A very brief piece on Bodied (2017) Fantasia 2018

Privileged white kid Alan is working on his masters when gets drawn into rap battles.

Produced by Eminem and written and directed by Joseph Kahn BODIED is going to split audiences. Some people are going to fall all over the satire, the flashy filmmaking and word play and eat it up, while others are going to hate it with a passion if they don't just leave the theater (or since this is going to You Tube Red click- on a cat video).

I really didn't care for it and to be honest and after about 40 minutes was done and tuned out. Yea I thought the wordplay of the rap battles was wonderful, but  outside of that the film seemed to be kind of obvious in what it's doing. I kept noticing the points it was trying to make instead of being carried along by the story. I never really cared.

It doesn't help that Kahn doesn't want us to really like Alan. While this allows him to approach some of his themes differently than if we cared for our hero, it also makes it really hard to connect with him and his plight. We don't connect and like the characters in the film we want to toss him out on his ass (or leave the theater), which is not  what you want when you've made a film that's a long two hours.

To be honest I don't hate the film. It isn't bad, it's simply so artificially constructed that I never got connected. Yes, the discussions of racism, cultural appropriation, political correctness and pretty much every other theme and idea in the film are ones we should be having, but the fact that this film is intentionally in your face and is going to split it's audience is going to kind of defeat the purpose.

Yes, I understand the film, like Kahn's in earlier, and much better, film DETENTION, isn't a film for everyone, nor one where Kahn compromised. I love that the director has made a film with his own unique style and voice. But at the same time the fact that he is taking no prisoners means the the most of the people who should see the film never will.

As much as I really don't care for the film, I admire and applaud what it's doing, I just wish it was something I could applaud with the heart instead of just the head.

The choice to see it is yours.

Nate Hood's Fantasia Yokai Monster Double Feature : ROKUROKU: THE PROMISE OF THE WITCH and DESTINY: THE TALE OF KAMAKURA

While the rest of the world breathlessly rushes on in the great CGI arms race to see who can put the next (and perhaps last) generation of make-up artists and puppeteers out of work, the Japanese film industry has remained a final bastion of practical special effects, particularly in the yōkai sub-genre—films about monsters, spirits, and every mean manner of beastie from Japanese folklore and fakelore. Like more traditional tokusatsu cinema, the artificiality of yōkai effects has always been a selling point, not a detriment, creating a creative wildlife reserve where actors in rubber suits, silly masks, and rubber appendages can run wild. Consider two yōkai films playing at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival: Yudai Yamaguchi and Keith Amemiya’s Rokuroku: The Promise of the Witch and Takashi Yamazaki’s Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura. Both feature an abundance of real humans in real monster outfits interacting with real practical effects. And while both films liberally use CGI, it’s never for the sake of verisimilitude, instead favoring creatures as ostentatiously artificial as any Takashi Murakami superflat exhibit.

Rokuroku: The Promise of the Witch is essentially a 92 minute anthology film featuring vignettes of famous yōkai updated for modern sensibilities. These range from the truly disturbing to the truly forgettable. But the best involve re-imaginings of the umibōzu and kamaitachi, the former the vengeful spirit of a drowned monk turned sea monster that smashes any boat whose crew mentions its name, the latter a cruel killer with sickles for limbs that flies on heavy winds. The umibōzu is here depicted as a Sion Sono wet-dream: a rotund kaiju head straight out of a 50s Roger Corman cheapie with human hands for teeth and the heads of crazed women for eyes. Meanwhile the kamaitachi gets the Lolita treatment, being reinterpreted as a psychotic young girl complete with pretty bows and ribbons who terrorizes construction workers with slice attacks so fast they can’t be seen. The film feebly attempts to string these stories together with a framing story about two young women haunted by a rokuroku, a witch with a stylish red kimono and a not-so-stylish 10 foot long prehensile neck. The rokuroku lives in a haunted hotel—in room 666 natch—and torments victims until they barter for their freedom with foolhardy promises, usually involving the lives of other people. The film seems to imply that the witch’s return to collect on the women’s promises is responsible for the sudden surge in yōkai activity comprising the rest of the film, but it’s largely unclear. What’s worse, the lore behind the titular yōkai is spotty and poorly explained—think Sadako’s curse in the Ring films if she didn’t bother with the video tape or seven day warning and just killed you whenever she felt like it. One can’t help but wonder how much better Rokuroku: The Promise of the Witch would have been if it had abandoned the pretense of a larger narrative and embraced its anthology roots as the Japanese answer to V/H/S (2012) or The ABCs of Death (2012). It’s not a particularly good or consistent film, but there’s enough creativity and originality in the monster designs to charm even the most jaded genre aficionado.

Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura is a significantly more successful film, even if the presence of traditional yōkai are downplayed to make room for the original monster designs and cosmology created by famed mangaka Ryohei Saigan in his Kamakura Monogatari series. The film follows middle aged writer and spirit sleuth Masakazu Isshiki (Masato Sakai) and his significantly younger newlywed bride Akiko (Mitsuki Takahata) as they move back to Masakazu’s hometown of Kamakura. Akiko is stunned to learn that in Kamakura yōkai, spirits, ghosts, and humans co-exist (relatively) peacefully. But she catches on rather quickly after a visit to a late night Monster Market where she buys “spirit mushrooms” that severe the link between one’s soul and body with even the smallest bite. The next ninety or so minutes are, much like Rokuroku, essentially an anthology of Masakazu and Akiko’s misadventures with the otherworldly denizens of Kamakura, including a murder mystery involving spirit possession seances, an 800-year old jinx spirit, a particularly dapper female psychopomp right out of a Neil Gaiman comic, a Death God Bureau to which the newly deceased can petition to become ghosts or yōkai, and an evil monster from the film’s version of the afterlife that wants Akiko for its eternal bride. The last fourth of the movie is a more traditional fantasy-romance movie where Masakazu travels to the world of the dead to rescue Akiko from her fiendish suitor. Visually, this afterlife borrows a bit too liberally from the spirit railroad sequence in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) and the stacked-block architecture of the Land of the Dead in Lee Unkrich’s Coco (2017)—but the idea that Masakazu’s hyperactive imagination can warp his ghostly surroundings to his will is delightfully novel. The film’s main problem, however, is its near interminable length. Two hours may not sound like much, but the film’s heavily episodic pacing gives one the impression they’re watching a television miniseries nearly twice as long, making the over-long finale where Masakazu and Akiko swear their undying love for each other in the face of adversity over and over again exhausting instead of cathartic. But again, much like Rokuroku, viewers who come seeking to immerse themselves in a strange world of magic, monsters, and practical special effects won’t be disappointed.

GONJIAM HAUNTED ASYLUM (2018) Fantasia 2018

This is a repost of Joe Bendel's review from when the film played Los Angeles earlier this year.

Technically, it is not fake news. CNN Travel called this abandoned Korean mental hospital one of the “7 freakiest places on Earth,” but they never explicitly claimed it is actually haunted (notable for Korean film fans, Battleship Island also made the list). There is no question the place is creepy, so it rather makes sense for a paranormal investigating web series to film an episode there. Horror fans know they are probably filming their final show in Jung Bum-sik’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (trailer here), which plays Fantasia today.

The title pretty much says it all: Gonjiam is an asylum that is haunted—especially room 402. Reportedly, people have died trying to open this mysterious locked chamber. Naturally, that is what the producer of Horror Times has planned for their ill-conceived grand finale. Determined to reach one million viewers, the Horror Times boys have a couple of planned scares to throw at their four “lucky guests” chosen from a pool of fans. Not surprisingly, they selected three cute girls and a socially awkward guy. However, the two on-camera hosts will be screaming like little babies when things get real.

Basically, Gonjiam does exactly what the original Grave Encounters and Hollow Grove did, but somehow it is even eerier in Korean. Jung and co-writer Park Sang-min also manage to flesh out the characters to a greater extent than you see in most found footage horror films, at least with respect to their fan-guests (whereas the Horror Times crew are just bad karma-generating jerks). Moon Ye-won and Oh Ah-yeon are particularly notable as the rich, hip, and terrified Charlotte and the naïve but comparatively grounded Ah-yeon, respectively.

Jung skillfully builds the tension with small but unsettling bits of business, like doors ominously opening and candles extinguishing themselves. He also exploits the absolutely terrifying setting for all its worth (it is hard to believe the real Gonjiam was operational until 1996, because the movie analog looks like it has been moldering since the 1960s). As in franchising, location is often everything for horror films—and this one is profoundly malevolent looking.

So yes, this is another haunted asylum movie, just like the subtitle promises. Jung delivers on it. If you haven’t seen Grave Encounter, you will probably find Gonjiam a wildly chilling ride, but more experience may very well find themselves investing in spite of themselves, thanks to Moon and Oh. Recommended for K-horror fans due to some skillful direction and evocative set and prop design,

Nate Hood on Tigers Are Not Afraid (2018) Fantasia 2018

The children tell stories. Stories of brave princes, beautiful princesses, faraway kingdoms, and tigers with sharp teeth and sharper claws. These stories they tell to distract themselves from their world, a modern day Mexico in the grip of cartel violence and gang killings; a kingdom no less foul for its want of evil wizards, fiery dragons, and darkest magics. Here, families go missing in the night while little boys with bullet-hole bellies wander the alleys. The lucky ones are those murdered in their beds, for rumors tell of the missing being butchered slow and eaten fresh by Satanists. The adults call these stories fairy tales, but to children like 10-year-old Estrella (Paola Lara), they're as real as the evening news. She can see the shadows moving in the night, the murals that shift in the dark on the walls; she can hear the whispers of the dead offering portents and prophecies and the wails of the damned demanding vengeance and fire. In her pocket she holds three pieces of chalk, each with the power to grant a single wish. They're her only line of defense after her mother suddenly disappears, forcing her to join a group of roving street urchins preyed upon by the same criminals that made them orphans. The first she uses to cheat through her initiation of killing a local mobster, but the last two she saves, partly out of fear, partly out of hope that they can find her mother.

