Fantasia International Film Festival runs from the 18th July – 4th August. We’ve scoured the program and come up with our must-see list of Fantasia 2024.
CUCKOO – Director Tilman Singer
The last thing teenager Gretchen (Hunter Schafer, EUPHORIA) wants is to be taken from her divorced mother’s home in the States and dragged halfway around the world by her father and his new wife. Yet she winds up with Luis (Marton Csokas, THE EQUALIZER), Beth (Jessica Henwick, THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS) and Beth’s mute preteen daughter Alma (Mila Lieu, DODGER) in the Bavarian Alps, where her dad and stepmom are redesigning a local resort. They’re working for Herr König (Dan Stevens, ABIGAIL), an odd bird who initially comes across as friendly i8and gives Gretchen a desk job at his hotel. From her first night on the job, however, unsettling things begin to happen to and around her, particularly random attacks by a freakish, screaming woman—yet Gretchen has no idea just how bizarre and dangerous things are going to get.
MUST SEE – Tilman Singer burst out the gates with Luz, now we get to see Singer in a bigger, weirder, and freaky sandbox!
AZRAEL – Director E.L Katz
It’s the post-apocalypse and after escaping captivity from a cult of mute religious fanatics, losing their ability to speak in the process, Azrael (Samara Weaving, READY OR NOT) and her partner Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, FEMME) are traversing the treacherous forest in an attempt to evade their captors and keep their freedom. However, after falling back into the clutches of evil, Azreal learns that she will be sacrificed to appease an ancient evil that lurks within the shadows of the trees. Not willing to become demon food for a cult that has only caused her harm, Azrael must fight tooth and nail to secure her and Kenan’s freedom in E.L. Katz’s (CHEAP THRILLS) vicious AZRAEL!
MUST SEE – No dialogue, insane action, and a standout performance from Samara Weaving, who adds yet another stellar horror performance, on her way to scream Queen icon status – if she isn’t already there.
BLACK EYED SUSAN – Director Scooter McCrae
Diving straight into a brutal, strange, and upsetting scene between a man and a woman, BLACK EYED SUSAN challenges the audience within the first few moments. It’s not long, though, that the curtain is pulled back like some twisted Wizard of the Oz story, and we find out things aren’t quite as they seem. First, Susan (Yvonne Emilie Thälker) isn’t a person but rather a BDSM sex doll programmed to receive and “enjoy” the punishment of her sadistic partners. She’s the hardware of a cutting-edge tech startup aiming to push her artificial intelligence to new heights. The company that manufactures her hires the desperate Derek (Damian Maffei) to test the limits of her technology and his desires in a low-fi sci-fi horror that delves into the dark pool of love and perversion in our new tech age.
MUST SEE – Subversive, yet tapping right into where the state of porn, relationships, and toxic masculinity are today. It’s been 21 years since Scooter McCrae’s last film, and it looks like he hasn’t skipped a beat.
STEPPENWOLF – Director Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Brajyuk (Berik Aitzhanov, GOLIATH, THE ASSAULT) was once a detective. Today, he’s an interrogator. Bone-breaker. Mercenary. Above all, Brajyuk is a psychopath. We meet him during an eruption of horrific bloodshed between warring factions at a police station. His path soon crosses with that of a woman so consumed by trauma that she can now barely speak. Her name is Tamara (Anna Starchenko, NARTAI) and she’s desperately searching for her young son, Timka, gone missing in an apocalyptic Kazakh landscape consumed by riots and ultraviolence. Brajyuk has no sympathy for her, but an offer of payment brings him dispassionately onside. Together, they embark on a journey of death and tears.
MUST SEE – Ultraviolent, neo Western revenge film, with very black humour? This one has must-see written all over it.
HOUSE OF SAYURI – Director Koji Shiraishi
After years of savings and sacrifice, the Kamikis, a tight-knit family of seven, are elated when their dream of owning a home in the countryside finally comes true. Sure, the house is a bit old and creaky, but nothing could possibly ruin this fresh start for them… Except for the vengeful ghost of a murdered girl, of course, and it doesn’t take long until fleeting shadows and eerie voices start disrupting their haven of peace. So, when things turn violent and inexplicable accidents befall his parents and siblings, eldest son Norio is shocked to see his sweet, dementia-ridden grandmother suddenly step up as the family’s protector. Refusing to let any kind of evil spirit bully them out of their house, she’s come up with a master plan, and needs Norio’s help to uncover the truth about poor little Sayuri’s untimely death.
MUST SEE – Alternating between supernatural horror, comedy, drama and a revenge tale. The supernatural vs a Grandma with dementia… Don’t mess with Grandma.
THE SOUL EATER – Directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo
A pair of quite different investigators arrive in Roquenoir, a town in the French mountains, and wind up approaching the same case from two different directions. Commander Elisabeth Guardiano (Virginie Ledoyen, 8 FEMMES) has been sent to look into a married couple’s grisly murder, and Captain of the Gendarmerie Franck De Rolan (Paul Hamy, DESPITE THE NIGHT), from the “department of alarming disappearances,” intends to track down a group of missing children. Their missions turn out to be linked, and one of the elements tying them together is “The Soul Eater,” a local bogeyman legend intended to encourage kids not to wander off into the woods. This creature may not be a myth after all, and as strange details about that double killing come to light and more bizarre deaths occur, Guardiano and De Rolan are drawn toward discovering a shocking truth.
MUST SEE – A morbid and heavy procedural undercut by graphic violence and the occult. Now, putting this in the hands of Maury & Bustillo makes this a must-see.
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