Noise (2024) Scary Movies 13 Fantasia 2025

A deaf woman returns to her sisters apartment after her sister disappears. The sister had been having issues with loud noises coming from the apartment above hers.

This is an interesting film where sound is used to mess with the audience. Its a film with one realy great scare, and a lot of creepy moments. For the better part of an hour this is an intriguing, and then it goes off the rails.

Even before the one hour mark this was a batshit crazy film. The longer this film goes on the less sense it makes. Whe it hits the one hour mark the film throws the script goes into the shreader. Nothing in that final half hour makes one lick of sense. I dare you to explain to me what exactly was going on when the end credits roll. You explain to me how the demon like monster, angry ghost, serial killer, crazed tenant, and one or two other things fit together. I also dare you how some one standing on a floor can pull someone out a window eight feet up in the air. And what about the jagged glass in that window? And...there is more, but I won't go into it. This film just throws everything, and I mean everything, at the screen to see what sticks. Unfortunately nothing does.

I went with it for a while but there was a moment as the film was winding down when I just threw my hands up. 

After an intriguing start the film crashed and burned

Bullet Time (2025) Fantasia 2025 Popcorn Frights 2025

Eddie Alcazar's new deranged series looks like Ren and Stimpy took steroids and were dropped a lot on their heads. Its lewd, crude and off the deep end and not for anyone who can't handle loud insanity at the speed of light. 

I was given access to the first episode of the series and I had to watch it a couple of times to catch much of what was happening. It's loud and fast with almost too much going on. 

I liked it enough that I will definitely try more episodes. 

Waverly (2025) Fantasia 2025

This is the story of a barmaid  and  a doorman who fall madly in love until the need for finacial success gets in the way.

This is an odd film for Fantasia which generally deals with genre films. While romance definitely is a genre, it tends not to be one that plays Fantasia.

WAVERLY is a good little film. Its a film about trying to deduce what is importan in live, love or money. It's a well acted film with a couple of great characters at it's center. We care about them and we really want to see what happens.

While we see what happens and we know how it all plays out the script undercuts them by not giving them enough room to really breath. This film should have been a feature so we could have seen some events play out more naturally. 

While I can quibble the film is actually very good and worth a look.

School Duel (2025) Fantasia 2025

Bleak black and deeply troubling film this is one of the feel bad films of the year. It is a bloody and broken scream into the night about the state of the world.

The film is the story of Sam Miller a bullied 13 year old living in a dystopian Florida where guns rule, school shootings are no big thing and  being macho, christian and right wing is the way to be. The state is in some twisted 1950's throw back.  When Sam strikes back at a bully who torments him he is punished. When he sees something about a School Duel, he signs up hoping to win and be crowned the king. Unfortunately it's a literal fight for life that isn't playing on a level field.

Think of the worst of society and the world today and it is here. This is a film where the worst of us plays out.  It is a terrfying thing. This is a world where our kids are sent to the slaughter.  In this Florida of the future there is no hope, only death.

It would be easy to compare this film to BATTLE ROYALE or  THE HUNGER GAMES, but that would be  lazy and dead wrong. Those films are several steps into fiction. the world of SCHOOL DUEL is just over the line. It's a film set in a world where  we will be when we stop getting upset with school shootings and stop fighting the morons who think "thoughts and prayers" actually makes dead kids better. It's a world run by bully's who think its fine to torment the weak. 

This is a deep visceral scream from the darkest abyss of a broken soul. It is a film that appears to have been made by some one who was almost broken by life, but pulled themself back from the abyss.  It is a clear eyed look at where we as a society and a country are headed. 

I went into the film thinking tht this was going to be something humorous and something I could shake off. I couldn't, because this this isn't funny. There is no humor in this film anywhere, just pain. Sam isn't an archetypal character in a polemic but a little kid who lives and breaths. When he picked up the grate to smash the kid tormenting him I found an instant connection to my life and when I was bullied. Too much pain welled up and I realized that I could never turn my pain into art.