So begins Issa López's TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID, a bold piece of magical realism that takes an unflinching look at the horrors of Mexico's drug war. Borrowing as much from street children cinema like PIXOTE (1980), ALI ZAOUA (2000), and CITY OF GOD (2002) as it does from the films of fellow Mexican fabulist Guillermo del Toro, it presupposes a world with no conflict between documentary realism and ostentatious fantasy. Both strains are represented in concurrent plots: Estrella's magical search for her mother and the orphans' struggle against gangsters hunting them for stealing an iPhone with incriminating video evidence on it. But like the aforementioned Del Toro, she manages to keep both styles balanced so neither outweighs the other, reveling in their gorgeous contradictions instead of pretending they don't exist. The result is a film of spectacular beauty; many of the images in this film will haunt me for years—a crowd of orphans warming themselves to a burning piano, an abandoned mansion with a leaky floor full of striped goldfish, and ghosts, oh so many ghosts. Ghosts of murdered masses in sarcophagi of shrink wrap, ghosts of bloodied parents, ghosts of boys shivering in eternal cold. López's portrayal of modern Mexico is grim and tragic, but not without hope. For as with many fantasy movies, TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID is itself a story about stories and how they can save and liberate from suffering. As long as we have fairy tales, López argues, the bastards burning the world can't destroy everything.

Rating: 7/10

The Witch in The Window (2018) Fantasia 2018

I'm probably going to catch flack from some of my friends who really liked THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW but it didn't work for me.  It maybe because my relationship with director Andy Mitton's films is that I love them in the theater on first viewing but I don't care for them on a small screen on the second and this time I jumped straight to a small screen screener. Or maybe it just didn't work for me.

The film has a father taking his son away from the city for the summer as punishment for cracking the parental locks on his computer. Off in Vermont father  and son begin rebuilding a house with the intention of flipping it. However as the house is rebuilt the previous owner, the title entity, seems to be getting stronger.

Small low key film kind of plays more as a family drama with  a supernatural edge than a straight on horror film. Yea, the film has some scares, but the film is more interested in the relationships than scares. More keenly the third act reveals the film to be something unexpected. (or not since I  felt echoes of a film/book I can't mention lest it influence your take on the film.)

While I don't think the film is bad, it just didn't blow my skirt up.

Worth a look when the film hit Shudder, I'm not so certain you need to run out and see it before that.

MANDY (2018) Fantasia 2018

(This review originally ran as part of the Unseen Films coverage of the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018)
Which is deadlier, a drug-running hippie death cult or two lovers who dig their comic books and sf? Tragic history says the dirty smelly hippies, but the only caveat is the fannish logger husband will be played by Nic Cage. He will have a chance for a full freak out when the cult leader abducts his wife in Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy, which screens during the 2018 Fantasia Film Festival.

Red and Mandy Miller live happily in a remote cabin nestled in the Shadow Mountains. It is an Eden-like existence, until Mandy attracts the attention of Jeremiah Sand, a hippy cult leader most likely inspired by Manson, right down the failed release of hippy-dippy rock album. With the help of the vaguely supernatural Black Skulls biker gang, Sand and his brotherhood stage one of the most vicious home invasions you could imagine.

Initially, Sand tries to brainwash her with a special cocktail of mind-control drugs, but when Mandy resists their influence, he brutally murders her before Red’s eyes, leaving him for dead. That would be the cult’s only mistake and it might be enough to bring them down. Still, Miller’s crusty old trailer-dwelling crony warns him this vendetta could cost him his life, but Red is in no mood for such talk.

Essentially, Mandy is the male version of I Spit on Your Grave, as re-envisioned by Boris Vallejo, featuring fantastical matte paintings and brief animated cosmic interludes. Cosmatos doubles down on all the hazy neon visuals and synth-heavy proggish 1980s soundtrack music (think Tangerine Dream warmed up in Hell) that made less discerning cult movie fans flip for his first film, Beyond the Black Rainbow. However, this time around, he is also working with a narrative.

