Category Archives: Coverage

From Fantasia 2024: «The Killers»

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I love anthologies, I love the noir genre, and I love horror. Therefore, when I saw that the anthology film “The Killers” was going to be presented in Fantasia 2024, I was excited to see it. I knew very little of the directors Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deok, Chang Hang-jun and Lee Myung-Se, who combined their talents in this film. After seeing it, you can be sure that I will be seeking their other works too. 

I will do my best to talk about the stories without going into a lot of details nor spoilers.

In the first story “Metamorphosis”,  we see a man running for his life, barely making it alive into a very private bar. Being very confused at first, the man starts to get friendly with the bartender, a very mysterious and charismatic lady that does not seem scared at all by him, even when he has a knife coming out from his back.

I thought this was going to be the “base” story, the one that connects the rest, and that would be playing in segments between the rest of the stories. While it sets the mood just right for the rest of the film, it is isolated from the others. 

It ends where I think something bigger might be barely starting… I wonder if we will ever get a full feature of this story.

I really hope so. 

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From Fantasia 2024: «House Of Sayuri»

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What seemed to be a dream home for the Kamiki family quickly turns into a nightmare, as it turns out that the house they just acquired is haunted by the very violent spirit of Sayuri, a girl who used to live in the house about 10 years earlier. For some reason, Sayuri is filled with rage and sees this happy, loving family as something that she needs to destroy.

Right after they finish moving in, the Kamikis start to suffer accidents all through the house, while most of the members of the family accept them as just random unlucky moments, the senile grandmother who suffers from Dementia, seems to get glimpses of Sayuri. Norio, the middle son of the family and the one closest to Grandma, thinks all her ravings are due to her condition.

It’s only when things go horribly wrong that Norio starts to believe the words of Sumida, a girl from school who warned him about an evil presence in his house. This is also the time where Grandma seems to become lucid again, with a clear mind and the mission to defend her family sending Sayuri back to hell.

But as you might guess, there is more to this, and the task won’t be that easy.

This is the premise of “House of Sayuri” a film directed by Koji Shiraishi («Noroi: The Curse» , «Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman») and was recently presented in Fantasia 2024.

I really enjoyed this film, but I can see that it won’t be for everyone. The first half of the film is a very good horror film, not only for Asian Horror standards, but also for worldwide cinema. I would dare to say that it even breaks the formula that feels overused in the haunted house genre, and creates its own path.

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From Fantasia 2024: «Cuckoo»

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Recently in the Fantasia 2024 festival, we had the chance to see “Cuckoo”, the new film written and directed by Tilman Singer, and that is also one of the most awaited films of 2024. While some people are expecting a psychological thriller that seems to deal with paranoia and conspiracies, I was glad to see that it’s something bigger and way better than that. 

The story starts when Gretchen, an American teenager who has to move with her father and his second family into a new house in the secluded woods of the  Bavarian Alps. Just after arriving, Gretchen is offered a job at a resort that it’s owned by Herr König, a very charismatic and rich man who has hired Gretchen’s father (and her stepmother) to develop a new building in the area. 

The job itself is not very demanding, but Gretchen finds some of the instructions she gets regarding the resort very odd, one of them being to make sure that she closes the reception office at 10 PM and to never wander in the woods in her bike that late at night.

After a weird day at work, and being the rebellious young adult that she is, Gretchen decides to go home on her bike, riding the woods at night as she was told not to do. This results in her being chased on the road by a strange woman with apparently very violent intentions, which causes Gretchen to suffer an accident. The police doesn’t seem to not believe her statement, since nobody saw said woman, nor heard the strange screech that Gretchen claimed that woman was making. 

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From Fantasia 2024 : «Faces» (short film)

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You know, lately after a watching a horror movie in the theaters, a phrase I hear from other fellow moviegoers is “This should have been just a short”. Years ago, most of the time I disagreed, but lately… Not so much.

And that is why it was great when I saw a short called “Faces” and all I could think was: “This should be a full movie!”

Before I lose my self geeking out, I’ll give you the official synopsis:

“Following the disappearance of a local girl on a dark October evening, Judy, a college student visiting for the weekend, is invited to a fraternity party. For Judy, what could have been a night of fun and drinking spirals out of control when she encounters a mysterious, deadly entity. As the night unfolds, the entity’s uncanny quest brings violent consequences for those who cross its path.”

This was the last short that I could check out from Fantasia 2024, and it turned out to be hands down my favorite.

At first I’m sure a lot of people will roll their eyes and think “Ah, it’s another copy of “It Follows”, but this short has it’s own thing going on, and it packs a punch!

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From Fantasia 2024 : “Penalty Loop”

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How much do you need to get revenge? How will you know you had enough and it is time to move on? Is that even possible? These are some of the questions the new film from director Shinji Araki “Penalty Loop” poses to us.

The film was screened last in Fantasia 2024, and I am still reflecting on what I witnessed.

“Penalty Loop” tells the story of Jun, a regular man who after taking a lot of planning and necessary measures, manages to kill the man who murdered his girlfriend. Not only by poisoning him, but also by stabbing him, and without any apparent remorse, he finishes the job by dumping the corpse in the river.

But what should have brought some sort of satisfaction and maybe closure to his grief, seemed to have never happened, as the next morning Jun finds himself waking up again at 6 o’clock on June 6th. Thinking that maybe all was a dream or an OMEN (See what I did there?) Jun executes his plan and takes his revenge, but once more, he wakes up the next morning finding himself living the same day: June 6, starting at 6 O’clock.

