Hot Sandwich (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

Alan is a 32 year old guy who wants to be a social media influencer, but he's stuck flipping burgers. Heading off to sell one of his valuable action figures he ends up having a wild adventure as his plans to party go sideways.

This one of a kind mix of music and comedy is something you are either going to love or hate.  Its raw comedy about partying and bad behavior that is kind of like being trapped in a locker room full of hard partying geeks. I mean that in a good way and a bad way. While frequently leaning into the low brow and vulgar side of things the film is bouyed by the fact that there is a genuine charm here we like Alan and forgive him offenses.

Running just over an hour (it is actually under an hour with about 10 minutes of end credits) the film never over stays it's welcome.

Worth a look if you are interested.

Brief thoughts on SUN (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

After a couple argue at a party, she leaves. He tries to follow and finds she has disappeared.

This is more an allegorical character study rather than a straight horror film. This is a film where the character's journey mirrors a trip through hell. Its a film about a personal journey...

...and that is the problem. This film is one you will either connect to or you won't. If you don't connect to the characters the film will mean nothing to you. I could not understand why the couple at the center were together so I never cared.  For me this was waste of 75 minutes.

On the other hand, in my efforts to try and find something to connect to I found that some people really loved the film. To that end I leave you to make the decsion to see this film on your own.

Discordia (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

A woodman's family and village was attacked 15 years ago. His wife was killed and his daughter was kidnapped. He gave chased across the globe but never found her. Then one day she returns...

This one of the best and most realistic fantasy films I have ever seen. There is a perfectly constructed world. The magic in this world makes perfect sense. It's not over done or flashy but perfectly integrated into the story and the world. Most importantly the film gives us real people as characters. These aren't the archetypes you find in Dungeon and Dragons films, but variations of people we know.

I was floored.  Watching the film I was watching a film that belonged not just at genre festivals, but at the big festivals like Toronto or New York. This is a film that is about way more than just spells and monsters. This is a film about the human condition.

This is a super film...and it has some cool beasties.... go see this...

Highly recommended. 

Very brief thoughts on Foibles (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

Substance abuse based black comedy has a man try to help his ex get clean by forcing her to indulge until she sobers up.

This film didn't work for me. It's not the subject matter but rather the fact that I didn't much care for any of the characters. If I don't have anyone I like I really can't connect to a film. To be certain the fact that the humor is uneven and occasionally forced,  but not liking the leads doomed it for me.

On the other hand I did laugh a couple of times but not enough to have it over come the characters.

GUNMAN (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

Young hit man just out of prison can't seem to get by. Soon he finds himself back in the old life, but things are not quite as they were and he soon finds himself in way over his head with no way out.

Low budget gritty action film has a very real lived in quality. While in no way slick or flashy, this is a film that has a real edge to it. We know looking in that this is not going to end well, but we also know that things are stacked against our hero and this was a road chosen years before.

The action is quite good and jarring. The sequences are shot with a you are there feel and if you didn't know better you could almost swear some of it was real. At the same time the you are there framing of some of the sequences (the same shots are used in cars and elsewhere) makes the film feel slightly awkward. Nothing fatal, but it makes me wonder what director Cris Tapia Marchiori will do with a bigger budget.

Gunman is a small action gem and worth seeing when it plays again at Fantaspoa

Lotus (2024) Fantaspoa 2025

Avant garde and perhaps a touch of surrealism blend together in a kind of experimental film that is going to thrill some people and send others to the exits.

The film follows a woman who returns to her family's mansion after the first world war. She is going to sell it. However the staff has other ideas. Things get even more complicated with slimy people, a secret society and demonic forces wander through the proceedings as the woman ends up being asked to make a film....

Director Signe Birkova has made a challenging work of cinematic art... or maybe it's just a heady mediation on various ideas that is supposed to get us thinking.  Honestly I don't know since the film keeps moving at all times and periodically making an unexpected left turn down a road or through a door we never saw coming. One would think we would end up home again but we keep ending up further and further away.

I honestly don't know if it  amounts to anything, but it is intriguing. There is a lot to chew on here from war, to class to cinema and lord knows what else. I found I stopped taking notes at some point because to do so had me miss something that just happened. This is not a film look away from since everything changes moment to moment.

Its also a film hard to discuss since unless you've gone through it once discussing plot points or thematic elements are going to mean little.

I like it but I need to see it again to know what that actually means.

Recommended for the adventurous.

It Feeds (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

A psychiatrist who has a psychic ability and her daughter have to fight to fight to save a young girl who is being devoured by a dark being.

This is one of the best horror films I've seen in a while. It's a film that sets a tone early and never lets it break until the end. Truthfully you need to see this film, if only for the first fifteen minutes. It is one of the best opening sequences of any recent horror film and sets the rest of the film up perfectly. While some may quibble that what follows isn't quite as good, I still think what follows is wonderful and scary and not really predictable.

What makes the film work is that the films conceit, that the mother can go into people's minds and see their trauma, or monsters (kind of like Kon's PAPRIKA or the unjustly forgotten DREAMSCAPE) plays out perfectly. It sets up a wonderful dual world of a light place and a dark place that will kill you one way or another.