So, yes, this film is completely bonkers, but Nic Cage is right there with it, every step of the way. Forget about Leaving Las Vegas. This will be the film he will be remembered for forty years from now. He unleashes the Cage of Wicker Man and Mom and Dad for full effect. He is not quite Isabelle Adjani walking through the subway tunnel in Possession, but he is in the same gated community. Despite their classy pedigrees, Linus Roache and Andrea Riseborough keep in the spirit of the proceedings, as Sand and the title character. Plus, for an extra dose of hardnosed badassery, Bill Duke appears briefly but memorably as Miller’s old Jedi Master.

Just so you know, there is a chainsaw duel in Mandy. At one hundred-twenty-one minutes, it is shamelessly self-indulgent in just about every way possible, but you cannot accuse of getting stingy with the madness. Frankly, it over-delivers on the promised lunacy. Highly recommended for midnight movie regulars who fully understand what they are getting into.

A Rough Draft (2018) Fantasia 2018

Super video game world designer is forcibly made a gate keeper the door between worlds. However things become complicated as he tries to return to his world and some people try to kill him.

Or something.

Weird Russian science fiction film never quite finds its footing as it zips through set pieces that are beautifully done but which never quite hang together.

More disappointing than bad, A ROUGH DRAFT remind one of other better films (Matrix), and even some lesser ones as well with it's notion of a tower between worlds. In a weird way I kept waiting for some of Michael Moorcock's heroes to come waltzing through this version of the tower at the center of it all.

While the story never thrills the visual effects and action sequences do and they keep you watching even when all else fails.

I'm glad I saw it but looking back it wasn't something I needed to go out of my way to see.

What a Man Wants (2018) Fantasia 2018

This is a Korean movie, so even though it starts out like a Blake Edwards sex farce, there will be some tragedy eventually. Men are indeed acting badly, but they are not the only ones in Lee Byeong-hun’s What a Man Wants, which screens during Fantasia 2018.

Seok-geun constantly cheats on his patient and lovely wife Dam-deok, because he is a cad. Ironically, he often tricks his straight-laced brother-in-law Bong-soo into covering for him. A lot of people would give him a pass if he had some side action, because Seok-geun’s sister Mi-young can be a you-know-what-buster. One fateful night, Bong-soo naively shows up for the pool game that was supposed to serve as Seok-geun’s alibi and inadvertently steals away the attention of his new prospective lady friend, Je-ni. Seok-geun had been daring him to have an affair of his own, so he finally gives into temptation.

Not long after the affair begins, Bong-soo’s professional standing as a chef-restauranteur dramatically improves. Alas, tragedy also strikes the family. As a result of these combined events, Bong-soo and Seok-geun effectively trade places. However, when Mi-young hires Je-ni as a waitress in the restaurant, things revert back to a farcical level.

There is a fair amount of door-slamming in WAMW, but there is also a good deal of guilt and grief. When it loses a character, the repercussions are felt all the way through to the end. Still, there is plenty of physical comedy, mostly executed without excessive mugging.


Most of that sneaking around and hiding under tables falls to Shin Ha-kyun, who is quite nimble and rather poker-faced as Bong-soo. Initially. Lee Sung-min plays Seok-geun as a roguish shaggy dog, almost like a Korean Jim Belushi, but he gets surprisingly serious during the third act. In fact, it is a rather smoothly and subtly evolving performance. Yet, the biggest surprise might be Lee El, who elevates Je-ni beyond a mere sex status, giving her complicated depth and dimension, very much in the tradition of Dada Chan.

Nobody gets off easily in WAMW, but Lee and co-screenwriters Jang Gyu-sung Bae Se-young do not hold grudges against anyone either. You might have missed the connection, but their screenplay is based on the 2011 Czech film Men in Hope, yet they definitely incorporate distinctly Korean attitudes. They also capitalize on the temperate and inviting Jeju Island locales. A nice balance of funny and sad, What a Man Wants screens today as part of Fantasia 2018

Tokyo Vampire Hotel (2018) Fantasia 2018

Sion Sono's bat shot crazy vampire TV series (see it on Amazon) has been cut down to 140 minutes losing roughly five hours in the process. I don't know how they compare but this film is just bonkers.

The plot basically has a young woman surviving mass murder only to end up forcibly brought to the title location in order to help the good vampires, Draculas, battle the bad vampires, the Corvins. Bloody mayhem results.

Actually this is all mayhem, and not always for the better. The minimal plot comes and goes as all sorts of nastiness happens and I was left to wonder "what in the holy hell was I watching"?

While every sequence is clearly the work of Sono working near the top of his game the over all film doesn't hang together. I kept feeling lost and all connection except that of admiration for the sequences faded.

While the film is worth seeing for Sono completeists, I think most people probably should go for the full on series- I'm going to head over myself once the festival is done.