Jun tries to get out of this time anomaly by completing his plan again, and again, and again. But the loop keeps repeating itself. To his surprise, Jun learns that the killer he is murdering is becoming aware of what is happening, and is not very pleased.Will the roles reverse? Is more than one person being punished here? Continue reading →

From Fantasia 2024: “Kizumonogatari -Koyomi Vamp”

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Recently I had the chance to see “Kizumonogatari -Koyomi Vamp” via Fantasia 2024. The name rang a bell, but I knew nothing about the franchise that it’s part of. As an experiment, being this project a prequel, I decided to jump in and see if a total newbie could get hooked on this universe.

Wow, what a trip this was…

As for how this film goes, it is the story of a student called Koyomi Aragi, who one day while going back home, finds a trail of blood on the stairs to the subway platform. Following the trail, he finds a beautiful lady vampire called Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade. To his horror, he discovers that she is horribly mutilated after being attacked by 3 vampire hunters. Against all common sense, Aragi takes pity on her and lets her drink his blood so the vampire can regenerate.

The next day, he finds himself not dead, as expected, but turned into a semi-vampire, with some of the powers and weakness that comes with that according to the lore.

Things get tricky when he realizes that Kiss-shot is, at the moment, with the appearance of a young girl and not that powerful, since she needs more blood to fully regenerate. As she has made Aragi her minion, he is now bound with the mission of fighting the 3 Vampire hunters and recovering the body parts they took from Kiss-shot.

Ok, this movie has a LOT to unpack.

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From Fantasia 2024: «Dirty Bad Wrong»

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This year at Fantasia 2024, I had the chance to see some short films, and although I could not check as much as I wanted to, I was lucky that the ones I saw were very good.

And the short “Dirty Bad Wrong” directed by Erica Orofino, was not only good, but a great example of “Less is more”.

From the official synopsis:

Desperate to keep her promise to host the best superhero party for her 6 year old, young mother Sid, a sex worker, takes extreme measures and books a last-minute client with a dark fetish.

We don’t get nothing too graphic or extreme.. On the screen. However I’m sure in our minds, we are filling the gaps, and we know that whatever happened to be that client’s fetish was very gruesome. (there are hints, and they are not that hidden)

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From Fantasia 2024: «A Samurai In Time»

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In the final times of the Edo period, Shinzaemon Kosaka, a Samurai member of the Azu clan, starts a duel to the death with rival clan member Kyochiro Kazami. Before either of them can land the final blow on his opponent, an immensely powerful thunder is heard above them. Shinzaemon then suddenly wakes up in a remote village, in plain daylight, with his enemy nowhere to be found.

After seeing some ruffians trying to attack a defenseless woman, Shinzaemon tries to assist a samurai who appears to defend her, and here is where Shizaemon receives the first of many surprises of the day: He is now in modern time Kyoto. He is in the middle of a filming set, and what he just witnessed is a Jidaigeki (A period drama) being filmed. After being mistaken for an extra in the film production, our protagonist is kicked out of the set, thrown into a world he cannot recognize, and this is where the real fun (for us) begins.

This is the plot of “A Samurai in Time”, a film written and directed by Junichi Yasuda, which was presented in Fantasia 2024 yesterday. This film is not a regular “fish out the water” comedy involving time travel, but is an excellent homage to the Jidaigeki genre, and also has a deep emotional punch that I was not expecting. Continue reading →

From Fantasia 2024: «Heavens : The Boy And His Robot»

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Set in a world where humanity managed to explore the universe for more resources and later got into an interplanetary war with Mars, Kai, a boy that lost his father to the war, grows up and joins the Mecha Corps Academy. His desire of defending his planet, and finding his mother that has been lost in space for many years, is what keeps him moving forward despite having a very weak constitution and having to work way more than the rest of his teammates. When he is assigned his own Mecha, the two start to form a bond that makes them strong enough not only to survive the training, but also the many challenges they will need to overcome in order to survive this war.

That is the premise of “Heavens: The Boy And His Robot”, the new film by writer/director Rich Ho, who spent more than a decade working on this project, and was presented in Fantasia 2024 last night.

This movie left me with mixed feelings, and I will try my best to explain why:

The movie looks amazing, the special effects are great and the fights (both in the sky and on the ground) are breathtaking, not to mention that they are all in plain daylight and you can see everything that is going on with a lot of details.

This is in part the cause of my mixed feelings. The creator of this project, Rich Ho (Who writes, directs, composes the music, and also takes part in the special effects) spent years trying to push the technology to create the special effects for this film, and you can see the result is nothing short of amazing. And, just for that, the guy has all my respect.

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From Fantasia 2024 : «This Man»

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A menace from beyond the realm of the living seems to be behind the grizzly murders that are increasingly taking place in several places in Japan. A couple of detectives trying to stop this apparent epidemic started to note a pattern: most of the victims were under psychological care, and before their demise, they were claiming to have recurring nightmares where a very particular-looking man was trying to kill them.

A happy couple that feels blessed with their daughter and a life free of worries, have their world shaken when close friends of the mother share that they also have recently seen in their dreams “This Man” (as has been described in the media), and fear that their death is approaching. Is this a case of mass hysteria, or is this an omen that humanity itself has its days numbered?

I was very interested in the plot of “This Man”, the new film from Tomojiro Amano that was screened in Fantasia 2024. I was glad that I was not disappointed. While I felt that this production did not have a big budget behind it, the story was very well developed and made very good use of the special effects with the resources available.

The characters were very likable and therefore you worry a lot when you see the misfortune starts to fall on them. (Although at the beginning of the film, I felt I was about to have a diabetic coma due to so much sweetness in the marriage mentioned before). Even when the film is not gory or very graphic, some moments might make you feel uneasy and the film surprises you by showing you that anybody can die in this story. Films like these, are the ones I enjoy the most. Continue reading →