FanTasia Film Festival in Montréal has an odd name. You’d never know that most of the movies are horror films, but that’s the ‘fantastic’ part. About half are from Asian countries (the asia part), and the rest from other places around the globe. This festival—2008 was it’s 12th year—draws over 80,000 people during its three weeks every July. There are world premiers with directors, writers and cast members on stage to reveal some of the weird and funny situations that occurred during filming, and to answer questions. Each July for the last dozen years I’ve sat in the dark before the silver screen for maybe one quarter of the hundred or more films showing. This is the continent’s largest and most relevant film festival for horror fanatics and I’ve seen amazing films this year which I’d like to tell you about.

Repo: The Genetic Opera (USA)

R: TGO started life as performance art, the brain child of Terrance Zdunich (who plays Gravedigger in the film) and Darren Smith. They wrote the story and composed the music for a ten minute piece that was staged (with other short pieces they wrote) in a tiny theater “So small,” Zdunich says “that during intermissions the audience had to walk across the stage to get to the bathroom.” 

Zdunich and Smith had the foresight to tape a performance and show it to director Darren Lynn Bousman (he of SAW 2, 3, 4 fame). Bousman’s heart was pierced and miraculously he managed to get this “passion project”, as he calls Repo: The Genetic Opera, to screen.

What’s it about? That’s pretty hard to convey. As actor Bill Mosley who plays Repo Man says, “You’ve never seen anything like this.”

The post-apocalyptic future is all about organ failure and the subsequent organ transplants controlled by corporate giant GeneCo. New organs are not cheap; the payment plan goes on forever. Miss a payment and GeneCo repossesses its property. Enter:  Repossession Man. But Repo Man has a secret life as a dad with a seventeen year old daughter who has the same blood disease that killed her mother. He keeps this teenager locked up to protect her from the cold, cruel world. She wants to be free, of him, of the disease, and the dying head of GeneCo, her dead mother’s former boyfriend, claims to have the cure. None of the above quite captures the essence of this quirky roller-coaster neo-Gothic, melodramatic, futuristic horror/goth industrial musical extravaganza with Sondheim type speaking/singing (think:  Sweeney Todd) and comic book intersplicings in a darkly exotic film that could be destined for cult status.

I was blown away by the clever, stylish, audacious Repo: The Genetic Opera. The budget, Bousman admits, was so low that for the last Saw film he directed he ordered an unnecessary graveyard be built so he could re-use it in this movie. The cast is stellar:  Bill Moseley, so well known to horror flick fans from numerous films including Rod Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects; Sarah Brightman, ex-wife of Andrew Lloyd Webber who played the role of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, a role Webber wrote for her; Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy playing Pavi, one of three demented children of the big bad corporate guy; and Paris Hilton—who, the director said at the world premier, asked for an audition and read the script back when she was in jail—playing the daughter of the big bad corporate guy. The character Repo is done so well by the fabulous actor Anthony Stewart Head (who played Giles in the Buffy TV series), the big bad GeneCo boss is portrayed by veteran actor Paul Sorvino, and relative newbie Alexa Vega is Shilo, the overly-protected teenager. Even Joan Jett has a musical cameo. 

This film is so goth it made me cry with joy. It’s rare to find anything on the screen that portrays goth as anything but annoyingly jaded. If you, too, love goth wit and high drama packed with great Industrial music and clever lyrics, adore your horror laced with élan and can appreciate some cool special FX when you see them, plus enjoy musicals that are dark and sexy, this wild and crazy film is for you. There are clips on Youtube and the release date is set for November.

Let the Right One In (Sweden)

I’ve written and read a lot of vampire stories and I’ve seen hundreds of vampire movies and I have to say that Let the Right One In is special. This movie, directed by Tomas Alfredson, has won awards from the Tribeca Film Festival, the Goterborg Film Festival, and now from FanTasia, where it garnered the jury awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography, and also the People’s Choice award.

Let The Right One In—based on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist—is the most innovative vampire movie that has hit the screen in a long time. With two children as the stars, I’d expected this might be a kid’s movie, but the sensibilities are entirely adult. 

Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is that blond Nordic boy everyone has seen who appears as fragile as glass. The vampire Eli (Lina Leandersson) is his polar opposite: swarthy, unhealthy-looking, and, we suspect, of Gypsy origin. Oskar is twelve, introverted, timid, living with his mother in some Godforsaken small town. One evening he meets his new neighbor Eli.  “How old are you?” he asks. Eli says, “Twelve, more or less.  I’ve been twelve a long time.” 

The delicacy of the relationship in this strange coming-of-age story is what makes the movie work. The setting is an overwhelming darkness in a frigid climate where people are isolated from one another even when they live in the same house. All of that aloneness surrounds and contributes to Oskar’s ongoing trauma—he is bullied and brutalized by classmates. The violent vampire attacks committed by Eli are only marginally more shocking than what happens to Oskar. All of this in a world where day to day life moves at a glacial pace. Eli says when they meet, “Just so you know, I can’t be your friend.” But a strong bond develops between them that helps Oskar change. A bond in danger of being severed.

The film is in Swedish with well-written English subtitles. J.J. Abrams (producer of Cloverfield, the upcoming Star Trek movie and a lot of other films) has apparently become infatuated with Let The Right One In and a U.S. remake is scheduled for 2010. Try to see the Swedish version. It’s hard to imagine a film like this with profound silence imbedded in every frame being accurately captured by Hollywood. You’ll find a clip on Youtube (without the subtitles, unless they add the subtitled version).

Midnight Meat Train (USA)

Midnight Meat Train is based on the short story by Clive Barker (from Books of Blood 1), who co-produced the movie. Clive’s story is so well known and loved by horror aficionados that I feel the need to reassure everyone that while characters were added out of print to film necessity, the story remains true.  

Midnight Meat Train was a long time in the making, and the second director to take it up is Japanese goremeister Ryuhei Kitamura, in his North American directing debut. Kitamura, who worked closely with Clive, delivers when it comes to blood and guts and a couple of intriguing special FX I’ve not seen before. The plot and pacing are tight, with plenty of visceral horror for everyone. 

Leon (Bradley Cooper) is an earnest young New York photographer who has been advised to get grittier city shots by gallery owner Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields). Late one night he sees a violent murder on the subway and photographs the scene, and inadvertently the murderer. His girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb) encourages him to tell the police, who refuse to take him seriously—there’s no body. Leon’s research reveals hundreds of unlikely missing persons all taking the NY subway’s late night train. He stalks the murderer, Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), who stalks Leon right back. Much to his regret, Leon finally discovers the horrifying and grisly truth of what Vinnie is all about. And what happens to the meat!

Film can’t convey the deep philosophical and Jungian perspective that Clive Barker is so good at writing on paper, but this movie comes close enough. Cooper does a credible Leon descending into the mental state that a viewer of murders-as-they-happen through a lens might reach. But Jones’ Mahogany steals the show. This big guy is one cold, calculating, barely human monster, relentless. My only quibble, a tiny one, is that Maya, the girlfriend, turns 1950’s horror-passive-female at the wrong time. But that’s happened before in movies and will happen again and horror fans of both genders are used to groaning over actions like this. Schedule for an August release. Check the website for the trailer:  http://www.midnightmeattrainthemovie.com/

[REC] (Spain)

What an adrenalin rush! If you like the vid cam style of Cloverfield, Blair Witch and Diary of the Dead, you’ll experience just how much better it can be done when you view [REC] (as in Record). The story begins in the fire station where Ángela (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman (Javier Botet) are taping a segment for a show called “While You’re Sleeping”. They wait and wait for something to happen. Finally the station gets an emergency call and the TV crew of two tag along with the firefighters to a small apartment building where panic is setting in; an old woman upstairs won’t stop shrieking. The movie begins there and is relentless in pacing and buildup until the nerve-shattering conclusion.

