The 22nd Fantasia International Film Festival is coming to Montreal, Quebec, from July 12 – August 2 and, as usual, they have an amazing array of genre fare on display. Below are the horror films screening at Fantasia that we’re most excited about. The brief descriptions are from Fantasia’s website, and you’ll find more information by clicking on the link.
1. Chained for Life; dir. Aaron Schimberg; USA, 2018
“On the set of a horror film with artistic pretensions, made in the United States by a great European auteur, the beautiful Hollywood actress Mabel (Jess Weixler, from cult film TEETH) admits to being outside her comfort zone. She plays the role of a blind woman and the film she’s in, already anticipated by the media to be in bad taste, deals explicitly with deformity. The production has even brought on several disabled actors, including Rosenthal (Adam Pearson, seen in UNDER THE SKIN and DRIB), a nervous comedian with a major facial deformity. Mabel struggles to identify with him, but as their characters connect on camera, the actors do the same behind it. And as the film crew walks on the eggshells of political correctness and strange rumors begin to circulate about the abandoned hospital serving backdrop to the production, the boundaries between reality and fiction, fair representation and exploitation cinema, become excessively porous…”
2. What Keeps You Alive; dir. Colin Minihan; Canada, 2018 (Release date: August 24)
“This is a film best experienced with zero advance knowledge so if you trust us, stop reading now and go get a ticket! For those less faithful, here we go: True love can’t always be trusted. This discomforting life lesson is learned in the most pulverizing way when Jules (Brittany Allen) finds herself barely escaping death at the hands of her wife Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson), deep in the country on the eve of their one-year wedding anniversary. Shocked, heartbroken and terrified, she tries to piece together the whys and whats of her situation while doing everything she can to simply stay alive. An electrifyingly intense game of interpersonal cat-and-mouse begins as literal blood, sweat and tears – and heaps of adrenaline – flow in rivers.”
What Keeps You Alive and Hurt
3. Hurt; dir. Sonny Mallhi; Canada & USA, 2018
“A peaceful sky, wind in the trees, a ladybug sitting on a blade of wheat. Nothing happens in New Caney, Texas. On Halloween night, the picture-perfect Americana of this farming town is quiet, and remains undisturbed. Time moves painfully slowly. Rose sits by herself, smoking a cigarette, scaring the kids away. She wears a mask, like so many others that night. With her husband, freshly back from the war, Rose is off to the village’s annual horror show. Everything is fake – the scar, the red paper blood and the harness on the hanged woman. Only death is real. But the only way to tell you about death is to let you see it for yourself.”
4. Summer of 84; dir. Amouk Whissell, Francois Simard, and Yoann-Karl Whissell; Canada & USA, 2018
“‘The suburbs are where the craziest shit happens,’ 15-year-old Davey Armstrong (Graham Verchere) tells us at the beginning of SUMMER OF ’84,, and he should know. It’s June of the eponymous year in Ipswich, Oregon, and Davey is spending his days and nights hanging out, talking about sex and the finer points of STAR WARS sequels, and playing “manhunt” with best friends Eats (Judah Lewis), Woody (Caleb Emery) and Curtis (Cory Gruter-Andrew). The innocent fun ends when Davey begins to suspect that his next-door neighbour, outwardly friendly cop Wayne Mackey (Rich Sommer), is the Cape May Slayer who has been preying on kids his age in the area. Davey recruits his pals to help investigate and expose Mackey, initiating an adventure that threatens to turn dangerous and deadly for the boys at any moment.”
5. Pledge; dir. Daniel Robbins; USA, 2019
“There’s no shortage of real-life horror stories about fraternity pledging gone wrong, so push that idea a bit further and you’ve got the ideal scenario for white-knuckle survival horror. Ultimately, PLEDGE asks just how far would you go to join the in-crowd? Directed by Daniel Robbins (werewolf comedy UNCAGED, crime caper THE CONVENIENT JOB), the movie follows three freshmen pursuing what they think is the ideal college experience. But despite their best efforts, the goofy and likeable David (screenwriter Zack Weiner), Ethan (Phillip Andre Botello) and Justin (Zachary Byrd) get the cold shoulder from the campus frats. They’re ready to throw in the social towel when they meet the gorgeous Rachel (Erica Boozer), who invites them to a party at a mansion in the country. What could possibly go wrong?”
6. Tales from the Hood 2; dir. Darin Scott and Rusty Cundieff; USA, 2018
“Horror is back in the hood! The sequel to the groundbreaking original film TALES FROM THE HOOD reunites executive producer Spike Lee (Honorary Academy Award® winner) and writers/directors/producers Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott for an all-new gripping, horrifying and oftentimes devilishly comical anthology. Keith David stars as a contemporary Mr. Simms to tell bloodcurdling stories about lust, greed, pride and politics through tales with demonic dolls, possessed psychics, vengeful vixens and historical ghosts. Mr. Simms’s haunting stories will make you laugh… while you scream.”