Ultimately this isn't a movie but an elegy for death of the life we know. Yea we bleed for the doomed Sam (you thought this was going to end well? then you weren't paying attention) but mostly we bleed for the world as we know it. Long before the film ends this film will make you realize that unless we course correct, what happens here is just a precursor to something worse.

By the time the film ended I wanted to die. It removed any sense of hope, current events make me think that this future is coming. If you are paying attention to current events you see the world slipping towards this. My friend Liz Whiitemore has said that this film is a warning and something waving red flags but I think thats being much to hopeful. There is no hope here.

This film is brilliant.

I never want to see it again... but sadly I fear we will have to live it.

OBEX (2025) Fantasia 2025

This is a black and white nightmare via a retro game. It is a tactile film that has a physical feel, especially if you ever played text computer games. It's a film that I can tell you what it's about, but I can't tell you what it really is.

This is nominally the story of a man who plays a video game and gets inside it and has to kill a demon lord in order to escape. What it actually is something else entirely. Its a character study via horror via a kind of misdirection via an exterimental approach. It's a film you have to experience rather than read about because the film is a trip and it chages over time.

I liked this film. Granted it took me a bit to click with it, but once I did I was willig to go anywhere it was going. This is ot like anything you've seen before, even other off kilter inde scifi films that are just plain weird. Yes this is that occasioally, but more often then not its something else.

If you want something that is very off Hollywood. OBEX is for you.

Stuntman (2025) Fantasia 2025

 

A black listed stuntman is brought in to supervise the work on an independent action that wants a retro feel. Will he be able to prove himself and help his assistant?

STUNTMAN will move you. That may sound weird, but the truth of the matter is this a characters forward film. Yes there are some great fights, the film opens with a 1980's style sequence, but it always keeps the characters and their interactions front ad center. The result is a film that had me misting up in the final moments.

What a joy.

To be certain this film covers familiar territory in the comeback gere, but at the same time it does something that few other films ever do and that is not rely on cliche or epectations to carry the story. The script here doesn't use a short hand and has the characters interact. We become invested and the film stops being disposable.

This is just a great film both as a drama and as a look at the making of action films.

Recommeded.

Shrimp Fried Rice (2024) Fantasia 2025

 A shrimp is revealed to be the cook at a Chinese restaurant.

Amusing foul mouthed riff on the Pixar film RATATOUILLE feels like the best film that Pepe of the Muppets never made.  Knowing and meta the film openly references the Pixar film. I laughed.

However as good as the film is it is probably too long by half.  Yes the pay off is very funny but there is a point where the film seems to be vamping. The result is a film that is good instead of great.

Definitely worth a look

Hi-Five (2025) Fantasia 2025

 

This is one of the greatest superhero films ever made.  

This is the greatest Marvel superhero team that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee never thought of. Think of this as the best cinematic version of the Fantastic Four ever made. This film does what every version of FF, including the new one, should have done.

Actually this film is light years beyond just being a FF retread and I have only used that analogy simply to get your attention.

This is the story of five people who get organ transplants from a super powered human. They didn't know the donor was super powered, though the doctors knew things were weird when the body disintegrated after the organs were removed. The organs give each one superpowers and a tattoo.  As they sus out what their powers are, an older religious leader leader steps on the scene and begins sucking vitality from anyone he touches.

This is a brilliant film. While the film has action sequences, this film is actually all about the characters.   How the five people work out their new abilities and come together is what makes this film works.  We fall in love with the film because we fall for the characters. How they react and interact is everything. These are people who are just like us, or our better selves. How they react is how we would. It is a delight. 

I loved this. 

This film has all the heart and love that almost all of the big budgeted superhero films of the last two decades have been striving and failing to achieve. This is a film with wonder and feelies and genuine laughs.

This film is magic.

As I said this is one of the best superhero films ever made and one of 2025's best as well.

The Undertone (2025) Fantasia 2025

Before we start be aware my reaction to this film is based on seeing it on a screener on TV with no surround sound. I mention this up front because this is film that an aggresive sound design that is a huge part of the film and if you don't have that your viewing will be affected.