This Spanish movie filmed in Barcelona (with good English subtitles) has accumulated fourteen international awards to date, including the Silver Scream. It literally is heart-stopping and I’ve not seen a movie with this pace ever. The situation seems hopeless, which makes it all the more intense. I don’t want to take away from the blast you’ll get. Trust me. If you like horror and you like zombies and you like being sent over the top by a movie, go see this. You won’t regret it. And just so you know, there’s a [REC]2 in the works. And also, a U.S. remake called Quarantine, out this October, which promises a frame for frame accuracy. The trailer for Quarantine looks pretty good. You can see a trailer for [REC] on Youtube and a Quarantine trailer at: http://www.containthetruth.com/

There are a couple of other movies I’ll mention briefly that I think are very good and interesting enough to see or buy, if they don’t make it to the theaters.  Check Youtube for trailers.

The Substitute (Denmark)

An alien from a warlike planet lands on a chicken farm, takes over the body of the farmer’s wife, and gets a job as a substitute teacher in a 6th grade class. She is a creepy teacher who can read the minds of her students, move objects without touching them and is highly perceptive in a cutting cruel way. And yet she manages to convince the parents of these children that she’s the greatest teacher in the land. She has, of course, a hidden agenda. Sounds goofy and yet this sci fi/horror story actually works.

This movie was written and directed by Ole Bornedal, who did Nightwatch. The substitute teacher Ulla is played by Paprika Steen, one of Europe’s most respected actresses, who has starred in over 40 films.  Because of this film, I want to see more of her movies.

Home Movie (USA)

Another vid cam film with a tight setting. Two parents—psychiatrist mother/Lutheran minister father.  Two children—ten year old twins Jack and Emily, very odd.

This average middle-class American family has moved to the country where father David (Adrian Pasdar), who was a victim of child abuse, tries so hard to be everything to his kids. Meanwhile, mother (Cady McClain) can heal everyone’s children but her own. The twins go from bad to cruel to creepy and ultimately end up at evil. Both medicine and religion fail. Meanwhile, the camera rolls on.

From Inside (USA)

Written and directed by John Bergin, this is a bleak voice-over animation done by Bergin, a graphic designer, over a span of years on his home computer, working from his graphic novel of the same name. Bergin is also a musician who appeared on the soundtrack of The Crow.

This disturbing story happens in a train riding endlessly through the scorched post-nuclear war Earth.  On the train is a pregnant woman, alone, her world in ruins, robbed of everything, about to bring a new life into this desolate and hopeless world.  The movie is a powerful and disturbing vision that is going to stay with you.

Stuck (Canada/USA)

Stuart Gordon directed and co-wrote (with John Strysik) a story pulled right out of the headlines. A few years ago a woman in Toronto hit a man with her car, panicked, drove home, parked the car in her garage and left it there with the man stuck in the windshield for days. Eventually he died. Yes, fact is stranger than fiction.

Tom (Stephen Rea) once was a successful man and is now on the streets for the first time. He’s depressed. Having a terrible day. And then he’s hit by a car driven by Brandi (Mena Suvari), a nurse’s aide and hip-hop aficionado who is drunk and stoned and not willing to face what she’s done.

This movie is so well constructed, the editing is perfect, the acting great, the pacing just right. It’s all about accountability, and we know how much of that there is in the world today.

Flick (England)

For all you rockabilly lovers out there, Flick, written and directed by David Howard, is set in the more-or-less present with 1950s Wales intruding.

Johnny "Flick" Taylor (Hugh O’Conor) uses his stiletto knife in a dance hall fight over Sally in the 1950s. He kidnaps Sally (Julia Foster), the girl he loves, but his car careens out of control and Johnny dies. Cut to today.

Johnny comes back to life as a zombie when a rogue rockabilly radio station plays the music that animates his soul. He’s hell-bent on revenge.

Faye Dunaway plays a tough-as-nails Lieutenant McKenzie from Memphis, in Wales to help the local police investigate strange deaths and weird happenings. This is a fun, character driven farcical horror story full of the pathos imbedded in 1950s tunes.

So, there you have it. Keep an eye out for these movies. You won’t be sorry. And next year, haul yourself up to Montréal for FanTasia. You won’t be sorry for that either.

Nancy Kilpatrick

Ghoul gurrll at the Movies