The Brink (2018) Fantasia 2018

A disgraced cop who never says a word or changes expressions, is reinstated to the force after being charged with killing a bad cop. He ends up on the trail of a super bad ass villain who also never says a word and never changes expression.The bad guy is smuggling gold from a sunken ship and killing anyone who gets in his way.

The plot is unimportant in this ever building series of action set pieces. People fight, cars crash, people scuba dive and it all climaxes on a small ship in a big storm. The action is mind blowing and will make your jaw hang open. In all seriousness the action set pieces are some of the best from the last decade...

...the problem is there are no real characters and the plot seems to be an after thought with the result there is nothing to hang anything on. I watched the film twice because I thought I missed something- nope I got it all. Moving at a breakneck pace the forward motion of everything drives the film forward and keeps us interested. However the lack of plot never full engages us.

Don't get me wrong, I like the film. But the action sequences are so good that I should be loving this instead of liking it.

Reservations aside THE BRINK is a must for any action film lover when it plays Fantasia again tomorrow.

Tigers Are Not Afraid (2018) Fantasia 2018

I am at a loss as to how TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID was  playing smaller festivals such as Boston Underground and even Fantasia but not in the bigger fests like New York or Tribeca or any of the other huge festivals. The fact that films by Guillermo del Toro are lauded there but gems from filmmakers like Issa López, who has made a film that is probably more powerful than most of del Toro's films, is just wrong.

TIGER follows young Estrella whose mother has been carried off by the drug cartels in Mexico. She is left to fend for herself and falls in with a band of boys who have similar stories. They work together to get food and stay safe. They tell each other fairy tales to pass the time. However fate has other plans for the group and they are soon on a collision course with the cartels.

Realistic, but with supernatural overtones, Estrella sees ghosts and a traveling line of blood, this is a real world fairy tale. I should add that this is not a Disney sort of fairy tale but something more akin to the original Grimm's tales where truly bad things happen.

Shocking yet deeply human and moving. TIGERS is a film that is light years above and beyond most other "genre" films out there in that it gets the blend of real and fantastic elements exactly right. Nothing is over done or unbelievable. We buy everything that happens, even the fantastic stuff because we believe in the characters.

At the same time the film is very much a fairy tale with monsters, ghosts, magic, wishes, princes,a princess and any number of fairy tale tropes wandering through the film. However the film is so well done that you'll never think of it as a fairy tale, rather simply as a solid drama.

This film is amazing and get better the more you ponder it. One of the best films of 2018.

Highly recommended.

People's Republic of Desire (2018) Fantasia 2018

Chinese live-streaming might not have the weird fetish appeal of the Japanese idol industry, but the fake egalitarianism and built-in exploitation make it even more perverse. Popular hosts and singers on the YY streaming platform can make tens of thousands of dollars per month, but the system is still stacked against them. Molecular biologist-turned documentarian Hao Wu dives deep into the YY ecosystem in People’s Republic of Desire, which played at this year's Fantasia.

Shen Man is an up-and-coming YY host, who is the sole support of her unemployed father and step-mother. She will be a genuine contender during the annual YY competition, because she has a number of well-heeled patrons and a major YY talent agency backing her. If you read YY’s media kit, it probably makes the platform sound like an egalitarian place, where average folk determine who is successful with their votes and on-line buzz. In reality, they might be able to boost a host from obscurity to a modest following, but once big-dollar patrons start throwing online (but very real) money around the live-caster’s “showroom,” the serfs are effectively frozen out of the action.

Big Li is maybe the last exception. He is considered the “diaosi” (a hard to translate term for a homely underclass male) who made good. He is the last of the unagented hosts who will meaningfully compete in the YY contest. A win will bring online fame, as well as more sponsors and hopefully gifts, but it comes at a price. Agencies will spend hundreds of thousands ofreal dollars on online votes, which they charge back to clients, making second place an expensive disappointment.

Wu follows both hosts through two competitions and a very messy year of scandals and personal strife in between. Wu’s approach is primarily sociological, with a special focus on the disenfranchised diaosi, who become increasingly disconnected from the live-streamers they helped build. There is also a pronounced element of sexism in how female live-streamers are treated. Even top talent like Shen Man must regularly field vulgar comments and many of their patrons clearly expect sexual favors in exchange for financial support.

However, we see enough of the inner workings of YY and major agencies (many of whom seem to be bankrolled by sketchy underworld types) to know this racket is fishy. Frankly, someone should do a full-scale expose of the Chinese live-streaming industry, but there is not exactly a robust tradition of investigative journalism on the Mainland.

Desire manages to make Western social media look less corrosive and divisive, which is definitely quite an achievement. As director and editor, Wu shows a keen eye for human drama, but still gives viewers a good overview of the bigger picture. He vividly illustrates the disparity between migrant workers and the oligarchical patron class, without belaboring the point. Highly recommended as a snapshot of contemporary Mainland society.

