Sean Parker
Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest is less than a week away, and it’s time for us to reveal the ten films we’re pumped to see at the 20th edition of the Austin-based genre festival. First of all, there is an amazing array of talent on display here, filled with amazing motion pictures, both seen and unseen. Very few films appearing at Fantastic Fest this year have been circling the other fests, which is giving this reviewer a whole lot of FOMO when it comes to whittling the list down to only ten. Of course, there will be big tentpole films like Chris Stuckman’s Shelby Oaks, Scott Derrickson’s Black Phone 2, and Jalmari Helander’s Sisu: Road to Revenge, but we’ll all have a chance to see these movies at any theater in the next month. So what films am I trying to get my eyes on? Let’s jump in:
Coyotes
World Premiere | Dir. Colin Minihan
Real-life married couple Justin Long and Kate Bosworth star as an on-screen married couple trying to protect their daughter from a pack of coyotes displaced by the seasonal wildfires in the Hollywood Hills. A high-velocity windstorm causes chaos and confusion, taking out the power and blocking the roads, leaving the family and their neighbors trapped and without help as the vicious pack surrounds their houses.
Grave Encounters director Colin Minihan combines the home invasion thriller with a dash of ecological horror, ensuring a high level of suspense throughout Coyotes’ ninety-one-minute runtime. The film is also being pitched as having some sharp comedic moments as well, making this “When Animals Attack” picture seem like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
CAMP
World Premiere | Dir. Avalon Fast
If you were lucky enough to catch Avalon Fast’s Honeycomb when it toured the festival circuit in 2022, you saw a horror film that blended Picnic at Hanging Rock with Lord of the Flies and messed with your brain in an utterly fantastic and unforgettable way. Fast has been busy since, starring in Louise Weard’s Castration Anthologies, as well as Alice Maio Mackay’s The Serpent’s Skin, and I think there may have been a short film in there somewhere as well. Fast first unveiled some early details about CAMP during an interview we conducted back in 2022, and I’ve long awaited its release since then.
The story for CAMP is pretty dark, beginning with elements of death and drug use, which become the catalyst for Emily’s (Zola Grimmer) redemptive decision to become a counselor at a Christian summer camp—despite the fact she isn’t religious. However, the rest of the staff doesn’t seem much into sermons either, and she winds up making friends with some of the counselors, leading to all of those things you shouldn’t do in a horror movie: drinking, smoking, hooking up, and ritual sacrifices… all the things that make CAMP magical.
The Restoration of Grayson Manner
World Premiere | Dir. Glenn McQuaid
I have heard nothing but wild things concerning The Restoration of Grayson Manner, and my only hope is that it’s all true. The Queer horror film about promiscuous playboy, Boyd (Chris Colfer), thwarting the narrow-mindedness of his mother’s (Alice Krige) legacy, and sending her desire for grandchildren out the window. That is, until an accident leaves him handless, incapacitated, and left in her care. Investing in new technology that allows a pair of hands to be controlled by the wearer’s subconscious, Boyd is given a second chance. Then the hands begin to move on their own… even when no one’s attached to them.
Written by Clay McLeod Chapman alongside the film’s director, Glenn McQuaid, The Restoration of Grayson Manner sounds like a sinister case of “mother knows best” mixed with the subtext of technohorror and automation. Plus, you can’t go wrong with Alice Krige. You may also have recently heard that Chapman’s book, Ghost Eaters, is about to be adapted for the screen, with Fantastic Fest’s director of The Black Phone, Scott Derrickson, producing and Maggie Levin set to direct. Grayson Manner serves as an opportunity to get to know Chapman’s imaginative sense of atmosphere that’s equal parts fun and terrifying.