A woman, the skeptic on a mysterious event podcast, is home waiting for her mother to die. As she does so she listens to some strange audio sent in by a listener and the sound recorded in the house she is in.

A film of sounds and silences, this is a film you are ether going to add to your list of films as one of the scariest ever made or on your list of films slightly more exciting than paint drying. I'm in the paint drying camp.

I should take a step back right here and say the final moments of the film scared the shit out of me, but it wasn't an earned scare. While it most definitely NOT a jump scare, as such, the frission it creates is just for those moments and not the 85 previous minutes.

The problem with this film its incredibly static. The mother is catatonic in the bed and never moves. The only other person physically in the film is the main character. That's it.  Visually its shots of the quiet house, some flashes of images and implications of other things, but mostly is just our heroine sitting with headphones on. Not much happens -until it does-hence the ending working- so the film feels inert.

Actually, this might have worked better as an audio play. So much of this film is geared toward the ears that I kind of wished I had headphones on (ADDENDUM: Liz Whittemore who did watch this with headphones loved it and said they are an absolute must). The audio is better than the visuals, though some of the sounds we hear sound wrong. For example, the voice of the woman singing in her sleep backwards has a metalic tinge to it as if played back on a recorder and not if they were actually making backward sounds. (I mention this because I knew someone who could mimic the sound of reversed audio and while it wasn't perfect it was freaky).

While I don't hate this film, I am not in love with it. This should have been told in another form.

Then again it may click with you, I have a couple of friends who will eat this up because slow or not they love a deliberately told horror film.

Chao (2025) Fantasia 2025 Japan Cuts 2025

Set in a future Shanghi a reporter tries to find out how the merpeople and humans came together and ends up learning the story of human Stephan and the mer-princes Chao, who met him and declared that she was going to marry him.

Studio 4 C is back with a visually amazing film. It's a film that will make you want to stop the film just so you can look at everything happening in the frame.  I was blown away. It's so amazing that I can't wait to see it again when I can watch it and stop the film periodically to see what is happening in the frame.

As good as the visuals are the problem is the narrative and the story telling are allover the place. As loud as the visuals are some of the sequences are. Bits of the story seem to be missing or overwhelmed by a side bit. This is a problem for Studio 4 C. while they make some of the best visual films, their narratives  and feel scattered if they don't have a director who can hold the reins tightly.

I like this but I didn't love this the way I should have.

Reservations aside the visuals will blow you away and any chance you can get to see this big must be taken.

Haunted Mountain: The Yellow Taboo (2025) Fantasia 2025

 Hikers head into the woods and end up in a weird loop of events.

This is not a time loop sort of film but something else entirely. It's a replaying of events and varations and... I really can't explain it simply.

What I can explain simply is that I am torn about this film . The images are truly spectacular, this maybe the best looking horror film I've seen this year. There are moments and sequences that are truly chilling. This film has some images that are now burned into my brain

 On the other hand the narrative and its looping story telling never really comes together. This is always a danger with films that loop, and its a danger most films of this sort fall into. I know that some times with films from outside of the US the narrative is not rigidly controlled, and in most cases it works, but the looping, time shifting, weirdness here keeps the film from truly working. Yes by the time the film ended I knew what was going on, but at the same time I was never connected. Intellectually I knew what happened, but emotionally I felt nothing.

I don't hate this film, I just wish the great visuals and moments had a better narrative thread to hang off of.

HEADCASE (2025) Fantasia 2025

 

Young woman who is a social media influencer ends up in an accident while making content. As she falls apart because she has just killed a man, the call of her life comes in promising to make her rich is she can just get to a meeting.

This is a bleak black comedy about the lengths people will go for money and fame. Its a funny but sad indictment of the state of the world. 

I'm not going to spoil the turns but simply say it is recommended.

JULIET AND THE KING(2025) Fantasia 2025

This poster does no justice to the art in this film.