Penguin Highway (2018) Fantasia 2018

How you take PENGUIN HIGHWAY will depend upon how you take Aoyama, the 4th grader at the center. A super smart kid he knows he is going to be great and he knows he will marry the mysterious young woman who works at his dentist's office. What he doesn't know is why there is a flock of penguins in the middle of his tiny town. He is a cock sure kid that made me want to beat the snot out of him.

Yea he's a sweet kid, but he is a real twit. He is kind of like Sheldon from THE BIG BANG THEORY, annoying as all piss which is the reason I avoid the show. He is exactly like a bunch of really smart kids I knew growing up, all of whom I wanted to smack sense into. The fact that I didn't like Aoyama meant that I had a difficult time with the twists and turns involving the rest of the film.

Filled with some wonderful idea, some beautifully rendered sequence and a haunting score PENGUIN HIGHWAY should be a home run but it never really worked for me. It's not just that I didn't like the main character, it is more the fact that the film wants to be more clever than it is. Its trying to be wondrous and instead it is just okay. Yea, the bits look great (I love the penguin hordes), but the story never really works.(And I'm not going to be specific because much of this film is a mystery and the fun is seeing where it goes.)

I'm disappointed.

One of the rare disappointments at this years Fantasia. ( then again of you love characters like Sheldon on BIG BANG you'll probably eat this up)

One Cut For The Dead (2018) Fantasia 2018

It was supposed to be the Rope of zombie movies, filmed in one continuous shot. Then the zombies attack for real. However, if you think that sounds crazy, wait until you see it all again from a different perspective. Zombies get the mash-up treatment like never before in Shinichiro Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead (trailer here), which screens during the Fantasia 2018.

Higurashi is a bullying director a thousand times worse than Peter O’Toole in The Stunt Man. He has so little regard for cast and crew safety, he awakens the zombie curse hanging over their remote location, an abandoned industrial site, where the Japanese military reportedly staged sinister occult experiments during WWII. As crew-members turn into feral zombies, Higurashi finally gets the realistic performances he wants from his terrified thesps.

However, there is much more going on outside the camera’s field of vision. In a complete change of tone, the film goes from a Night of the Living Dead rip-off to a worthy successor to Noises Off. It is hard to explain out of context, but Ueda’s editing is absolutely masterful. You just need to see it for yourself.

One of the many cool things about Cut is how completely Ueda and his cast commit to each phase of the film. The second and third acts are so wickedly clever, precisely because we were with the cast-members when they were running for their lives during the opening set-up.
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Takayuki Hamatsu could possibly give the performance of the year as Higurashi. He certainly shows phenomenal range. Yet, Harumi Syuhama arguably eclipses his lunacy as Nao, the makeup artist who turns into a berserk killing machine and also acts pretty nuts in the third act as well. Mao develops some smart but endearing chemistry with them both as her namesake, an aspiring filmmaker.

Eventually, Cut evolves into a hilarious valentine to underdog independent genre filmmaking. It would pair up nicely with Graham Kelly Greene’s criminally overlooked Attack of the Bat Monsters. In fact, at one point a character in the Cormanesque spoof rather wistfully states: “in the future, people will watch these movies and laugh, but they’ll never understand how hard we worked on them.” That sentiment also perfectly fits Cut. It is a total winner that will charm the pants off horror fans. Very highly recommended, One Cut for the Dead screens tonight as part of Fantasia.

Rondo (2018) Fantasia 2018

Paul, a vet suffering from PTSD is sent to a shrink by his sister, however the shrink has a weird prescription for him to get better, namely bondage and fetish play. However things don't go as planned and Paul is soon on the run.

A great cast and a first rate premise are left to flounder by smart ass knowing tone that plays it all for laughs. For get the notion that this is a serious thriller, this is really a satire of the erotic thriller genre. Unfortunately instead of walking the fine line of thrills and laughs it falls on its face. Honestly this shouldn't have been played as a comedy, but a dead on thriller, or if not a wholly serious  one, than one that is played much straighter and less knowing than this is. The trouble begins with the voice over which makes it sound like an commercial for Geico  and then goes on from there. Nothing is played straight, everything is played for a laugh with people suddenly creeping around or in a silly manner for no discernible reason. It kills any suspense or desire to watch because it comes off as dumb.

Which is a shame because there is a good story here. Sure the plot has been done before, but rarely with a cast this a good. They manage to sell the film at least a little bit.

Not really worth your time or effort Rondo is a miss that could have been hit if it just took off the clown suit.

CINDERELLA THE CAT (2018) Fantasia 2018

There are no fairy godmothers in Naples. Prince Charming is the “King” of the underworld—and he’s no prince. Fortunately, Mia is a resourceful young girl, but not for long. She is about to come of age and inherit her murdered father’s fortune in Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Alessandro Rak & Dario Sansone’s mature animated fable, Cinderella the Cat, which screens during Fantasia 2018 in Montreal.

