Tag: Fantasia International Film Festival


  • Chris Stuckmann’s ‘Shelby Oaks’ Is a Worthwhile Film Debut

    Very often in my free time, I browse the channels of YouTube.  My most watched content consists of board games videos. I do, however, also watch movie reviews. Out of everyone I watch, Chris Stuckmann is at the top. He brings with him a positive energy and an enthusiastic attitude that’s easy to see. Although…

  • Fantasia 2025: A Cosmic Connection of Dependencies in ‘Touch Me’

    Olivia Taylor Dudley’s 2025 is going very well. The actress was last seen during the Chattanooga Film Festival’s virtual showcase, giving a dramatically engrossing performance in the cult-aftermath movie Abigail Before Beatrice, and now in Fantasia’s Canadian Premiere of Addison Heimann’s Touch Me. Dudley is becoming a staple of indie cinema, undertaking memorable parts in Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman…

  • Fantasia 2025: An Endless Smorgasbord of Consuming Ads in ‘Buffet Infinity’

    Earlier this year, while writing reviews for Boston Underground Film Festival, the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) had a fascinating title that featured a collection of movie theater pre-movie and intermission programs, as well as some commercials. The film, Hey Folks! It’s the Intermission Time Mixtape, is a non-narrative film, meaning its presentation has no…

  • Fantasia 2025: ‘The School Duel’ is a Bold, Jaw-Dropping American Dystopian Portrait

    There are few films brazen enough to go where Todd Wiseman Jr’s future-dystopia Florida-set film The School Duel goes. When it comes to the next generation, there’s plenty to discuss, but consistent gun violence against the most vulnerable in the nation never seems to amount to direct change. In the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy…

  • Fantasia 2025: ‘Foreigner’ Considers the Horrors of Assimilation

    Ava Maria Safai’s Foreigner is one of the most unique and exquisitely realized horror films of this or any other century. In ten years’ time, critics will look back on this film and, if they had bashed it, will resolve to tell you their newly formed opinions on it, much like many did with Jennifer’s…

  • Fantasia 2025: Hellcat is a Road Trip Paved With Misinformed Intentions

    Back in the mid-nineties, before the internet took off and streaming platforms were even an idea, network television ruled the airwaves, and the world-premiere network movies and multi-night mini-series were landmark events. As an impressionable youngster, this was how I’d get my regular fix of Stephen King-adapted horror. But, on occasion, you’d also get something…

  • Fantasia 2025: Is ‘Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo’ A New ‘Tag-Along?’

    Taiwanese horror has been making serious waves over the last few years, with films like The Sadness, Detention, and Incantation tearing up Western streaming charts. One film in particular, The Tag-Along, became the highest-grossing Taiwanese horror film of all time back in 2015, before being dethroned by Incantation in 2022. The Tag-Along, based on the…

  • Fantasia 2025: Humanity Goes Back to ‘The Well’

    There is no shortage of post-apocalyptic indie dramas out there. Hell, at this point, I’m fairly certain you could find a Tubi subgenre dedicated to these films without going very deep into the subscription service. The idea of the end of the world is generationally compelling, and the plots tend to cater to small budgets.…

  • Fantasia 2025: ‘Noise’ is a Volatile Cacophony of Excessive Plot

    Is there anything worse than noisy neighbors? I’m sure there is, but first-time feature director Kim Soo-jin pushes the envelope in his Fantasia debut Noise (Noijeu) to suggest otherwise. The Korean-made Noise takes a page from many horror favorites in crafting a story about a rundown tenement building where some of the tenants have stayed…

  • Fantasia 2025: Resistance to Adorability is Futile in ‘Nyaight of the Living Cat’

    When I wrote about Takashi Miike directing an episode of anime cat series Nyaight of the Living Cat in my Fantasia preview article, I had no idea what the show was about. I’ll be honest, I assumed it somehow mashed up the principal pieces of George A. Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead to…