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Fantasia International Film Festival 2024 Preview: 20 Films to Look Forward To
Image Credit: Fantasia IFF
The Fantasia International Film Festival celebrates its 28th year in 2024. The festival, which takes place in Montreal from July 18th to August 4th, is one of the most important events in North America for lovers of genre cinema. Each year, some of the biggest films set to release to audiences have their unveilings at Fantasia from Perfect Blue and Inglorious Basterds to Talk To Me, Ready Or Not, The Suicide Squad and many others. It’s a festival where you can see the best to come in new voices and international films right alongside big-name horror and science fiction.
2024 is as big a year as any for Fantasia, with over 125 features and 200 shorts across the landscape of genre cinema. There are a host of enticing options this year, and as in past years I will be providing coverage of the festival for 411. So today, let’s get a little taste of what’s to come as I look at the top 20 films (plus honorable mentions) to look forward to out of the festival.
Honorable Mentions
• Oddity
• Wake Up
• Tatsumi
• Steppenwolf
• Timestalker
#20: House of Sayuri
When it comes to Japanese horror, you can’t do too much better than Koji Shiraishi. Shiraishi is the man behind one of the most underrated J-horror films of the 2000s in the found footage-style ghost story Noroi: The Curse. But he’s also a guy who knows when to have fun, having written and directed the flawed but entertaining Ju-on and Ringu crossover film Sadako vs. Kayako. His latest film, House of Sayuri, is based on Rensuke Oshikiri’s manga series. It presents a unique twist on the haunted house story, in which a family moves into a haunted house — only to find the sweet grandmother rise up to help her grandson come up with a plan for dealing with the vengeful ghost. Shiraishi is known for his ability to mix haunting stories with humor, and House of Sayuri looks to have him right back in that pocket. If his past films are any indication, this should be a wild ride and has the potential to hit several sweet spots of the genre.
#19: Penalty Loop
It’s been a running theme of Fantasia in recent years that you’re going to be able to find at least one great time travel movie. Junta Yamaguchi’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River, as well as Jared Moshe’s Aporia, are a few of the recent films that have played with the notion of time manipulation to great effects. Shinji Araki’s Penalty Loop is also playing with that concept, albeit in a Groundhog Day kind of way. It centers on Jun, a man who is destroyed when his girlfriend is murdered. He plots and carries revenge against her killer, but the next day he wakes up with deja vu and the murderer is alive once again — and as aware of his time loop as Jun. Combining dark comedy and thriller to tell a story about justice, it promises to bring plenty of plot twists and some big visuals to its very personal story.
#18: The Beast Within
The werewolf often finds itself lagging behind when it comes to iconic movie monsters. Fortunately, that’s been changing in recent years thanks to movies like Larry Fessenden’s Blackout and Jacqueline Castel’s My Animal. And now we can potentially add The Beast Within to that list. Kit Harington (yes, Jon Snow himself) stars in this film by Alexander J. Farrel about a father trying to keep a dark secret under control and away from his daughter Willow (Caoilinn Springall). Willow finds herself delving into the family’s mysteries with the support of her grandfather and finds far more than she bargained for. Werewolf stories are inherently tales of internal strife, and this one seems to be moving down that road as well, albeit in terms of a family torn apart by the dark curse that surrounds them. Add in what looks to be some gorgeous cinematography and a real sense of dread, you have a new possible favorite for fans of werewolf cinema.
#17: Voivod: We Are Connected
To be honest, I’m not incredibly familiar with Voivod. I’ve heard of them, of course; most fans of heavy metal at least know the influential Canadian group’s name. And it’s fair to say I’ve heard a song or two from them over the years, but I can’t say I’m a massive fan of theirs. But I am a massive fan of band documentaries, especially if they’re about an influential group I should know a little better. Enter Voivod: We Are Connected. This documentary from Death by Metal director Felipe Belalcazar charts the band’s history through their rise, heavy lineup changes, individual tragedies, and creative innovations to the genre. Belalcazar has been working on this film for quite some time and had full access to the group’s archives, giving him every opportunity to tell their story and how they helped influence one of the most popular music genres in the world. Featuring appearances from metal icons like Jason Newstead, Tobias Forge, Mikael Akerfeldt and more, We Are Connected seems like the perfect way to scratch the itch only a great rockumentary can sooth.
