Most Anticipated Films at Fantasia International Film Festival 2016

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Emilie Black

Now that the full schedule is out, Fantasians have planned what they will see and bought their tickets. This year’s line-up is full of potentially great stuff and some real oddities. Personally, I look forward to being surprised. In the past, I was happily surprised by Shaun of the Dead, GS Wonderland, A Christmas Horror Story, Borning, etc.

All films I randomly went to see without much planning. So what am I looking forward to this year? Here’s a few I want to see without knowing a ton about them in advance.

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What The Fantasia?! 5 WTF Films from Fantasia’s International Film Festival

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Emilie Black

Fantasia International Film Festival is renowned for showcasing some of the best and weirdest of the film world. As someone who started going their second year and started seriously going for multiple screenings per week in 1999, some of the weird films I’ve seen cannot be unseen. So, just to bring some to attention and have a bit of fun, here are five of the most WTF films I’ve seen.

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Slasher: Season One [Blu-Ray]

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

When last we saw Katie McGrath, she was suffering a cruel and unnecessary death in “Jurassic World,” and has now entered the sub-genre of the slasher film. A skosh more entertaining and engrossing than “Scream,” Chiller TV’s “Slasher” is a very entertaining, and tense slasher film that mixes in elements of a murder mystery in the process. I had no expectations for “Slasher,” and surely enough it won me over after two episodes, working within the confines of the slasher sub-genre, while also side stepping some of the more common clichés here and there. Much like “Scream,” main character Sarah comes from a small town where everyone has skeletons in their closets.

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Bachelor Games (2016)

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Emilie Black

Henry is about to marry the love of his life, so he and the guys go to Argentina for an epic bachelor party/trip. Once there, there’s booze, strippers, and drugs before a sobering hike in the mountains where they meet a mystical figure called The Hunter and things get bloody.

The film is written by Chris Hill and Sam Michell who created a believable group of friends with problems and normal lives. None of the five leads are perfect; they all have issues, giving them humanity when they could have easily been caricatures like in The Hangover series. These guys are close, or used to be, and it shows through their interactions. Of course, not all the situations they are put in are realistic given the Hunter figure but having built a believable setting with human characters, the mystical or paranormal works as well.

This script is brought to the screen by Edward McGown a mostly non-fiction director. His nature documentary eye shows in how he shoots the mountains in which the five men go on a hike. Here he crafts a movie that looks beautiful and is suspenseful once the creepy figure of the Hunter shows up. He also brings his actors together in a way that works, whether they are having fun or fighting.

The cast of Bachelor Games is good with a couple of very strong performances. Jack Gordon as the groom to be, Henry, brings many layers to his character that starts off happy and then shows conflict and worry. His character has possibly the most to lose and the most to learn in the bad situation they find themselves in. As Henry’s best man/friend Leon, Charlie Bewley brings layers of slightly off, slightly creepy, womanizing, party boy with no regrets over anything he’s done. That is until he starts fearing for his life and reconsidering what is important in life. Both of their characters have interesting arcs and their performances go with that.

The rest of the cast does well too, Jake Doolan does a convincing drug-addicted bro as Terrence, Mike Noble shows sensitivity as Roy, and Obi Abili brings us an attempting-to-be happy army man with potential PTSD. However, viewers should not be fooled by these performances as almost nothing is as it appears here. The film works as a drama and as a mystery/thriller, it even works as a horror film as it has a lot of elements of the genre in it. The Hunter figure is creepy and adds a chilling element while its design is beautiful. The film has some blood but no real gore to speak of. The blood looks really good and real, even in bright light. They do not shy away from it or hide it in darkness, the violence leads to blood as it should and is clearly shown.

Also worth noting for this film is the cinematography by Lucio Bonelli who brings extensive film experience to director Edward McGown’s documentary experience to get the film to look beautiful and creates an almost dreamlike feel to the images, particularly when in the mountains. Some of the images are a bit on the over-exposed side, but it works with the settings and with the mysterious circumstances, bringing more to them and showing that creepy and mystical creatures can be just as effective in bright daylight.

While Bachelor Games is not the scariest film, it’s well-crafted and entertaining. The story has a twist but it’s early enough to not be annoying or film destroying, it actually adds to the film. The performances are good to very good; the writing brings a potentially very basic story into a more interesting one. The film is shot beautifully and makes you want to travel even with the risks shown. The whole of the film is good and worth a watch for sure.

Bachelor Games is now on VOD.

