Not every movie we managed to see this year’s Fantastic Fest could get a full review or discussion. There’s just too many and not enough time. However, we wanted to share as much as we could, so here are some quick thoughts and first impressions on films screened.
Liza the Fox Fairy
In a bright and colorful 1970s Budapest (which was actually during the height of the communist regime at the time), a live-in nurse named Liza (Mónika Balsai) wallows in a lonely life. Other than the woman she cares for, the wife of a late Japanese ambassador, the only person she interacts with is an imaginary friend, who happens to be a dead Japanese singer named Tomy Tani (David Sakurai). Liza inherits the apartment after her patient unexpectedly dies, and sets out to find her one true love. There’s just one catch–she may be a fox fairy, a cursed creature of Japanese folklore doomed to be alone forever. Why would she think that? Because every potential suitor she meets dies in peculiar and grisly ways. The deaths catch the attention of Sargent Zoltán, who begins to investigate Liza while also renting the spare bedroom in her apartment. Soon enough, he starts to fall for her. But will that fall bring along his death? Watch to find out.
This film is delightful. It’ll draw many comparisons to Amélie and other Jeunet films, but I found it to be much closer in spirit to the charms and macabre of Bryan Fuller’s Pushing Daisies. Each frame is a visual delight and the smart writing (screenplay by Ujj-Mészáros and Bálint Hegedûs) confidently uses the visuals to elevate the humor. The subtle reveal of how Liza made her fancy white dress is a perfect example of the care and precision this film takes. It doesn’t hit you over the head, but through the camera work, leads you to the joke. Balsai is perfect as Liza, absolutely endearing without sliding into manic pixie dream girl territory. More than once, she reminded me of Kristen Wiig, who would most likely be the candidate for the role if there was ever an English language remake (as unnecessary as that would be). Liza the Fairy Fox placed 2nd at Fantastic Fest’s Audience Award. The distinction is well-earned.
Rabid Dogs
Yes, it’s a remake of horror maestro Mario Bava‘s original Rabid Dogs, but don’t let that dissuade you from giving this film a watch. Hannezo makes the story his own in this fun and nasty update. When a robbery goes awry, five criminals hit the road with hostages– a honeymooning woman and a father with his gravely ill child. Catching few breaks, circumstances grow increasingly hopeless for both the criminals and the hostages. The twist is the same as the original, so if you’re familiar with Bava’s version, it won’t be a big surprise, but that shouldn’t take away from your enjoyment. Like the film itself, the score by Laurent Eyquem draws from the original by Stelvio Cipriani, creating a distinct sound that celebrates its Italian horror roots with a modern electronic spin. It’s loud and chaotic, and perfectly matches the dire, violent and unpredictable situations in which the characters find themselves.
Tikkun
Woah. Meeting up with a friend after the screening, I said to him, “I wish you watched that movie. You probably would have hated it.” That’s certainly no critique of the film itself. It’s an arthouse film from start to finish, and not for everyone. I was left slightly troubled and bemused by what I had just watched, but didn’t regret it for a second. The top prize winner from this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival is truly an experience. The plot follows Haim-Aaron (Aharon Traitel), a devout Yeshiva student who has a near death experience that affects him to his very core. He begins to seek out new experiences in life and allows his studies to fall to the wayside. The changes Haim-Aaron goes through are unsettling to his equally devout father (Khalifa Natour), a kosher butcher, who was responsible for saving his son’s life–continuing to perform resuscitation when the paramedics were ready to give up. He’s plagued by visions that lead him to think he should have let Haim-Aaron die.
The performances of Traitel and Natour anchor the film. Tikkun is Traitel’s first credit, but you’d never guess that from watching. It’s not easy to play “cold and detached” naturally, but he does it well, especially when sharing scenes with Natour, a more established actor. The two carry their individual scenes flawlessly and manage to heighten each other’s performances when sharing the screen. The film itself is a fever dream of religion and self-discovery, with gorgeous black and white, ethereal cinematography. It placed me within a world about which I knew very little, and left me wanting to learn more. Films like Tikkun don’t come around often, which makes it extra exciting to watch them.
What We Become
The debut feature film by Bo Mikkelsen follows a family as their serene suburban life crumbles after a mysterious infection rapidly spreads throughout their town, causing the neighborhood to be quarantined with little explanation. Soon come the zombies.
The film is well-shot, well-acted, and has a strong score, but ultimately feels somewhat lifeless. It simply adds nothing new to the zombie genre. Everything in this film has been seen before and not a single character stands out as memorable. So while What We Become is competently made, there’s little to help it stand out among the multitude of similar films. Perhaps there isn’t anything new that can be done with the genre, but I don’t want to accept that just yet. I know it’s weird to praise a remake of Rabid Dogs and then criticize this film for being unoriginal. Expectations are everything. I knew exactly what I was getting into with Rabid Dogs. In this case, I was hoping for an original film that was, in fact, original.
