The Fantasia International Film Festival opens on July 16th in Toronto. Check out what Cinema Crazed is looking forward to experiencing in our coverage of the festival’s 30th year!
THIRTY YEARS! The Fantasia International Film Festival celebrates THIRTY FREAKIN YEARS of bringing the best genre (and non-genre) from around the world! We here at Cinema Crazed have been covering the festival since 2015, spanning 40 pages of our search function. That’s a ton of reviews. And, friends, we’re ready to do it again. [Last year’s coverage altogether here]
This year’s festival runs from July 16th through August 2nd across five venues in Montreal!
This year, there are three of us covering the festival: Bob, Grayland, and K Bly, all return for our second round! Keep your eyes peeled, maybe we’ll have a cameo by our old friend Emilie Black! This year is stuffed! Over 125 features and 200 shorts (in their own blocks and as connected to features). In addition to the films, the festival is hosting a slew of workshops and special events. See their website www.fantasiafestival.com for the full line-up and more!
So many films, but luckily with 3 (and maybe 4) writers, we hope we can make a solid dent into that lineup and give our recommendations. But, we can’t do that until the festival opens on the 16th with Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell (and closes with Freaks Part II from Zach Lipovsky & Adam B. Stein). However, we CAN tell you what we’re excited for. Read on for a handful of selections from Bob, Greylan, and K!
Bob Sez:
Glorious Dead (written and directed by Toby Poser & John Adams)
I’m always up for the next Adams family movie! Mother of Flies premiered at last year’s festival, and the filmmaking family is already ready to give us the next dose of their specific brand of homemade horror. In an isolated town, a sheriff and her deputy try to keep the peace as people go missing, blood runs from the taps, and other strangeness.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun)
Gillian Anderson covered in blood? I’m in. Schoenbrun, who made big splashes with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, is one of my favorite new filmmakers. For their new feature, they explore the troubles within the continued interest in the slasher film as a queer filmmaker updates and remakes a Friday the 13th-style film series, and connects with the first film’s Final Girl.
Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant (written and directed by THUNDERLIPS)
One of my favorite shorts of this year’s BoneBat (and featuring Tandi Wright from Evil Dead Burn!) was ready to give birth by the time I saw it three months ago. It’s come to term now and ready to burst our with hopefully all the goo and gore of the short as a young Kiwi woman hits up her ObGyn because… title. The short was VERY early Peter Jackson, so I’m all for the feature
Blaise (written by Clemence Lebatteux and Dimitri Planchon; Directed by Planchon & Jean-Paul Guigue)
An awkward animated absurdist comedy? Okay, bring it. An introverted kid who says yes to everything to try to be on everyone’s good side starts down a path, escalating issues and troubles. Looks wonderfully weird.
Bowels of Hell (Director/Writer Gurcius Gewdner, Director/Writer Gustavo Vinagre )
Gotta get in the gross-out flick, after last year’s Flush. This time, a supernatural occurrence messes with an apartment building’s bowels, and apparently, it gets totally messed up. I’m in.
Graylan gives his interests:
Fantasia always brings more to the table than I can possibly consume, despite all of it calling to me. Festivals such as these give audiences a rare chance to discover something that may have slipped past them.
Personally, I’m excited for such films as the Canadian anti-hero film, Freaks Part II, as well as the monochrome comedy, The Peril at Pincer Point. For horror, I’ve zeroed in on Buddy, a story about people trying to survive a killer kid’s show akin to Barney. From the holiday horror, Unholy Night, to Yeon Sang-ho’s latest zombie flick, Colony, there’s no shortage of scares coming our way. The world behind the camera gets a spotlight with Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson, and the fictional Los Vampires, which depicts two separate actors playing Dracula in the 1930’s. My love for crime thrillers and revenge tales gets treated well thanks to the likes of Cul-de-$ac from Quebec, Penny Lane is Dead from Australia, and God Skin from Thailand. The cherry on top comes in the form of the long-awaited wrap-up to the Becky trilogy, The Last Temptation of Becky. I could list titles until the VOD releases come home, which is far from a complaint-worthy claim. Fantasia’s festival brings talent from all over the world, and presents them to those lucky enough to enjoy them. To say I’m excited would be an understatement.
(Bob adds: Los Vampires and Buddy have been on my radar for a bit, and very exciting for me as well. Freaks was one of my favorites of its year, so very much looking forward to its sequel.)
Now let’s hear from K Bly!
Nightborn (written by Hannah Bergholm & Ilya Rautsi; directed by Bergholm)
From the director of 2022’s Hatching comes another tale of family discord and monsters as a woman and her British husband (Harry Potter’s Rupert Grint) welcome a child with some terrible issues into their dilapidated home. Blood seems to flow quite well
Her Private Hell (written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn)
While I’ve found Refn’s filmography frustratingly uneven, there’s always some sort of interesting idea and psycho-sexual drive at the center. His newest, starring Sophie Thatcher, continues into the neo-noir giallo trimmings of memory and murder. Maybe a mess? But let’s find out
The Fox (written and directed by Dario Russo)
Olivia Colman? I’m in! She’s the titular Fox, helping hunter Jai Courtney deal with the fallout of a cheating wife (Emily Browning). Another dose of the absurd that seems to be running through this year’s festival, with a folk tale vibe.
In a bonus: Emilie will be pulling from the archives and resharing some of her favorite reviews.
Of course, there are so many more on my “if we can, we will” list. Check back often to Cinema Crazed for our coverage. What are you interested in?
Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 16th through August 2nd, 2026, in Montreal. See FantasiaFestival.com for more.