JULIET AND THE KING is a delightful, animated film about a theatrical troop that is brought to Iran to perform a version of Romeo and Juliet with the Shah as part of the cast.

I had a blast with this film. 

To be certain it isn’t perfect, but at the same time it is so absolutely not Hollywood that you forgive any flaws as you watch some brilliant things transpire before our eyes. The characters on screen are not really like anything that we've seen here in America. The plot does not flow as we expect and there is real danger at times. The hows and whys of it all doesn't feel old hat.

Yes, the animation is wonderful. There are small details everywhere that will make the animation junkies, like me, grin with delight..

I loved this.

As someone who is tired of everything being Disney or 3D computer animated, this film is a breath of fresh air that harkens back to the work of Don Bluth or Richard Williams.

Highly recommended.

A pointer toward Devil's Bride (1974) Fantasia 2025

The Eastern Block nations were making some weird ass films under the rule of the Soviets. I don't mean that in a bad way, more that there are some truly bizarre film that came out during the Cold War, especially in the 60's, 70's and 80's. I mean no one in Hollywood would turn out a musical folk tale about the devil ending up in a romance after getting pitched from heaven. The music is fully of fuzzy guitars and  music thts similar to Jesus Christ Superstar except not up to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

God bless Deaf Crocodile for bringing this film to the masses. This is a one of a kind viewing experience that is going to delight anyone who wants off Hollywood films. This is going to confuse others. And it will annoy the hell out of anyone who wants typical Hollywood product.

I do not know if this qualifies as a good film. I don't know if I like it as a film. I don't know if that matters. I do know that I loved the experience of watching. I loved the weird twists ans turns and not feeling like I knew where this was going. This is an experience and an eye opening film about the world and cinema.

If you want something that isn't like anything you've seen before- give this film a shot.

HELLCAT (2025) Fantasia 2025

Young woman wakes up in a Gulf Stream trailer with a bad wound. She is not certain how she got there. A voice on a speaker tells her to calm down. It warns she must remain calm or else the infection will take over sooner than the one hour she has to get to a doctor.

I can't say more about the plot because there are twists and turns in the offing. Things are not what we are lead to believe at the start. If I say more than that it may end up being spoilers. 

I didn't really care for this film. The events as they play out don't feel natural. We can feel the manipulations of the filmmaker, from the long sequence before anyone speaks as the just awoken girl fumbles around in the trailer, to some of the turns.  I went with it because it's not terrible, but at the same time I kept hoping there would be a wonderful turn that delighted me. It never came.

Worth a look for horror completeists.

Forbidden City (2025) Fantasia 2025

A young woman from China allows herself to be trafficked to Italy so that she can find her sister. When her sister is not where she thought she would be,  she begins her search. Eventually she ends up hooking up with the son of the man  who is supposed to have gone off with the sister.

Atypical mix of Hong Kong martial arts and Euro crime films is something to make you sit up and take notice. The mix of action and crime drama makes for a film that isn’t like anything else out there, and which probably shouldn’t work, yet some how it does. This film hooks you early with an amazing action set piece and then just drags you along.

The reason the film works is the endless drive forward that the search for the siter brings. There is an urgency. We know early on that the bad guys are bad. And some ot the good guys are not so good either. I love that we don't have cookie cutter characters.

Certainly, the martial arts help. They are going to sit up and make you say “hello’ because there is brutality to them that is severely lacking in modern action films, especially those from China. The action is such that I was emailing friends to tell them that they had to see this because the action was going to blow their minds.

I really liked this film a great deal. I like the mix of genres and cultures. I love that some one was thinking outside of the box and was skilled enough to pull it off. Too often mixes like this crash and burn. This one doesn't. Just go with it's seemingly uneven pacing.

Forgive my lack of words  but I need to see this again to really find the words to express how much I liked this film.

A must see.

