Fantasia 2021

Agnes slides neatly into the subgenre of ‘nun horror’ with the likes of, you guessed it, The Nun. However, Agnes prides itself on building tension rather than being full of jump scares. When you’re placed…

So many pandemic-set films since the beginning of COVID-19 are about the immediacy of it. The near-instantaneous feeling that everything has changed without the time to possibly reckon with what’s happened. Kelsey Egan’s Glasshouse takes…

The Last Thing Mary Saw is a 19th-century folk story, centered around sin and suspicion. We are introduced to Mary (Stefanie Scott) as she is blindfolded in a dark, candle-lit room. This is at the…

Almost every conceivable trigger warning is in effect for Rob Jabbaz’s pandemic horror movie, The Sadness. Saying the film isn’t afraid to “go there” is probably the biggest understatement of Fantasia 2021 — it’s undoubtedly the…

Matthew Gray Gubler is a modern-day icon in the eyes of many. King Knight has been long-awaited by both fans of his and director Richard Bates Jr. It’s slightly dark, yet reassuringly humorous. It’s everything…

A mysterious social experiment brings a group of eccentric strangers together to compete for a prize. It’s the synopsis for many low-budget thrillers and dark comedies. And somehow, Stanleyville feels almost entirely divorced from the subgenre. You’ve…

Through extremely stylized Art Deco sets, and cinematography comparable to Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Tiong Bahru Social Club is an extraordinary watch. Straight from Singapore’s own Bee Thiam Tan, we are thrown into a…

The PR machine for the film industry can sometimes be a nightmare as directors, actors, and others associated with a project do whatever they can to hype it up. After a while, the insane comparisons…

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair captures the essence of online culture. Hints of Eighth Grade, Nerve, and Unfriended are all combined to make an anxious 86 minutes. Despite its parallels to those few…

So many films present a dystopian future by isolating one particularly destructive idea and playing out its disastrous societal effects. Whatever the cause for the decline of civilization — whether it’s alien invasions, dictatorships, or…