The Fantasia International Film Festival is starting on July 20, and running until August 9th. Berkreviews is covering the festival for the third time remotely (maybe one day we’ll get to travel to the actual festival). There is a lot of anticipation for the films that will be at the festival this year. This article and the accompanying episode of the Bloody Awesome Movie Podcast will outline a few films that you should not miss if you’re able to attend.
Birth/Rebirth
Rose (Marin Ireland, The Dark And The Wicked) is a morgue technician with little patience for the living. Brilliant and obsessively driven, she also has a personal side-project that’s consumed much of her waking energies: the reversing of physical death. Celine (Judy Reyes, Scrubs) is a hardworking maternity nurse who gives her all to patients shift after shift, with the lofty emotional intensity of her work only finding reprieve when she comes home to her effervescent six-year-old daughter, Lila (A.J. Lister). Fates take a horrific turn, smashing the lives of both women into each other dropping them down a gruesome rabbit hole of desperate choices and ascending moral compromises that will shake you to your core. We’ll reveal no more.
I was able to see this film back at the Overlook Festival in New Orleans. While this movie may not work for everyone, it really worked for me. I found the performances – especially Judy Reyes – to be quite impressive. It’s a complex horror film that deals with several themes that make you think while managing to simultaneously terrify you to the core. The bond the two women form while pushing towards their goal is undeniable. It’s definitely a film worth checking out, and I feel that director Laura Moss is one to watch out for.
Late Night with the Devil
It’s Halloween evening in 1977, and late-night talk show icon Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian, The Suicide Squad) has a live broadcast planned that’s going to be unlike anything anyone’s ever experienced. He downright needs it to be, as he faces declining viewership – and tonight, Delroy’s going to deliver on levels his worst nightmares can’t imagine. Among this evening’s guests will be parapsychologist and author Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon, Undertow), currently on the circuit promoting her new book, Conversations with the Devil. Accompanying her will be young teen Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the sole survivor of a Satanic church’s mass suicide and the subject of said book, with its title stemming from the fact that she claims to be demonically marked — and intermittently possessed. The studio audience fills the room as a multi-camera setup prepares to bring the event into living rooms across the country…
For me, you come to this movie for the premise but stay for the performance of Dastmalchian. Another film I caught at Overlook, I was into it for the majority. There is a cool production quality in this old-school talk show format. The premise also offers some very cool set pieces that the directors, Cameron and Colin Cairnes, deliver effectively. Yet, all of it is elevated by the lead performance. If you’re looking for a quality performance-driven horror film, you’ve found it here.
Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls
Marcus J. Trillbury (Andrew Bowser) is a wannabe Satanist and man-child calling himself “Onyx the Fortuitous,” who still lives with his mother (Barbara Crampton) and stepfather while maintaining a dead-end job at Marty’s Meat Hut. Salvation from the drudgery of his life arrives in the form of an invitation to Briardale Manor, where occult master Bartok the Great (Jeffrey Combs) promises to lead him and four other followers in rituals that will “renew” them as disciples of the ancient god Abaddon. Of course, Bartok has nefarious ulterior motives involving the power-granting Talisman of Souls, and Onyx and his friends are soon threatened by demons, sacrificial daggers, and (yuck) cobwebs. Only by discovering his true fortitude can Onyx save himself, his friends, and probably the world.
I watched Onyx via Sundance at home, and it’s been one of my favorite films of the year. I can honestly say that if you aren’t into the character that Andrew Bowser – who also wrote and directed – has created, you’ll likely hate this film. His odd speech pattern, eccentric qualities, and inherently childlike wonder may not work for everyone, but it really did for me. I became a quick fan, and found so much of this film to be an absolute blast. It also features one of my favorite jokes that I’ve heard in recent years involving Michael Bay. This is definitely one I’d recommend, and if you’re uncertain, check out Bowser’s Instagram to get a taste of Onyx…if you can’t take the shorts, you’ll probably not enjoy the film.
Talk To Me
Wracked with grief over her mother’s death and unable to handle watching her father languish in depression, 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) begins to stay at her best friend’s house. A Snapchat video of a demonic possession goes viral in their school, capturing the fascination of everyone in Mia’s orbit, and leading them to explore conjurings around an embalmed ceramic hand made from the severed arm of a psychic. Through holding hands with it and uttering the phrase “talk to me”, a user can rip the high of a lifetime by allowing themselves to become temporarily possessed, tripping in ecstasy as otherworldly forces invade their body. The only rule is to never, under any circumstances, be left to hold the grip longer than 90 seconds. The rush is unbelievable. Indescribable. Mia becomes hooked. Soon, doors into the spirit world will be opened that can’t be closed.
I have seen this movie twice. Once at Overlook, and then recently as the Regal Mystery Movie. The first viewing worked for me, but I found even more enjoyment on my rewatch. Talk to Me is being distributed by A24, and is genuinely frightening throughout most of the runtime. It has some of the most visceral violence I can recall, as those moments just seem to punch the audience. Then the atmosphere and premise add to the allure for horror fans. The buzz is not just hype, and this film definitely deserves a watch with a crowd who appreciates horror.
It Lives Inside
Indian-American teenager Samidha (Megan Suri) is feeling torn between two environments where all isn’t entirely well: home, where she’s pressured by her traditionalist mother Poorna (Neeru Bajwa), and school, where she doesn’t quite fit in and is subject to microaggressions – even from her friends. Her heritage and her present collide when her childhood friend, Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) – who has lately been acting strange and distant – confronts her bearing a mason jar. Something lives inside that jar — something hungry that has Tamira terrified. She tells Sam that the stories of demons they heard as kids are true, and Sam discovers just how right Tamira is when the thing escapes its glass captivity, invades Sam’s life, and threatens everyone she loves.
One of my favorite surprises from the Overlook Festival was It Lives Inside. It helps that I got to speak with the film’s director, Bishal Dutta, before the screening. However, it’s the clear allegorical style the film uses that truly clicks for me. The influences of his horror fandom are present throughout the film, and yet it offers something that feels very personal. The set pieces work, and the scares are very much earned throughout the film. Topping it all off are the great young performances that show some real star potential.
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