BLAZING FISTS (2025) Fantasia 2025 Japan Cuts 2025

 Takashi Miike's third project for the year (the others ar Nyaight of the Living Cat and Sham) is based on MMA fighter Mikuru Asakura's autobiography. In it two young men in juvenile detention are inspired by a talk  aby Asakura to try and compete in an upcoming MMA competition. When they get out  they work to make that a reality, but they have to fight gangs, both juvenile and adult to make their dream a reality.

Weakest of the three Miike projects for 2025 isn't bad, but it isn't great. The main problem is the script isn't anything anything we haven't seen before. It kind of spins it's wheels until we get to the fight scenes. The script seems to want to hit every cliche  because it's kind of too lazy to give us a detailed plot. Yes, we know the over all arc, but the details are not all here.  There was a point where if it wasn't a Miike film and if I didn't like the characters as much as I did I might have walked out.

Ultimately the fight scenes are the reason to see the film. The fight scenes are bone crushing and exciting. They are not ones where anyone walks away unhurt. Blood flows. Bones are broken. Nothing is hidden...

Well, until it is. Somehow a film that let it all hangs out ends on a disappointment. Just as the film grabs us, it ends on an anti-climatic moment. I stared at the screen and groaned. Miike ended it there? A couple seconds earlier or later it would have been fine, but something about that final moment doesn't work.

I don't hate the film, the action really is a reason to see it, but this should have been so much better. Maybe it's unfair because since it''s Miike I'm holding it to a higher standard... but I was disappointed.

Serpent's Skin (2025) Fantasia 2025

A trans woman who fled her backward hometown ends up in the big city. Falling in love with a tattoo artist, the pair end up unleashing a demon who feed on the people they meet.

This film didn't really work for me. More talk than action the film never fully generated enough suspense or fear for my taste.  While not bad, it just wasn't scary.

Worth a look for forgiving monster fans.

Anna Kiri (2025) Fantasia 2025

I honestly don't know if I like ANNA KIRI but I am reasonably certain that it is one of the best films from 2025.

Yes, I know that makes very little sense but at the same time the cast, the script, and the technical prowess involved in the making of the film all come together to make something special.

The plot of the film has Anna and her brother making money with a gang as low level theives. they make enough to get buy but not much more. When one of their scores ends up going banana shaped she is forced to flee.  In the process she drops her diary which is picked up by a literary person who tracks her down and offers to chage her life. The problem is the old life isn't done with her.

Flashy and deliberately told, this film is very much a calling card. The film uses all sorts of  tricks to move things along and keep us interested. Frankly it tries a little bit too hard and the film feels overly punished with a few florishes (the insertion of film clips) that make me want to hit the director. If the script and the cast weren't so god damn good I'd have written the film off.

But I can't write this film off. There is something incredibly compelling. I keep going back to the film and gushing about how it's put together, how the performances give us more than is in the script, and how the script is way more edgy and raw then the slick presentation suggests. There is an ugly edge under the gloss and the bumps lift it up.

Yea, I know that makes no sense, but the truth is director Francis Bordeleau has made something that shouldn't work but does. He's made a film that is so perfectly put together that it is te times the sum of its parts. Its the sort of film that I could show to people and say don't do that, but watch it because it's so incredible.

This film is a masterpiece- see it

REDUX REDUX (2025) Fantasia 2025

REDUX REDUX is one of the great films of Fantasia and 2025.

The film is the story of a mother who takes revenge on her daughter’s killer by jumping between dimensions and killing him over and over again. But there are complications. I can’t tell you more than that because that’s the first couple of minutes and it becomes complicated after that.

This is a great film on every level, especially the script. The script works and makes sense . Too often multi-dimensional films make zero sense (look at the Marvel Universe films to see the mess), but here things are controlled and for the most part are perfectly plotted. The characters are expertly drawn with more than two dimensions and real arcs.

I was moved.

After spending the better part of the last few weeks liking but not loving any narrative, and getting to the point that I was thinking that there was something wrong with me, here was a film that grabbed me by the neck and forced me to stare at the screen with an intensity that few films have generated.

This film is an absolute masterpiece.

Highly recommended.