Vittorio Basile’s plan to revitalize the Naples seaport district is so visionary, only he understands it. His grand QE2-like cruise ship headquarters and its pseudo-artificial intelligence only hints at the potential grandeur of the project. Unfortunately, Basile falls for the wrong woman, torch-singer Angelica Carannante, who is conspiring with her lover, gangster Salvatore Lo Giusto to kill Basile as soon as the rings are exchanged. They will have to keep his young daughter Mia around until she is old enough to sign over her inheritance, but that does not mean her wicked step-sisters (and drag queen step-brother) have to be nice to her.

Young Mia had a rather touching relationship with her bodyguard Primo Gemito (sort of like the Man on Fire movies), but alas, he is the first person Carannante fires. However, he will make a dramatic return to the now shabby-looking ship as an undercover cop. Frankly, the rusty vessel is a good place to nose around, because it often records significant moments and projects the holographic playback at times that are either extremely opportune or inopportune, depending on one’s perspective.

This is not a Cinderella for kids, but it is wonderfully stylish and rather inventive. With its retro-futuristic fairy tale setting and holographic imagery, it feels something like a cross between the under-appreciated Italian science fiction classic, Morel’s Invention and maybe Streets of Fire, or who knows what. Plus, as an added bonus, there are several contemporary pop-big band musical numbers that are quite jaunty.

Yes, there are four, count them four, credited directors on Cenerentola, but the look and tone are always consistent. Along with three additional co-screenwriters, they create some unusually sharply drawn characters. Their villains are particularly strong, especially the glamorous femme fatale Carannante. Arguably, the traumatized Mia is the least developed, but everyone around her more than compensates.

There is a cat who occasionally slinks in and out, but the title is figurative. However, there is a talking crow, who has a significant role to play. Frankly, this Cinderella is probably too adult for GKIDS to handle (more so even than Chico & Rita or Mind Game), which is a shame, because they might be the only distributor who can handle animation this sophisticated.

Regardless, animation fans will be impressed by the originality and ambition of this noir fairy tale. Again, it should be fully understood this is not a kid’s cartoon. It is meant for grown-ups with discerning taste, who still enjoy a little mayhem. Very highly recommended. Cinderella the Cat screens today, as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Japan Cut Capsule Reviews: SIDE JOB, THICKER THAN WATER, and AMIKO

SIDE JOB
I don’t know what I think about Side Job. I think on some level I don’t have the understanding to full get or connect with the film. The film concerns a woman who is still living in temporary housing with her father as a result of the tsunami of 3/11. Slipping into Tokyo on the weekends to act as a call girl. While I can connect with the drama on a basic level the greater overtones of the damage left by such a huge tragedy eluded me (even when I saw the final image of the sign talking about being okay because we survived).

Despite my inability to connect the film is worth giving a shot for the strong performances and its exploration of how we react in the aftermath of tragedy.

THICKER THAN WATER
Thicker Than Water is the story of three sibling orbiting around each other and trying to get ahead in the world. While I was entertained by the film it didn’t leave me with a great deal to say about it. Blame it on all the other films playing at Japan Cuts. I’m going to have to circle back around and give it another shot

AMIKO
Yoko Yamanaka’s Amiko is a micro-budgeted road film about a 16 year old outside who meets and falls in love with a boy in her class. When he suddenly disappears she follow him to Tokyo. Hip, happening and flashy this film is a snarky ball of energy. For better or worse this is very much the work of a very young filmmaker who is full of wide eyed enthusiasm. While the film as a whole doesn’t reach the epic heights of some of the moments this film should act as a calling card for a filmmaker with great promise.
(This film plays at Fantasia on the 31st)

Hurt (2018) Fantasia 2018

ADDENDUM: I have been informed that the version of the film that this review is based on is not the finished film. The press office of  Fantasia has told me that there are differences between the screener and the finished version that World Premiered at the festival. I am supposed to be getting access to the finished version at which time I will rewatch the film and make changes based upon the second viewing. For the moment I am leaving the review up as a kind of place marker.

I know HURT world premiered at Fantasia, however it has the feel of a horror film that more typically plays at the Tribeca Film Festival, namely one that is much more concerned with being something other than just a horror film. While this occasionally results in a film that is genuinely scary, or if not scary really good for other reasons (the Arnold Schwarzenegger film MAGGIE is the first thing that springs to mind), more often than not it results in a film that gets points for trying but which ultimately fails to be much of anything. This latter fate is what happens to HURT, a film that tries hard to be something and ends up being kind of forgettable.