The Devil’s Candy
This Austin-set heavy metal update on the Amityville Horror formula by Byrne is one of those movies that’s a blast from start to finish, but once it’s over and you start to think about it, the whole thing falls to pieces. Uniformly strong performances (lead by Ethan Embry as he continues his fun transition into being a genre actor) initially make the film work. Embry is Jesse, an artist and metal enthusiast who moves his family in a new home that he and his wife Astrid (Shiri Appleby) can just barely afford but couldn’t pass up the deal. Why was the house so cheap? Murders occurred in the house in the recent past. A demonic presence almost immediately starts to influence Jesse while setting its sights on his daughter and fellow metalhead Zooey (Kiara Glasco, who shows the chops to be a future scream queen, a box office superstar, or both). To its credit, the film doesn’t go where you expect it to, preventing it from being a rehash of Amityville. It veers into slasher territory thanks to Pruitt Taylor Vince as the deranged previous victim of the house’s evil influence. I wanted to love this film. I only wish it held up better. Using metal for the score and one of Jesse and Zooey’s defining character traits is novel, but feels overused from the start, like Byrne was pushing for it just a little much. There’s also a subplot involving an art dealer interested in Jesse’s work that goes nowhere and unnecessarily suggests the dealer is the Devil. This character has no other relationship to the house and simply should have been cut completely. The finale is sufficiently tense, but stumbles on a few too many tired horror tropes and strains credibility a times. But the finale still manages to arouse a deserving applause from the audience, which is probably all that you can ask for in a film like this one.
Evolution
Filmmaker Lucile Hadzihalilovic (director/writer of Innocence and occasional collaborator of Gaspar Noé) offers up a dark new entry to the body horror genre. Set on a small Mediterranean island, Evolution depicts a mysterious village populated by mothers and sons. No fathers or young girls are present, nor is their absence explained. Preteen Nicholas is told by his mother that he’s sickly, a side effect of growing up. He must regularly take an unidentified medicine to keep him well as he prepares to change, as she likens puberty to the way a reptile or mollusk molts. Soon Nicholas and his friends are in a hospital, all undergoing the next stage of the treatment for their mysterious ailment. The treatment entails some sort of procedure on their stomach. No one is giving them answers until a young nurse who takes a liking to Nicholas begins to help him unravel the bizarre and seemingly sinister goings-on in the village.
With its gorgeous cinematography and exotic location, Evolution hooks viewers with first shots. The mysterious surrounding the characters unravel, but Hadzihalilovic doesn’t offer easy answers. She’s constructed a film that begs to be watched more than once. She provides us with images though their meanings aren’t exactly clear. We’re outsiders to the world she’s brings to life and must accept the challenge to learn its foreign ways. I’m excited to make future trips into to this strange island and explore it some more.
German Angst
German directors Jörg Buttgereit, Michal Kosakowski, and Andreas Marschall bring us an anthology of horrors. Buttgereit (most famously known for the Nekromantik films) takes the lead with “Final Girl,” about a teen girl seemingly alone in her home, except for her guinea pigs and the man tied up in another room. It was refreshing to see Buttgereit has retained his style in the 28 years since the first Nekromantik but it appears he has learned a bit of restraint. Some of the most horrific moments are left to the imagination as Buttgereit either cut away or focused on close-ups away from the gore. For someone known for his graphic visuals, it was a bit of a let down.
Next came “Make A Wish” by Kosakowski (director of Zero Killed), offered more of a high-concept film–Freaky Friday meets A Clockwork Orange. A young deaf couple is tormented by a group of thugs. The tables turn when a family artifact allows the deaf male to swap bodies with the skinhead leader of the group. Instead of taking the opportunity to escape with his girlfriend, he’s driven into a violent hysteria, reveling in the torture of his tormentor who is trapped in his old body. There are flashbacks to the origins of the necklace and another body-swapping ordeal involving Nazis, of course. Everything about this film felt like it was trying hard to be mean and upsetting, but it never fully accomplished that because it lingered on a superficial level.
The final segment is “Alraune” by Marschall. It’s the most fun and engaging of the three, with story that feels like an episode of The Red Shoe Diaries written by H.P. Lovecraft (note: I now plan to pitch a show like that to HBO). A photographer on the outs with his girlfriend decides to meet up with a stranger from the internet and winds up in a Berlin sex club where pleasure comes with a price he never expected but nonetheless paid. The film felt suitably trashy, balancing sexiness and horror perfectly. It builds its own mythology without slowing down the pace. I was unfamiliar with Marschall before the viewing, but I’m now eager to see his feature films.
As a whole, I didn’t love German Angst, or even like it very much. Each segment had its pros and cons, with “Alraune” being the most successful of the three. True to its title, it’s a very German film, so if that’s your jam, it’s worth checking out.
Too Late
Based on the audience reaction, Too Late is going to be a stand-out of the festival. I can’t say I agree with the overall consensus. Dennis Hauck has crafted a technically impressive film without a doubt. This film could be a masterclass in camera work. Unfortunately it doesn’t have the substance to back that up. This modern-day noir tale about a private eye seeking revenge for the death of a girl he once met tries so hard to be so many things (think the look of Robert Altman and P.T. Anderson mixed with the words of Raymond Chandler and Quentin Tarantino) and it just doesn’t get there. The dialogue is overwritten and contrived, striving for that noir style. If used sparingly, it might have been more effective, but when every line feels finessed to be memorable and clever, the effect is the opposite. The problems start there and then extends to the acting, which is largely uneven. John Hawkes is terrific in the lead. He acts the hell of every bit of dialogue he’s given. If the entire cast was on his level, my feelings on the film might be different. But watching the film, I got the sense that Hauck isn’t an actor’s director. For all his technical accomplishments in this film, he does not get strong performances out of all his actors. Veterans like Robert Forster and Jeff Fahey turn in serviceable but somewhat phoned-in performances and then there’s Rider Strong whose performance is just abysmal – it seems he’s in a completely different film than Hawkes. Vail Bloom was the greatest stand-out next to Hawkes, with a fearless and revealing performance that’ll remind some of Julianne Moore in Short Cuts. When she and Hawkes shared a scene, my hopes for the film raised greatly, but the film never achieved that level again. Too little, too late, as it were.