July 16, 2024
Ten must-see films at Fantasia film festival 2024
With just days to go until the return of the Fantasia Film Festival and its enormous and impressive itinerary, the staff here at Modern Free Press have come together with a list of ten must-see features that will be playing at this year’s edition of the festival.
As always, choosing which films to see at Fantasia is an incredibly difficult process, as the jury that spends so much of the year finding and selecting what to show work endlessly hunting the globe to bring the best of the best to Montreal for the Fantasia film festival.
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Heck! Just choosing ten films to put this list together almost resulting in a royal rumble in our office. Chairs were thrown, cakes smashed and somebody, we won’t say who, even pulled a knife and demanded their film selection make the list. Alright, so none of that actually happened. But it almost did. I swear.
10. Cube
A handful of very disparate characters, from a twenty-something math genius and a master escape artist to an aggressive cop and an autistic savant, find themselves trapped in a gigantic cube containing a maze-like arrangement of interlocking rooms. Their struggle to figure out the cube’s secrets and escape, without being killed by its horrific traps—or each other—is the basis of this jolting debut feature from director/co-writer Vincenzo Natali.
From its seriously startling opening scene, featuring the familiar gaunt visage of character actor extraordinaire Julian Richings (The Witch), Cube is a consistently suspenseful experience showcasing intense performances by horror stalwart David Hewlett (Scanners II, Pin), Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, Andrew Miller and others. It was visually unlike anything the genre had previously seen when it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1997, and hit theaters the following year.
09. Voivod : We Are Connected
From the moment they exploded out of Jonquière in 1982, Voïvod blew minds everywhere they were heard and have been widely hailed as one of the most original and influential metal bands in the world. Jointly inspired by the new wave of British metal, contemporary hardcore/punk, and ’70s prog rock, vocalist Denis “Snake” Bélanger, guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, drummer Michel “Away” Langevin and bassist Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault conjured sounds and structures unlike anything else that was being played. Anywhere. They would go on to a have a decades-long journey that still continues to evolve and amaze, packed with extraordinary experiences in every part of the world.
This is in the midst of personal struggles, seismic lineup changes and world-altering twists of fate. The happiest incarnation of the latter being the band’s eventual discovery of current guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain and bassist Dominic “Rocky” LaRoche, hometown friends whose first metal show in their teens was positively life-changing and happened to be… Voïvod.
Years in the making and produced with full access to the band’s archives, Felipe Belalcazar’s illuminating Voivod : We Are All Connected brings the story of a groundbreaking career of 40+ years to the screen with energy, insight, and a palpable sense of love. And what a story it is, spanning multiple eras of the international metal scenes with several lifetimes worth of triumphs, tragedies, and creative ingenuities, knit into an ear-shredding twenty-one-gun salute of inspiration. W
e promise that you will be moved to tears. And where better to launch the film than in the very province that birthed the band? With appearances by Tobias Forge (Ghost), Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth), Jason Newsted (Metallica, Echobrain… and brief Voïvod member), Zach Blair (Rise Against, GWAR), Tom G Warrior (Celtic Frost, Triptykon), and Ivan Doroschuk (Men Without Hats), among many others. Get ready to Rrröööaaarrr!
08. Witchboard
A robbery at the New Orleans Museum of Natural History goes awry, and the object of the theft—a circular “pendulum board” that predates the Ouija by centuries—is discovered by Emily (Madison Iseman, Annabelle Comes Home). She and her fiancé Christian (Aaron Dominguez, Only Murders In The Building) are getting ready to open a restaurant, and at first Emily thinks the board is simply a mysterious and possibly valuable antique.
Then it helps her find a missing engagement ring, and Emily becomes fascinated by the board’s spiritual powers. As she falls under the board’s sway, Christian calls on occult expert Alexander Baptiste (Jamie Campbell Bower, Stranger Things)—who has his own connection to the board’s history, and his own dark secrets.
A remake that finds its own direction away from Kevin S. Tenney’s cult-favourite original, 2024’s Witchboard distinguishes itself from the very start by establishing a new mythology and a fresh look for the titular totem.
07. Timestalker
We first meet Agnes (writer/director Alice Lowe, Prevenge) in 1688 Scotland, attending a village-square execution. In a soul-altering instant, she locks eyes with the condemned (Aneurin Barnard, Dunkirk). Agnes can sense that she’s encountered the man she’s destined to be with, rushes towards him and dies quite spectacularly in the process. In her last breaths, she vows to find him in her next life.
Over a century later, Agnes has been reincarnated and is now a 1793 English noblewoman, soon to come across the reincarnation of her past life’s love. Things… could go better. And again, she dies. Next, 1847, third verse, no different from the first. The cycle continues. Can Agnes ever move on from the presumed love of her lives?
With a supporting cast that includes Nick Frost (The World’s End), Jacob Anderson (Game Of Thrones) and Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), Timestalker is an inspired, Python-esque masterpiece that proves beyond doubt that Lowe should be given the keys to every kingdom across time.
06. Ghost Cat Anzu
What is there to do in Iketeru? The idyllic beachfront village is where 11-year-old Karin has been unceremoniously dumped by her father Tetsuya, a shifty widower with a big debt to loan sharks. Karin has been left in the care of her grandfather, now the keeper of Sousei-Ji Temple, who in turn assigns her to his adopted son, 37-year-old Anzu Nakamura. This Anzu is an affable fellow, if rather uncouth and feckless. Oh, and he’s also an immortal ghost cat.