What is kind of sad about HURT is it has some great stuff in it. For example it opens with a sequence that plays as if it were a nostalgic slasher film. While not completely scary, it does generate a strong sense of style that makes you want to keep watching. Once the sequence is done the film kind of flounders

The film follows Rose as she goes through the paces on Halloween. She is sitting on a stoop with a mask on and fake scars scaring kids. Her husband is home from military service. They end up going to the local spook house attraction and... things happen...

...though not what you expect because this isn't that sort of movie...except when it becomes that sort of movie.

I suspect HURT is going to have a number of fans who love that the film is trying to be a human drama  beyond the chills, however for me the film doesn't really work. Part of the problem is that by using the typical horror trappings our expectations are never really met. While I love films that don't do what we expect, they tend to modulate the balance of old framework (horror film) and new trappings (domestic drama) to create something that seems new even if it isn't. HURT despite having a great cast, a great sense of place, some interesting ideas, never gets the balance right. Everything seems off.

To be honest my interest waned and my attention drifted.

While I didn't really care for the film, the film will have its champions, sadly I'm just not going to be one of them.

SECOND ADDENDUM- the promised second screener never materialized and I was no granted access when the film played later festivals such as Scary Movies

Saint Bernard Syndicate (2018) Fantasia 2018

(This is a repost of my review from Tribeca)

Two obnoxious twits go to China to sell St Bernards and it all goes wrong.

Frederick is extremely pushy. He knows everything even when he doesn't. All he wants is to make a dortune in ordr to show up his dad. Rasmuson is another know it all. He is also a sexist pig who sees all the ladies as fair game. While we often feel sorry for the, e never really like them

Very much a film by Mads Brugger, ST BERNARD is a film made to make you feel uncomfortable. All of the humor is from pain. Either something has gone horribly wrong or someone says or does something that makes our skin crawl because we can't believe that they are actually doing that. It makes the film a tough watch at times because we simply are waiting for the next terrible thing to happen.

While there is a lot of pain in the film, things turn a shade of black and bleak in the last half hour. as some of the turns make us fear things are going to get very racist and ugly. While that doesn't happen, I suspect that our feelings are the point since it forces us to consider what we would do, which might be the very bad things we project on the characters.

While I like some of director Brugger's films, I don't like them all. He some times is too intent of provoking a reaction at all costs. ST BERNARD SYNDICATE is damn close to the like/loath line. As a result while I like the film, I can see where others may hate it.

Nate Hood wants no part of Violence Voyager (2018) Fantasia 2018

Experimental animator Ujicha’s Violence Voyager feels like nothing so much as a modern update on the boom of hyper-violent, hyper-nihilistic Original Video Animations (OVAs) that flooded the Japanese anime market in the late 80s and early 90s: mean, vicious titles low in sense but high in blood, sex, and human cruelty; the kind of poorly dubbed shlock like Osamu Kamijo’s Violence Jack and Ichirō Itano’s Angel Cop that made Central Park Media and Manga Entertainment industry titans stateside and doomed anime’s reputation as gory porn cartoons for almost two decades. The only difference is these shows tended to involve full-grown adults (usually in futuristic and/or post-apocalyptic settings) and the occasional high schooler.

But the depraved tortures and killings in Violence Voyager are saved almost exclusively for little children, usually naked ones cowering in fear. It follows the fate of two young boys, the brave American Bobby and his cowardly friend Akkun, as they come across the eponymous amusement park on the side of a nondescript mountain. At first it seems like a gigantic water-gun tag attraction where guests must blast Googie robots, but they soon discover a small tribe of lost children fighting for their lives. Turns out the robots are metamorphosed monstrosities made from kidnapped kiddies by a mad scientist intent on creating a new race of organic/mechanical life who also just so happens to have a Lovecraftian/Cronenbergian behemoth locked in his basement laboratory. And those Googie robots? They aren’t armed with water guns like the ones given to Bobby and Akkun—they’re equipped with corrosive acid sprayers that can melt good little boys and girls into screeching skeletons of bubbling flesh in seconds. One by one the children get picked off as Bobby tries to save them all and defeat the dastardly doctor before it’s too late.

Much beleaguered credit must be given to Ujicha’s art style, a unique blend of animation stills and live action puppets he calls “geki-mation.” Of course, if I was feeling particularly grouchy—from, say, sitting through 80+ minutes of child murder—I might point out that almost the exact same technique was used more brilliantly in Sean Meredith’s superb Dante’s Inferno (2007), a film which conspicuously lacks terrified prepubescents getting turned to hamburger meat, and any given number of Monty Python’s Flying Circus shorts. Some might be able to stomach the story for the sake of the art, but I can’t emphasize this enough: child killing is not my definition of a good time. And I’m suspicious of anyone for whom it is.

Rating: 4/10

VIOLENCE VOYAGER screens again tomorrow at Fantasia