Films I’m Excited For at the 2024 Fantasia Film Festival

One of my favorite movies of the last year is Hundreds of Beavers, a live-action, Looney Tunes-esque comedy about a drunken lumberjack fighting, well… I think you get the picture. It’s one of the few movies to make me cry laughing in recent years. A rare feat of pure stupidity (definitely not derogatory). As major distributors cast aside seemingly every oddball idea that comes their way, seeing a handmade, pure distillation of creativity is such a joy.

Such insanity is a perfect encapsulation of the films that play at the Fantasia Film Festival. Every year, Fantasia provides ample opportunities to view sometimes absurd, sometimes disgusting, but almost always unique movies from around the world. Once again, I have the wonderful opportunity to cover the festival this year. Here are a few movies from this year’s program that caught my interest:

Animalia Paradoxa

One of the most inventive (and absolutely horrifying) animated movies of the last decade is Joaquin Cociña and Cristóbal Leon’s The Wolf House, a multimedia fairy tale inspired by the notorious Colonia Dignidad settlement in Chile. From the same production company comes Animalia Paradoxa, a blend of live action, dance, sculpture, and stop-motion animation that details a humanoid’s search for water in an apocalyptic environment.

Count on Animalia Paradoxa to be light on story but heavy on haunting imagery. If it’s comparable to The Wolf House, expect it to become a Criterion Channel staple in the future.

Azrael

With plenty of genre movies under her belt, it appears that Samara Weaving is now a graduate student at the Dan Stevens School for Incredibly Attractive People Who Enjoy Uglying Themselves Up as Much as Possible in Gross Horror Movies. For many, she popped in Radio Silence’s Ready or Not, and since has continued to dabble in horror movies, such as Scream VI. I love her daffy, up-for-anything onscreen persona; she’s someone who, in my humble opinion, deserves greater stardom.

In Azrael, a cult of mute zealots attempts to chase down the titular character played by Weaving. There is virtually no dialogue in this film, leaving plenty of space for Weaving to command the screen with her impressive physicality.

Another point in this movie’s favor: it’s written by Simon Barrett, the guy behind genre favorites like You’re Next and The Guest.

Brush of the God

You may not know his name, but Keizô Murase has played a vital part in cinema history with his effects work in franchises such as Godzilla, Gamera, Daimajin, Kamen Rider, and Ultraman. For the first time in his career (at the age of 88 no less), he’s stepping into the director’s role for Brush of the God. Of course, there’s some classic kaiju mayhem as teens are sucked into a fantastical world of bizarre creatures and bandits. Fantasia always spotlights outstanding practical effects work, and this year is certainly no different.

Chainsaws Were Singing

The early favorite for this year’s Hundreds of Beavers, Chainsaws Were Singing is an Estonian musical-comedy-horror film from director Sander Maran. It’s the kind of film that could only be made by a group of friends with little to no money whatsoever — I’m always craving that sort of weirdo ingenuity.

More importantly, there’s a scene where someone shoves a chainsaw up someone else’s ass. I’m not above it.

Cuckoo

Tilman Singer’s Luz is a confounding, retro possession thriller. The kind of really cool indie film that gets you noticed by the industry. That’s to say, it was of no surprise to me when his follow-up feature included fun performers like Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens (once again uglifying himself for our amusement), and Jessica Henwick and was later snatched up by trendy distributor Neon.

Cuckoo follows Schafer as Gretchen, who moves with her father to the German Alps and quickly becomes entangled in surreal incidents. Credit to Neon for seemingly not spoiling anything in the film’s trailers; although if Cuckoo is anything like Luz, then it’ll probably be less a movie you can spoil and more something you have to experience for yourself.

Hell Hole

Toby Poser and John Adams are turning into indie horror darlings with their low-budget horror movies, many of which include their children.

Their next feature, Hell Hole, follows an American fracking crew that uncovers a living French soldier frozen in time from the Napoleonic era. If that wasn’t weird enough, in a The Thing-like turn, the soldier is host to a parasitic monster. As if fracking couldn’t get any worse…

Shelby Oaks

Rackaracka’s Talk to Me is a great horror movie, as well as a sign of things to come. We’re now getting to the point where more and more YouTubers are getting their shot at making movies. With Shelby Oaks, long-time YouTube movie reviewer Chris Stuckmann is making his directorial debut, with the backing of Neon and collaborator Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House, Gerald’s Game, and many others).

In it, a woman searches for her long-lost sister, but that search quickly falls into obsession upon realizing that the imaginary demon from their childhood might be real, and may have something to do with her sister’s disappearance.

The 2024 Fantasia Film Festival runs from July 18th-August 4th. For more information on tickets and this year’s program, visit Fantasia’s website.

Stay tuned for my coverage of the festival in the coming days!

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