That’s certainly strange, but no more so than the other assorted entities hanging around the town—loveable losers, a lot of them, humans and yokai alike. In any case, Karin, already exasperated by her father’s absence and pining for her departed mother, isn’t all that impressed with the furry ginger lout. The girl and the oafish, oversized cat make a day trip to Tokyo, to visit her mother’s grave, but things get entirely out of control when a detour to hell, by way of an out-of-service toilet, invokes the wrath of a legion of infernal demons…
05. Confession
Two old college pals, Asai (Toma Ikuta of The Mole Song trilogy) and Jiyong (Yang Ik-june, Breathless), make their annual pilgrimage up a mountain in the middle of winter in honour of their friend Sayuri (Nao, My Broken Mariko) who disappeared there 16 years earlier. However, Jiyong seriously injures his leg in the middle of a violent blizzard. Overcome by cold and pain, he asks Asai to let him die here and save his own life. First, though, he confesses to a horrible secret that has been eating away at him.
He was the one who killed Sayuri that fateful day, out of jealousy. The problem, if there is one, is that Asai finds a cabin nearby that they hadn’t seen because of the blinding storm. Once inside, the murderer’s confession takes on a whole new dimension, and let’s just say that the elephant in the room is more of a mammoth. To say that it’s going to be a long night would be an understatement.
04. Brave Citizen
Mooyoung High looks like a nice, peaceful secondary school — but it isn’t. The truth is that bullying is a major issue there, as merciless violence takes over the whole institution. So Si-min, a former professional boxer, is now a part-time high school teacher and has witnessed some brutal bullying at her workplace.
The most dangerous bully of them all, Han Su-kang has, been harassing and beating up an innocent student non-stop. Taking matters into her own hands, Si-min decides to don a mask and deal with Su-kang herself, to teach him a lesson and deliver proper justice. It’s up to Si-min to put an end to his violent acts once and for all.
The theme of school violence is prominent throughout, and explored in a very interesting way. Directed by Park Jin-pyo (Voice Of A Murderer, You Are My Sunshine), it has everything you want in a film like this, especially great characters and intense action sequences.
03. The Roundup : Punishment
Brawny detective Ma Seok-do is back and ready for another adventure! After the death of a drug-trafficking app’s developer, Ma joins forces with the Cyber Investigation Team and goes on a mission to take down the sinister Baek Chang-gi, who runs an illegal gambling market.
He’s the one responsible for the murder, and he will not hesitate to kill people by any means necessary. However, Seok-do not only has to face against Chang-gi, but also his partner Chang Dong-cheol, who’s preparating his own selfish plan. It’s up to our hero to pursue proper justice and stop these criminals from achieving their goals.
All the things you love from the previous instalments are in The Roundup : Punishment, especially the badass, beautifully executed action sequences! This is yet again an incredibly dynamic, insanely entertaining and crowd-pleasing popcorn blockbuster that both Korean cinema fans and action movie aficionadoes will absolutely love.
02. Baby Assassins : Nice Days
Friendship. It’s one of the things in life that really matters and makes it worth living but, oh man, it ain’t easy. Teenage assassins Mahiro (Saori Izawa) and Chisato (Akari Takaishi) have been through a lot together, and they have each other’s backs like true friends should. As the third Baby Assassins movie begins, they’ve earned a well-deserved holiday in Miyazaki, Japan, when The Agency calls them in on a local job, taking out an embezzler, that should be easy-peasy.
No such luck. The gig has been double-booked by an unpredictably vicious freelancer (Shin Kamen Rider’s Sosuke Ikematsu), who isn’t going to make it easy for our killer teen duo. Now forced to work with “adult” Agency supervision (Atsuko Maeda and Mondo Otani), Mahiro and Chisato will find their friendship (and killing skills) tested in unexpected ways, meaning the vacation is over—and the big two-oh is right around the corner for the girls. With a body count, of course. A big one.
01. Bookworm
And finally, Bookworm; the new Elijah Wood feature and the opening film of this years Fantasia festival. Most certainly is a must see film – especially since Wood will be at the showing, in person!
Eleven-year-old Mildred (Nell Fisher, Evil Dead Rise) is a super-precocious bookworm, wise beyond her years, with no patience for slackers or the generally uninformed. Despite living in stunning New Zealand, she’s being driven mad by a mundane existence, taking refuge in cherished novels where adventures live without limit. A sudden family crisis rattles Mildred’s world, causing her absentee father, Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood, Yellowjackets), a washed-up American illusionist, to fly into New Zealand in an attempt to be… helpful? Or even the slightest bit present.
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You see, Strawn has been an absentee father in the most absolute sense, in that he and Mildred have never once met. Now, he’s there, much to his daughter’s unimpressed annoyance. As a bid at bonding, Strawn agrees to take Mildred out into the New Zealand wilderness for a camping adventure in search of a mythological beast that’s long held her fascination: The Canterbury Panther. A string of increasingly absurd and treacherous adventures unfold. Bonding isn’t always easy!
So, with that all said – you’ve got just two more days until the three-week long festival kicks off so start practicing your cat meows right now! You do know why we meow at Fantasia film festival, right? If not, read this, now!
