in the 60s. Things get worse for her from there.

Review: If you enjoy Edgar Wright films, then you’re really going to dig Last Night In Soho. This movie has all of his usual stylish ticks and slick tricks, but they’re particularly dialed in and the result is a very kinetic horror affair. Thomasin McKenzie really shines here, and Anya Taylor-Joy further cements herself as someone who always makes the most of her screen time. Highly recommended.

Plot: A married couple discover a half lamb, half human baby on their farm in Iceland.

Review: Lamb is a patiently paced and beautifully shot slice of folk horror, which means it’s the exact sort of film you’d expect from A24. Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason excel as two people desperate to not mess up their second chance at being parents, and I’m not sure this film’s increasingly bizarre drip would have worked near as well without both of their grounded and relatable performances. Recommended.

Plot: Set during WWII, a group of super-powered circus performers set out in search of their missing ringmaster.

Review: “No holds barred” is probably the best way to describe Freaks Out, as it is an immensely ambitious and weird film. Seriously, how did this thing even get made? I need to know. Anyhow, I loved everything about it, with the biggest highlights being the dedicated performances and the movie’s wickedly sharp sense of humor. If you’ve ever wanted to see an electric woman, a magnetic simpleton, a wolfman and an insect manipulator take on a 12-fingered Nazi pianist … well, this is it! Highly recommended.

Plot: An actor is really in the thick of it at work – he’s sleeping with the director’s wife and he may be on the outs in favor of another actor. He’s also being pursued by a group of Catholics who say they can reunite him with his mother.

Review: Did you see Alex van Warmerdam’s Borgman (from 2013)? If yes, then you already know what to expect from the equally odd Nr. 10. If you didn’t, then get yourself ready for a rather dry, heady film that will swim around in your head for a long while after the credits have finished rolling. By the way, the ending here is super abrupt and leaves some big questions, but it sure did have me cackling. Recommended.

Plot: Two young girls (who are also assassins) get into trouble with the Yakuza.

Review: There’s a couple of fantastic action scenes in Baby Assassins, and I enjoyed the silly-but-endearing chemistry between the two leads (Saori Izawa and Yukina Fukushima), but the film has some stretches where it really drags. Also – and maybe it’s a cultural thing where the humor of it just never landed with me – but I quickly grew tired of the ever-present subplot that followed the girls’ inability to hold part-time jobs. Somewhat recommended.

Plot: An incident involving a possessed nun drives a fellow nun to return to society.

Review: I really loved how Agnes got underway – a skeptical priest and his devout understudy head out to a remote covenant to perform an exorcism on a possessed nun. These scenes all have a very old school horror feel to them, and you just know that some wild stuff is about to go down. However, the film abandons this in favor of a smaller, more intimate story, and I just didn’t find the pivot to be near as interesting. You might, though. Somewhat recommended.

Plot: A young man has to deal with the aftermath of inviting his estranged brother, who just so happens to be a newly turned vampire, into his home.

Review: Let The Wrong One In works just as often as it doesn’t. When it’s humming, it really feels like a sillier Shaun Of The Dead. And when it’s not, it’ll lose you because it’s just too loud and unfocused. Somewhat recommended.

Plot: A serial killer inadvertently goes viral after he’s filmed kissing a dying woman on the sidewalk.

Review: Name Above Title is a really neat film that features no spoken dialogue, a great soundtrack and some beautiful imagery. It also has a series of closing moments that made no sense to me, so there’s that. At just an hour long though, it’s definitely recommended.

She Will

Plot: After having a double mastectomy, an aging actress heads to a remote retreat with her nurse. Things get weird.

Review: I was surprised to see that She Will is Charlotte Colbert’s directorial debut. The is a very finely crafted film, one with some of the best visuals I’ve come across at this year’s Fantastic Fest, and I would have guessed it came from a much more experienced hand. Either way, I really liked it. If you like a good slow burn, then this one is highly recommended.

Knocking

Plot: A woman keeps experiencing a persistent knocking in her apartment. This is made worse by the fact that no one else seems to know what she’s talking about.

Review: Cecilia Milocco turns in a good performance as a woman on the verge of legit losing her shit, but I had an overall hard time sticking with Knocking. The movie meanders quite a bit and just didn’t fully hold my attention. I bet it would have made a great short film though. Your mileage may vary here.

Barbarians

Plot: Two couples gather for a dinner. It’s a contentious time, to say the least.

Review: It’s just about impossible to look at Tom Cullen and not immediately think of him as the insanely awful Ramsey Bolton from Game of Thrones, so I feel like he deserves double the praise for convincingly playing a feeble character in Barbarians. As for the rest of the film, the dinner scene, which makes up the majority of it, is all kinds of awkward and the manner in which it ends is somehow both nonsensical and perfect. Recommended.

There’s Someone Inside Your House

Plot: Teens are being murdered. Other teens have to figure out who’s doing it.

Review: I pretty much forgot just about all of There’s Someone Inside Your House the moment that it ended, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. The movie is a solid entry into the slasher genre, and since it’s on Netflix, it pretty much requires no effort on your part. Give it a whirl before Halloween.

Hellbender

Plot: A young woman, who spends most of her time in a metal band with her mom, begins to come of age.

Review: I was really looking forward to Hellbender, but it turned out to be a chore. This is an amateurish, half-baked film that just doesn’t go anywhere you actually hope that it will. Not recommended.

Sweetie You Won’t Believe It

Plot: A group of fellas on a fishing trip witness a murder and then end up on the run.

Review: If you like wacky horror comedies, then you’ll probably dig Sweetie You Won’t Believe It. Personally, I found it to be a very hit or miss affair, though with the film being from Kazakhstan, I did wonder how much I didn’t get due to cultural differences. Either way, your mileage may vary here.