Sinister Squad (2016)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Once again The Asylum tip toes all the way to the finish line to avoid copyright infringement, offering up their own third hand version of “Suicide Squad.” Relying heavily on public domain characters and concepts, “Sinister Squad” isn’t your usual terrible Asylum fare. It’s more lackluster and tedious with a lot of the cast seemingly pushed in to mirroring the personalities they saw in trailers for “Suicide Squad.”

So star Johnny Rey Diaz is so not the Joker as a green haired maniac with odd teeth named Rumplestiltskin, while Talia A. Davis is so not Harley Quinn, as the mad red queen who is hopelessly in love with Rumplestiltskin. These stock fairy tale villains are assembled by Alice (a very fetching Christina Licciardi) who is left with no choice to call upon these baddies when their own Carabosse, who is so not Enchantress, breaks out to enact her own evil scheme. She plans to unleash the evil Death (can’t copyright Death), who with his cult, wants to either dominate the world, or garner a final form on Earth to rule over the realm.

It’s never clear what Death intends to do with Carabosse working with him, nor is there a whole lot of explanation as to where a piece of Alice’s looking glass factors in. Either way, like most Asylum productions, “Sinister Squad” is set in one place, primarily Asylum’s studios, where the entirety of the movie unfolds. Every action scene, dramatic confrontation, fight sequence, shoot out, and magic battle ensues within the corridors of the warehouses owned by Asylum, adding to the bargain basement aesthetic the film tries to side step so eagerly.

Aside from Licciardi, the only cast member who really rises above the tedium is Nick Principe who has a good time adding some variety to such a broadly sketched character, and tries to turn the generally boring villain in to a memorable nemesis. “Sinister Squad” is yet another knock off from The Asylum hoping to make some quick cash from easily confused foreigners, and relatives looking for a cheap present on the way to a third cousin’s birthday party. Only the morbidly curious need apply.

Now available on VOD.

The Return of the Living Dead (1985): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

It’s not often that filmmakers strive to set themselves apart from what’s been widely embraced by the horror community and manage to properly redefine a subgenre. Before “Return of the Living Dead” fans accepted the walking dead shambled slowly toward you and ate flesh, but Dan O’Bannon transformed his zombies in to undead crack heads. Said undead crack heads bolted toward their prey like lightning, were devilishly clever, and craved human brains as a source of nourishment. Though “Return of the Living Dead” has a remarkable sense of humor and will inspire a lot of uneasy laughs from the audience, it’s through and through a creepy horror thriller about groups of people fending off undead monsters from every corner while trying to escape Kentucky as it’s ravaged by brain eating ghouls.

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Devil Girl (2007)

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Emilie Black

In an isolated desert town, a girl travelling cross country after the death of her father has car trouble after a drag race. This forces her to stay in town for a while which means finding a place to stay, getting work, and mingling with the locals. She ends up dealing with a weird motel owner, a preacher with odd leanings, a clown-faced man, and a stunning devil girl.

“Devil Girl” is directed by Howie Askins who co-wrote with Tracy Wilcox Gillie. The story they put together here should be a great story considering its components, but instead of focusing on the titular Devil Girl, they relegate her to a few too short appearances, letting the film be about Fay, the girl on a road trip who ends up working as a stripper to survive. The story also has a clown who seems to have been added for shock and weirdness factor which he does bring , but for all his screen time, he has very little impact on the story until the very end where he could easily have a been replaced.

The characters are decently written but not given much of interest to do. The few twists and turns in the story are not quite enough to make it riveting or even all that interesting. Most of the cast gives ok performances with few stand-outs. Lead actress Jessica Graham gets the most screen time and gives a good performance through most of it but she does look absolutely bored in a few scenes, most specifically the strip club scenes where once can guess she was trying to convey discomfort or shame as she did get the job reluctantly. The one actress who really stands out the most and only gets a few scenes is Vanessa Kay who is the Devil Girl.

She has a very short time to make an impression but makes the most of it with a performance full of glee and charm, giving good reason for the movie to be named after her minor character. With a film called Devil Girl, one would expect more of a horror film but this is not it. There is a little blood and some special effects; the design of the Devil Girl is pretty and sexy, her outfit being nearly nothing but red paint, which leads to a stunning attractive presence on screen for the curvy actress. The main point of interest here, outside of the red hot girl, is the cars. A bunch of old school muscle cars, racing each other and being eye candy.

For all of its muscle cars and the sexiness of the title character, the film is quite bland, boosting a group of basic, expected desert town settings and a lackluster story. The film uses occasionally shaky camera and a lot of mild grindhouse looks to add to its story but it just doesn’t grab the viewer to make them care. The last act twist basically kills the entire film and story built so far.