The Cramps: A Period Piece
World Premiere | Dir. Brooke H. Cellars
Ever since first seeing Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead a couple of years ago, I’ve been excited for what director Brooke H. Cellars would do with a full feature. The short tale about a mortician with an unusually lively clientele is witty, comical, and compassionate, all framed within a gorgeously designed ‘60s aesthetic and Bava-esque coloring that does not skimp on costuming, score, or dialogue. If The Cramps: A Period Piece possesses any amount of Violet Butterfeld’s macabre charm, we should be in for one hell of a picture.
The Cramps: A Period Piece brings the audience back to the ‘60s, where a young woman’s, Agnes Applewhite (Lauren Kitchen), life seemingly begins when she starts working at a beauty salon –sticking it to her holier-than-thou mother and reserved sister in the process. However, Agnes begins experiencing menstrual cramps so painful that they begin to contort her reality, causing her to believe monsters are invading her body.
Described as a “ ‘love slash hate letter’ to the writer/director’s personal experience with endometriosis,” an extremely painful disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, “themes of self-love, empowerment, family, living authentically and of course, all the struggles that those uteruses go through” are set to create a unique story that celebrates femininity and all that term encompasses in modern times.
Don’t Leave the Kids Alone (No dejes a los niños solos)
US Premiere | Dir. Emilio Portes
Ever wonder what Skinamarink would have been if it took place in a haunted house? That’s the vibe I’m getting from Emilio Portes’ (Belzebuth) latest endeavor, Don’t Leave the Kids Alone (No dejes a los niños solos). When a recently widowed mother has to make the difficult decision to leave her two children, Matías and Emiliano, in their new home after her babysitter cancels, she thinks, “What’s the worst that could happen?” But as the children wake up and explore, a psychological shift transforms every kid’s dream of parentless freedom into a psychological nightmare.
Don’t Leave the Kids Alone explores two sides of the childhood experience: the need to freely indulge their imaginations without guidance, and succumbing to its overactivity and requiring a parent. That is, if something isn’t actually haunting them…
Deathstalker
North American Premiere | Dir. Steven Kostanski
If you haven’t been drooling over this remake since the minute the Kickstarter went live, then are you even a genre movie fan? The 1983 fantasy film and B-movie Roger Corman used as a cash grab for fans of the Conan movies. Exploitative in nature, the original film features amazing practical effects, excessive violence, and nudity, and ended up becoming a huge success. The film spawned a sequel that famously reused footage to capitalize on the endeavor. Its footage would be used again in The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984) and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985), two more Corman-produced works.
Psycho Goreman and The Void director Steven Kostanski has recreated the Kingdom of Abraxion from the ground up, and if the trailers have been any indication, to jaw-dropping effect. Patton Oswalt voices Doodad, and Swiss stuntman Daniel Bernhardt, known for his impressive work in The Matrix Reloaded, John Wick, and Atomic Blonde, stars as Deathstalker. The story is much like that of the original, concerning an amulet that has the power to unite or destroy the world, but the effects and makeup, featuring flying creatures, flesh-ripping demons, and two-headed ghouls, should be worth the price of admission alone.
Dolly
World Premiere | Dir. Rod Blackhurst
There’s monsters in them there hills! A hike turns into a fight for survival when a couple, Chase and Macy, discover a weird forest ‘art installation’ of old, broken, and dirty doll pieces. The installation turning out to be an alter for Dolly, described as “a violent, hulking, child-like person in a tattered dress and a porcelain doll mask.” Dolly arrives to bury the corpse of their latest plaything, and takes a liking to Macy (Fabianne Therese), who she absconds with to make her next plaything.
In terms of survival horror, having to behave as if you’re a toy has to be among the most intense ideas in the medium. The synopsis for this title compares the film to both Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes while maintaining its roots stemming from New French Extremety films like High Tension and Inside. This means Dolly is set to be a proper dread-soaked horror story of escape and accentuated by professional wrestler Max the Impaler, who looks as if they are bringing a high level of dedication to their non-verbal performance as Dolly. You need to check out the teaser for this one; it is likely to induce nightmares long before you see the film.