I truly loved this film. While it may not be big and flashy, it is the sort of thing that you will stop and watch every time you run across it on TV.  I also love how it has Julian Richings appear for one scene that amps everything up.

One of the great finds of 2025

While the Fantaspoa screenings are done, the film is now streaming on Amazon on other digital providers.

Portraits of the Apocalypse (2024) Fantaspoa 2025

I suspect if you are like me you are largely sick to death of zombie films. There is so little variation that they are boring. Even the shift into outbreak disease films has floundered. Yes there are some good one now and again, but mostly they are dead out of the gate.

PORTRAITS OF THE APOCALYPSE on the other hand is a great film. More something along the lines of what George Romero would have tried if he made another film, the film doesn't go the blood and gore route and instead mixes humor and horror in tales that firmly focus on the characters and how they react to the zombie outbreak over time.

Comprised of four parts each stand alone story takes place at a different time. 

The first, the tale of a crooked cop at a crime scene gone wrong is set at the start of things and its funny until it isn't as she tries to fix what happened. Its a battle between her cop side and the bad girl voice in her head.

The second story has an older woman wake up her daughter because she is certain there is a rat in the house and because something happened to the cat. As the two women and the daughters husband ponder what is going on, they pay no mind that the man had been bitten earlier in the evening by a friend.  This is another funny until it's not tale.

The third tale is told largely in video journal enties of a mother for her unborn child. Its a story that has an bleakness to it because we know from other tales this is not going to be happy.

The final section takes things into a new direction as father tries to contact his dead son through the use of a zombie. This is a chilling film since it changes the rules and resets the table of new ways to go with the genre.

I was blown away. Here at last is a zombie film that doesn't copy the past but builds on what went before to take things in new directions. This film potentially opens up new pathways and new doors that show us what the subgenre could be. This is one of the most heady films in the genre and one of its best. This film changes the rules.

Sadly while I am excited about this film,  I suspect that the film is not going to please some film fans. Those who don't like the last trilogy from George Romero or films like MAGGIE, or MISS ZOMBIE, are not going to like some of the turns and the insistence of focusing on character over body parts. This is not a gorefest but social commentary and old school horror, and some people will balk.

On the other hand old school horror fans, or people who understand that horror is not just scares but about going deep into the human condition are going to eat this up. 

One of the best films at this year's Fantaspoa and one of the finds of the year PORTRAITS OF THE APOCALYPSE is a must see.

Samurai in Time (2024) Fantaspoa 2025

I made a huge mistake with SAMURAI IN TIME and I let it slip away until now. This film played so many other festivals that Ijust couldn't bring myself to see it. I should have because this is a fantastic film.

The plot has a samurai battling one of his enemies and being struck by lightning. This trasports him until now, specifically on to a film set where thy are working on a samurai TV series. Of course this causes problems and of course he eventually ends up working in the movies as a samurai.

Don't worry, know that much will ruin nothing because there is so much here thanks to clever plot turns and some incredible characters. Trust me, this had me going from being certain I knew where this was going to having zero idea. And even if I did know where it was going I didn't much care because I was having such a great time. 

 This film is a stunner. Sure it's just playing Fantaspoa but Third Window film is releasing it to home video on April 28th to the rest of the world. You need to see this.

Highly recommended

Transcending Dimensions (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

Toshiaki Toyoda is a director I like. He's made some intereting films over the years and some real head scratchers- frequently at the same time. I don't always like his films but if nothing else they get me thinking.

This time out Toyoda has made an absolute head scratcher. Yes it has some magnificent moments, but there is a point, say about ten minutes in where you you're going to know if this is going to be on your best of the year list or the worst. No that isn't fair, it won't be on your worst of the year list because you probably will have fallen asleep.

The plot has a hit man being paid to kill a guru and to find one of his followers who disappeared. At some point a conch shell is blown and a trip into space ensues...and then there is a return to earth with people changing identities. You are either going to be on the film wavelength and love the heady discussion or you are going to call horse hockey. Personally I liked the head games up to a point until I realized that this was similar to the directors 2020 film DAY OF DESTRUCTION  which threw a bunch of ideas out there and never quite connected them up.

Is it worth seeing? If you don't mind a film that is way better in the parts then as a whole. If you don't want mind games or narrative that doesn't come together stay away.

Brief thoughts on THE OTHER PEOPLE (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

After moving into a new house with her father and step mother a young girl discovers he daughter has made friends with a boy who lives in the darkness.

This is a solid little horror film that has some nice chills. While not reinventing the wheel, it does have some nice sequences that keep us watching all the way to the end.  If you like low key horror that isn’t all jump scares and blood THE OTHER PEOPLE is definitely worth your time.

Girl America (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

Director Viktor Taus takes the story of his friend Zdena Vrbová whom he met when he was strung out on heroin. Her refusal to stay down when things were bad helped him to stand up anf get his life back in order. The story also mirrors the tale of thousands of Czech orphans who went in and out of orphanages and foster homes.