#16: Bookworm
The opening film at Fantasia is always one to keep an eye on. This year, that honor falls to Bookworm. Reuniting Elijah Wood with his Come To Daddy director Ant Timpson, this New Zealand-set adventure sees an eleven-year-old reader and the father she’s never met come together after a family crisis and go off on an adventure to locate the mythical Canterbury Panther. Timpson’s Come To Daddy was a violent affair, and this is going in a very different direction but looks no less delightful. Not every genre film needs to spurt blood, and this one is anchored around a great cast (Wood, Nell Fisher, Housebound’s Morgana O’Reilly), some potent themes and a sense of good-hearted fun. Wood is tapping into a whimsical persona but seems to be establishing a great rapport with his young co-star. That sounds like a winner of a cinematic adventure to me.
#15: The G
I’m a sucker for a good revenge thriller. Not only are they top of the heap at delivering high levels of tension and great action, they also often turn out to be showcases for great acting performances. The G gives that stage to Dale Dickey. Dickey is one of the best character actors working today, with a career spanning almost 30 years and acclaimed performances in the likes of Winter’s Bone and A Love Song. Karl R. Bearne’s film casts her as Ann, a woman who finds herself and her sick husband the target of abuses in the elder care system. Unfortunately for those who take everything from her, Ann is not forgiving — and she has skills that will prove useful against them. Dickey is earning raves for her performance here, and Hearne’s film has plenty of positive word of mouth going around for its tone and approach to the themes of a broken system that leaves our elders vulnerable. Between this and Thelma, which released to acclaim earlier this summer, old ladies are proving to be a cinematic demographic you don’t want to mess with — and I’m here for that.
#14: Confession
The setup for Confession is fairly simple, and that’s sort of where the appeal is. Nobuhiro Yamashita’s psychological thriller, based on a manga by Nobuyuki Fukumoto and Kaiji Kawaguchi, sees two college friends make an annual trip up the mountain to honor their friend who disappeared on the peak 16 years ago. When one of the two are grievously injured on the wintery trek, he makes a confession to the other that leads to things quickly spiraling for both men. That’s the kind of premise that tends to lead to acting clinics, with two people trapped in a single location and plenty of tension to dig into. Yamashita has a very busy 2024 at Fantasia with two other intriguing films — the anime Ghost Cat Anzu and the coming-of-age story Swimming in a Sand Pool — but this film, said to contain a number of twists and turns along with some creative visual approaches, is the one that I’m most looking forward to.
#13: The Count of Monte-Cristo
The Count of Monte-Cristo is one of the most famous revenge narratives in western literature, and one of the most frequently adapted to the big screen. Just specifically counting films, there are no less than 20 adaptations of Edmond Dantes’ tale of revenge. And yet, filmmakers are always finding new ways to approach the story of the man seeking revenge for his unjust imprisonment at the hands of his jealous friends. It’s a testament to how enduring and adaptable the story is that it has resonated with audiences since cinema has been around. Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière’s take was a selection at Cannes this year and earned rave reviews for its cinematic approach and approach of leaning into modern superhero conventions (a genre that has drawn plenty of inspiration from the original story) but maintaining its period aesthetic. The three-hour running time may be prohibitive for some but the notion of an epic return to swashbuckling to the big screen has me excited.
#12: The Dead Thing
Elric Kane may be making his solo feature directorial feature debut with The Dead Thing, but he’s someone I’ve been a fan of for a while. I’ve been listening to Kane and Rebekah McKendry on the Colors of the Dark podcast for quite some time, and I have a fairly good sense for the films he loves. That alone is enough to have me anticipating The Dead Thing, a supernatural horror film about a woman whose dating app-facilitated love connection leads her down a dangerous road. But when you add in star Blu Hunt, who was one of the best things about the doomed New Mutants film, you have my attention. The movie has been described as “a neo-realist take on an Invisible Man story and a modern urban legend for the online dating era,” themes and a genre that’s been tackled before but not always successfully. Kane has plenty of opportunity to deliver a film that threads the needle of being horrific and thematically resonant, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he brings.
#11: The Chapel
I’m a big fan of Spanish horror as a rule, and The Chapel has a strong pedigree behind it. Carlota Pereda arrived on the scene with her smashing 2022 film Piggy, and she’s back with a film that seems to tap into the emotive, mood-heavy vein of films like The Devil’s Backbone. Starring The Orphanage’s Belen Rueda as a fraud medium, Pereda’s ghost story sees Rueda’s Carol asked by a young girl (Maia Zaitegi) to teach her how to communicate with the ghost of a young girl who has been trapped inside the titular chapel for a long, long time. Piggy was a film that blew me away when I first saw it, and The Chapel has been earning praise for its atmosphere and two lead performances. If this film can strike even some of the same resonance that films like The Orphanage have, it will be a an absolute must-see for horror fans.