Tales from the Hood 2 and Unfriended: Dark Web
7. Unfriended: Dark Web; dir. Stephen Susco; USA, 2018; release date: July 20, 2018
“Game night is always fun night for friends Matias, Damon, Serena, Nari, AJ and Lexx as they play together online for hours on end over Sykpe, this week going with Cards Against Humanity. This week’s game should be no different, except for the used laptop that Matias has just acquired to help develop his new software to help him communicate with his girlfriend Amaya, who is hearing-impaired. But that new computer has some very dark and dangerous secrets, which Matias and his friends begin to unravel over an increasingly tension-filled night. As the evening progresses and the stakes get raised to deadlier levels than before, Matias and friends discover the cards are indeed stacked – not against humanity, but against their very lives.”
8. Mandy; dir. Panos Cosmatos; Belgium & USA, 2018
“The peaceful existence of Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) in the Shadow Mountains of 1983 is burned to the ground when a deranged religious sect fixates on Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), the love of his life and, as is soon made very evident, a significant grounding force in his universe. Things deteriorate into a tranced-out nightmare of insect venom, hard drugs and broken-minded delirium as Red journeys into hell in order to avenge the woman he once lived for. Blood will flow in rivers. Worlds will collapse unto themselves.”
Check out our feature on Panos Cosmatos’ first film, Beyond the Black Rainbow, here.
9. Cold Skin; dir. Xavier Gens; France & UK, 2018
“In the early years of the 20th century, a young man (David Oakes) takes over the responsibility of surveying the weather of a secluded island in the Antarctic. Hoping for isolation and time for self-reflection, he instead finds a crazed and weathered person named Gruner, played by genre favourite Ray Stevenson (DEXTER, THOR, DIVERGENT). Gruner quickly reveals that there is more to this island than meets the eye and that below the icy depths, a terrible scourge lurks. The extent of Gruner’s madness slowly becomes more and more pronounced as his bloodlust for the creatures becomes apparent. Struggling for survival, the surveyor must choose between a madman and a legion of creatures he does not fully understand.”
Cold Skin & Anna and the Apocalypse
10. Anna and the Apocalypse; dir. John McPhail, 2018; limited US release December 7, 2018
“Ah, Christmas. The time for peace on Earth, good will to all and much merry-making. Thing is, Anna can’t quite get in the Christmas spirit just yet. She’s a popular girl who seems to have everything, but deep down her teenage desires nurse a yearning to leave her small U.K. town, her friends, her family and the world she’s known for new adventures and a new life. Not that it will be easy: her lifelong best friend is deeply in love with her, her father thinks she’s staying put and her friends don’t share her desire to see the world. And one momentous day, just before Christmas, Anna knows she’ll have to tell everyone that her future plans don’t include them. If only there was something that could help her delay telling everyone she’s gonna bolt? How about a zombie apocalypse? Okay, how about a musical zombie apocalypse? That should just about do it.”
11. Blue My Mind; dir. Ov German; Switzerland, 2018
“Blue. Of the bewildered spirit intermediating between child and sea. Blue is the colour of Mia (Luna Wedler), 15 years old, newly arrived in a town that looks like all the others. Breaking away from the sterile environment provided by her parents, she is drawn to the pack of popular kids, the ones who smoke, shoplift, mess around. Mia has everything, yet she suffocates. Then comes an odd thirst, an irresistible instinct that has her reaching out for air where there is none. In her head are the turbulent sounds of crashing water against the pebble beach. In her tortured flesh, the alienation of nature, the terrifying and unstoppable transformation of her body conflicting with the need for stillness, to press pause on the perfect breath.”
12. The Witch in the Window; dir. Andy Mitton; USA, 2018
“Divorced dad Simon (Alex Draper) brings his 12-year-old son, Finn (Charlie Tacker) out to Vermont to help him renovate an old house he recently purchased. Used to the speed of New York City, Finn has an impossible time slowing down to a smalltown pace, and he’s disappointed before even getting there. So is Simon (“I guess I was hoping I would catch you on the 12 side of 12, instead of the 13 side of 12”). Afflicted with a rare medical condition in which there’s a literal hole in his heart, Simon, ever resourceful, does what he can to make things good as he and his son attempt to repair what’s broken. Soon, a series of nonsensically terrifying happenings occur, nightmarish and incomprehensible. It becomes clear that they aren’t alone in the house. That there is more work to be done than either could be capable of grasping. That death is a partially living state. And that they are in a very special kind of danger.”
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