Editor’s Note: This review has been republished. It originally posted with the rest of our reviews and coverage at Fantastic Fest this past September. Even though it’s a slow-boil mystery, Man From Reno is film that engages quickly and keeps you transfixed. Like the hard-boiled detective films, and noir fiction which inspired it, Dave Boyle‘s involving story is layered with sly, pensive and effective reveals. Further, it’s punctuated by just the right amount of wrong elements that help keep us in suspense for the duration. In San Francisco, hugely popular Japanese novelist Aki (played by Ayako Fujitani) becomes caught up in something more elaborate than one of her best-selling books. On…
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G-S-T Review…It Follows
Editor’s Note: This review has been republished. It originally posted with the rest of our reviews and coverage at Fantastic Fest this past September. The darling hit of the 2014 Fantastic Fest, the overly pensive and highly original stalker film, It Follows, is sure to pick up fans wherever it screens. In an effort to stay progressive, and put a one-of-a-kind stamp on the horror genre, David Robert Mitchell actually gives us a story that feels somewhat like a throwback. The last time we were at the Fest, writer Robert Cargill and director Scott Derrickson told us that the genre had been dumbed down to mindless teen slashers. Well, they set out to help fight…
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G-S-T Review…My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn
Editor’s Note: This review has been republished in conjunction with the theatrical and the VOD release on February 27, 2015. It originally posted with the rest of our reviews and coverage at Fantastic Fest this past September. When a filmmaker sets out to tell a story, their goals are simple: get the ideas they have in their head on to the screen, and have the audience enjoy it. Seems straightforward enough, but there are a multitude of challenges to achieve either goal. Really, the odds are stacked against every filmmaker simply because we the audience are becoming increasingly tougher to satisfy. A lot of it comes from how much content is…
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Video Interview…’My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn’ Director Liv Corfixen
Editor’s Note: This interview has been republished in conjunction with the theatrical and the VOD release on February 27, 2015. It originally posted with the rest of our reviews and coverage at Fantastic Fest this past September. Fantastic Fest is a festival where anything can happen. Further, while there, you can meet just about anyone including one-of-a-kind filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn. To calm your nerves, no, he wasn’t there promoting a new film (though he is working on one). In fact, this intense and uncompromising auteur is the subject of his wife’s film. Directed by Liv Corfixen, My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn is a very personal making-of documentary that…
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G-S-T Review…The Babadook
Editor’s Note: This review has been republished. It originally posted with the rest of our reviews and coverage at Fantastic Fest this past September. Back in 2012, director Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill screened Sinister (click to read our review). Critic Brian Salisbury introduced the film to the eager Fantastic Fest crowd, and, very fittingly, called it “nightmare fuel“. Well, in the same vein as that film (and other modern horror game changers like Insidious, and The Conjuring), Australia’s own The Babadook shows that there are still untapped areas in the human psyche that, when tapped just right, are plenty capable of scaring even hardened horror fans. The Babadook is written…
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Interview…’V/H/S: Viral’ Directors Gregg Bishop, Marcel Sarmiento, Nacho Vigalondo
V/H/S: VIRAL screened at the 2014 Fantastic Fest, and fans of this horror anthology series just love it. Each segment offered something unique, dark and twisted and this leg of the purported trilogy really went for the throat. We had the chance to speak with directors Gregg Bishop, Marcel Sarmiento, and Nacho Vigalondo who share their experiences filming their violent, intense and jaw-dropping sequences. This installment might have fans and critics split, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Click here to read our review from Fantastic Fest. FYI, the bulb on our light kit went out halfway through the interview session. Instead of starting over, we decided to run with it and…
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Interview…’V/H/S: Viral’ Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
The purported final leg in the horror anthology series, V/H/S: VIRAL screened at the 2014 Fantastic Fest. In short, it was nuts but the crowd just loved it. Now, outside of the festival circuit, this installment might have fans and critics split, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Click here to read our review from Fantastic Fest. While at the Fest, we got to sit with directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead as well as the cast of the insane “Bonestorm” segment. They offer their experiences filming one of the series’ most intense sequences. Sure wish they could have done something with the skydiving idea they head, but this sequence still…
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Interview…’Tombville’ Writer/Director Nikolas List
Writer/Director Nikolas List studied film directing at the IAD in Belgium. Ange, his final university project, was selected by more than 50 international film festivals and awarded many prizes. List’s follow-up effort, Tombville, is also his full-length film debut and is a story that will stick with you long after you’ve seen it. Tombville follows 25 year old David, a man who wakes up in a village plunged into darkness with no memory of what happened or how he ended up there. He quickly realizes that it is impossible for him to escape: whatever direction he takes, he always finds himself back at the same point. Memories of his past come back to him bit by…
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Video Interview…’ABCs of Death 2′ Directors – E.L. Katz, Alejandro Brugues, Jim Hosking & The Soska Sisters
While at Fantastic Fest, we got to do several interviews, including a few with the talented directors who helped bring ABCs of Death 2 to life… er, death? A vast improvement over the first ABCs film (check out our capsule review here), it will fright and delight fans of just about every genre. Before we get started, we want to offer our apologies for the extremely bad lighting here – the rooms they used for interviews weren’t lit at all, unfortunately. This was done in the newly refurbished Highball bar, inside the karaoke rooms at the Alamo Drafthouse, which explains the lack of bright light. Up first is E.L. Katz,…
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2014 Fantastic Fest Recap: The Best and the Rest of the Best Damn Fest There Is
Any film festival that you are lucky enough to attend as Press will find you struggling with, among other things, 1. seeing as much as you can, 2. writing about as much as you can, and 3. somehow finding time for sleep so you can keep doing both. Ah, tis a wonderfully viscous circle if ever there was one. Well, as with the best of intentions, sometimes your review aspirations have to yield to personal health (and sanity). You’re there to enjoy the fest after all, so the main thing is that you don’t get burned out. Pace yourselves dear friends, pace yourselves. In 2012 I learned that sometimes a festival…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…V/H/S: Viral
Horror anthologies don’t come along all that often. But thanks to Brad Miska, fans of Creepshow, and similar short-form storytelling would no longer lament the lack of fantastic but short glimpses into strange horror themed universes. V/H/S, and its sequel, went all out and brought the idea of “found footage” horror to new levels. Depending on who you talk to, you’ll likely find people praising one film over the other, but each has its fair share of exceptional segments that stay with you long after lights come up. So here we are with an equally enjoyable and effective third outing which shows strong signs that this series has found its…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
America has long been considered the land of opportunity. If you had a dream, and a desire to make it come true, anything was possible. From 1967 to 1993, Cannon Films produced a distinctive line of low- to medium-budget films. But, while trying to make their versions of polular films they admired (or envied), they wound up releasing films that were spectacularly awful. That just about sums up this history lesson about the long defunct company. But, for a time, and not lacking any ambition, they certainly made a run at rivaling (or outright copying) anything coming out of the major Hollywood studios. Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus – two strong,…