The film is the story of a woman who was called Girl America. She lived with her mother until she was removed the the Communist Czech government and put into an orphanage. She then bounced in and out of foster homes, frequently the result of her bad behavior. The film is a grand theatrical memory play as theolder Girl America tries to make sense of her life.

Do not go into this film thinking it is going to be a straight forward film it's not. It's highly stylized and very theatrical (it started life as a stage play). It is not for everyone (some comments on Letterboxd complained about the "broken" narrative and realistic nature.) however if you can go with it and let it do what it wants to, and if you can get on its wavelength this film with kick youin the chest. When it was done I was left starring at the screen. I hadn't so much lived another life so much as experienced it from inside another person.

This is a big screen movie. This is a film with its own point of view. It's a film that goes all in with all its internal references and sense of reality. We are inside of Girl America's head from start to finish and it is a place we have never been before.

Everyone bemoans that too many films are cookie cutter and are not doing anything new. GIRL AMERICA doesn't break the mold because it never was in one. Its a film crafted with pain and sorrow and a sense of life from the broken  shards of a life.

I am staggered and somewhere beyond words.

That may not happen to you but by god you should see this film in the hope that this film rattles the pillar of your own cinematic heaven.

Finding films like this is why I love Fantaspoa.

A Cell Phone Movie (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

Will Sterling plays a fictional version of himselfin a meta film about his attempts to make a film on his cell phone so that everyone can see what he is capable of. Of course the film was shot on a cell phone and  quest mirrors his actual quest.

This is an amusing  comedy that leans into it's concept with mixed results. Some times the conceit is a bit too much with some of the framing seemingly chosen to remind us that we are watching a cellphone video.

The performances are largely fine, with everyone not phoning in their performances (sorry). Though it must be said that Sterling, who is on screen for the whole film is sometimes a little too much playing toward a nebishy character in the early sequences before he decides  make the film. I wanted to smack him and tell him to calm down, then again Sterling the writer should have given himself better material. The film is considerably better once the film is set in motion but at that point he didn't have to make stuff up and just follow what was happening.

Worth a look if you're interested

The Embodiment (2025)(aka Under the Dominion) Fantaspoa 2025

After helping a priest who is also an exorcist, deal with his feeling of being possessed a therapist begins to have strange things happen around her.

This film feels like a number of low budget horror films I saw in the late 1970's and early 1980's where filmmakers did what they could to stretch the meger bucks they had. There is a certain way the films were shot, mood was at a maximum and effects at minimum. This made what happened more shocking. There was often long sequences of dialog where things were discussed that came into play later. THE EMBODIMENT feels exactly like those films and as a result I was filled with nostalgia. 

At the same time because of the way it's shot the film has certain problems. There is a lot of talk and some of the sequences are a little static. The film at times feels a little slow, more so if you've only seen modern horror and the constant driving films that are prevalent now. When the film springs to life in the final third I wondered why things couldn't have moved along quicker.

Is it a bad film? No, but it is a kind of throw back that may struggle to find its audience. On the other hand if you want something decidedly not Hollywood the film is worth a try.

The Killer Goldfish (2025) Fantaspoa 2025

From Yukihiko Tsutsumi the director of the 20th CENTURY BOYS and 2LDK returns with a one of a kind film concerning a series of murders being committed with goldfish.

Yes Goldfish.

I’m not going to say another word other than strap in and just go with it. This is a wild and crazy film filled with wild images and occasional WTF plotting. Sure some of it doesn’t make a lick of sense but by god this film is compelling. It’s just crazy enough that you buy everything that happens and are curious where it’s all leading.  Trust me don’t even try to guess where this is going, just go with it.

In a weird way this is what cinema is all about- showing us things we never experienced in a way that opens up our eyes.

This film is a blast and a half…and just loopy enough that you’ll never trust a goldfish again.

Recommended.

Fantaspoa starts this week

Some day I will get to Fantaspoa. And when I go I will go with my friend Anthony so we can go to the movies and then he can take me around Brazil and show me where he grew up.

And if Anthony won’t go, I will still go to Fantaspoa because it is one f the coolest film festivals in the world. Programming all sorts of goodies from around the world it is one of the few festivals that truly shows the scope of the universe of cinema. It doesn’t care about anything other than showing great films and as a result I have found some of the most wonderful films of the last few years there.

Long may they run.

Beginning Wednesday the festival is once more unleashing a wide spectrum of films on their audience and we are better for it. While I have seen a few films that they are screening (see below) I am looking toward seeing a few more.

Based on what I’ve seen before this is going to be a rocking year and I highly suggest that if you can go, you do so and see a lot of films.

While I am waiting access to some films, I would like to prepare you for the fest with a list of films I saw previously.

AJ GOES TO THE DOG PARK

BABY ASSASSINS NICE DAYS
CHAINSAWS ARE SINGING
EBONY AND IVORY
GHOST KILLER
INFINITE SUMMER
PARVULOS
SILENT PLANET
UNIVERSE 25

For tickets and more information go here