Category: Fantasia Festival 2019

KOKO-DI KOKO-DA: Repeating Trauma, Performing Grief

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, Horror, Johannes Nyholm, Psychological horror, Surrealism2 Comments

This Scandinavian psychological horror examines grief with an unsettling plot about two parents attacked by a sideshow trio, over and over.

[Fantasia 2019] SONS OF DENMARK: The Extremes of Where We Are & Where We’re Headed

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Danish Film, Drama, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, ThrillerLeave a comment

Ulaa Salim's film is a disturbing and shocking look at right-wing extremism— a necessary tale in 2019.

[Fantasia 2019] Michihito Fujii’s DAY AND NIGHT: Morality Under Capitalism

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Drama, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, Marxism, Masanobu Andô, Michihito Fujii, Revenge Thriller, Shinnosuke Abe1 Comment

Michihito Fujii ruminates on how capitalism destroys good people, and whether revenge is just or simply salt in a perpetual wound.

[Fantasia 2019] Ironclad Women & Bourgeois Criminals in A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Abner Pastoll\, Crime, Edward Hogg, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, Revenge Thriller, Sarah Bolger, Thriller1 Comment

Sarah Bolger gives a fierce performance that subverts the typically patriarchal revenge tale

[Fantasia 2019] Enter a Bermuda Love Triangle in HARPOON

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Brett Gelman, Christopher Gray, Emily Tyra, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Horror Comedy, Munro Chambers, Rob Grant1 Comment

Rob Grant's pitch black horror-comedy is an intelligent evisceration of friendship, betrayal, and the male ego.

[Fantasia 2019] SATOR’s Hereditary Hauntings

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, Horror, Jordan Graham, Mental Health, Psychological horrorLeave a comment

Graham's horror film is a perfectly dreadful view on the devastating hereditary legacy of mental illness.

Rural Magic Realism and Perpetual Adolescence in KNIVES AND SKIN

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Drama, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, Jennifer Reeder, Marika Engelhardt1 Comment

Jennifer Reeder uses magic realism to look at social dynamics and gender in a small town in the wake of tragedy

[Fantasia 2019] STARE Terrifies via Horror in Postmodern Folklore

On By C.H. NewellIn 2019, Fantasia Festival 2019, Film, Film Festival, Folklore, Hirotaka Adachi, Horror, J-Horror, Otsuichi1 Comment

Hirotaka Adachi digs in the J-horror claws with the help of modern folklore's terrifying power