Dracula
North American Premiere | Dir. Radu Jude
If you told me that there was going to be a 2025 Dracula film that made Dario Argento’s 2012 praying mantis monster addled effort look tame by comparison, I would have called you crazy. But Radu Jude’s Dracula is that film, and from the sound of it, it’s also pretty crazy.
We’ve been hearing a ton of talk about Dracula out of Locarno, Beyond Fest, and the NYFF, and not all of it has been good. The film’s use of AI has been met with strong opinions, even in its satirical positioning, but all of the clamor has me interested to decide for myself, and this may be one of the few festivals where that is possible.
Director Radu Jude’s film is presented as a modern-day horror-comedy that approaches a contemporary Transylvania and the ongoing plights of vampire hunts, zombies at a labor strike, sci-fi resurrections of Vlad the Impaler, etc. Radu Jude, who made the absurd Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn about hypocrisy and prejudice, likely has a lot to say on the current state of things from the context of indistinguishable magic of the days of vampires and conquests. As he is a genuine low-budget filmmaker himself and a hell of a satirist, I have to conclude the use of AI in the film will likely be for subversive purposes, but we’ll have to see what his story reveals.
Haunted Heist
World Premiere | Dir. Lil Rel Howery
From the co-writer of last year’s unhinged and horror-fried Mr. Rogers film, Mr. Crocket, Carl Reid returns with a haunted house comedy that not only stars Lil Rel Howery– it’s also his directorial debut. Howrey assembles an A-list team of comedy all-stars for Haunted Heist, including Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Karlous Miller (How High 2), and Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor (The Babysitter), to join him in this comedic mashup of ghostly apparitions and earthly antiques.
Haunted Heist is about a longtime group of friends gathering for a reunion, with the twist being their ex-con pal inviting them all together to steal a hidden antique in the place they’ve rented out for the weekend. The friends must put aside their squabbles and work together if they want to survive the weekend.
Howery is an exceptionally versatile actor. We’ve seen him get dramatic in Hulu’s sci-fi thriller The Mill, but he’s got to be one of the funniest actors working in the comedic space today. Whether he’s tripping on mushrooms alongside John Cena in the Vacation Friends movies, holding it together through Eric Andre’s ‘finger trap’ bit in Bad Trip, or being hilariously essential in the finale to Get Out, Howrey is among the most underrated comedic forces of the last decade. Fantastic Fest says there is “plenty of laugh-out-loud moments” in this “entertaining, irreverent, and just plain silly at times” motion picture, and it sounds like pure fun.
Disforia
World Premiere | Dir. Christopher Cartagena González
With a warning from Fantastic Fest that calls it “one of the most mean-spirited films in [this year’s] lineup,” Disforia does not look like a film meant for anyone with a weak stomach. The story concerns a three-piece family struggling within their dystopian future, where economic collapse is imminent and a suicide epidemic is ravaging the country. When the father goes missing, the mother does everything in her power to try to find him, until she’s visited by a strange woman who claims to have the answers to the man’s whereabouts. However, no one can be trusted in this reality, and the woman is only there to steal her daughter and sell her to the dark web, where people will pay extra to see unimaginable acts of torture on the youngest and most vulnerable among us.
While I’m generally not interested in anything that mixes children and torture, Fantastic Fest’s comparison to Michael Haneke’s Funny Games and insistence of a “satisfying climax” has me thinking we’re going to have our discomfort levels tested a little before justice is served. However, while the core concept revolves around dark web murders, it also suggests some creativity in the on-screen kills. I guess we’ll have to see how this unique horror concept shakes out.
However you want to attack this next week at Fantastic Fest is up to you, and there is a ton of stuff to see besides what’s above, including repertory showings of cult favorites Bride of Re-Animator, Angel’s Egg, and Freaked, as well as a massive amount of short films spread out over multiple blocks. Many of the filmmakers and actors will also be in attendance, making this year’s 20th anniversary of the festival one you won’t want to miss.