#10: Azrael
Samara Weaving has become one of the go-to actors in horror for a very good reason. The star of films like Ready or Not and The Babysitter has a flair for the genre when given a chance. Azrael plops her down in a post-apocalyptic world in which she and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Candyman, the excellent Femme) are on the run from a group of mute cultists who want to sacrifice her to a dark entity. The film goes dialogue-free, a trick that can be extremely hard to pull off. But with Weaving, Stewart-Jarrett, director E. L. Katz (Channel Zero: The Dream Door), and writer Simon Barrett (You’re Next) guiding this one along, I’m completely in. The film is earning a bit of buzz for its practical effects and intensity, both of which are words that give me very high hopes here.
#9: Carnage For Christmas
The fact that Alice Maio Mackay is already on her fifth film at the age of 19 is stunning. Mackay is known as an absolute wunderkind in the horror world, crowdfunding her full-length feature films since the age of 17 through her own production company. Each film has shown more promise and last year’s T Blockers was a favorite at pretty much every festival it went to. Mackay has turned to holiday horror, a subgenre I love, with Carnage For Christmas. It centers on a true crime podcaster who returns to her hometown for the holidays for the first time since transitioning and finds herself wrapped up in the apparent return of the ghost of the town’s famed murderer. Mackay has shown incredible growth with each film while also staying true to a subversive, underground aesthetic that is essential to the lifeblood of genre filmmaking. Mackay is working with editor Vera Drew, who directed this year’s underground hit The People’s Joker and whose presence only makes this even more exciting. This film promises to be wild and over the top, and based on Mackay’s previous works it’s safe to say that whatever else this may be, “boring” will not be on the Christmas dinner menu here.
#8: Frankie Freako
Steve Kostanski made quite a splash in 2021 with Psycho Goreman. Many people loved the midnight movie aesthetic and kitschy charms that film, and even if you didn’t you have to appreciate his unique style and voice. Kostanski is back with another crazy film in Frankie Freako, a creature feature that leans hard into the sci-fi/horror comedy of low-budget 1980s classics like Ghoulies. The film stars Conor Sweeney as a strait-laced, exceedingly normal guy who, after being mocked by his boss and wife for being too square, calls a party hotline and invites a creature named Frankie Freako to his home. Chaos (and puppet madness) ensues and Conor must figure out how to get rid of Frankie and his interdimensional goons before his wife gets home from her weekend trip. That’s the kind of silly, nostalgic premise I would expect from Kostanski and his Astron-6 fellows. For sheer fun potential, I don’t know that there’s anything in recent memory that reaches what this can achieve if it manages to deliver on its promise.
#7: In Our Blood
Found footage may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m always willing to give it a shot. And when it’s directed by an Oscar-nominated documentarian like Pedro Kos, even better. Kos’ narrative feature debut stars The White Lotus’ Brittany O’Grady as Emily, a filmmaker who is making a documentary about her attempt to reconnect with her estranged mother Sam who had addiction struggles but recently reached out. Emily heads home and it goes well at first before Sam disappears the next day. Emily and her cinematographer investigate and find themselves in a deeper mystery. In Our Blood is billed as a movie that has a lot to say about addiction, filtered through indie documentary and horror sensibilities. Horror and mystery go well with this kind of format and the combination of grief and trauma has been potent in the genre in recent years. This looks like it could be a very worthy addition to the pantheon.
#6: Dark Match
As anyone here at 411 can tell you, the Venn diagram of wrestling fans and horror fans is closer to a circle than many might expect. And yet somehow there haven’t been as many wrestling-themed horror films as you might imagine. Lowell Dean, the man behind the wonderfully cheesy WolfCop films, has come in to help fix that. Dark Match stars WolfCop’s Jonathan Cherry as an independent promoter who gets a call to bring some of his top stars to a private event for a hefty sum of money. When they arrive at “The Dark Match,” they find the event headed by The Prophet, a mysterious cult leader-type figure played by AEW’s own Learning Tree himself, Chris Jericho. To no surprise, the event turns out to involve more than the wrestlers counted on and violence ensues. The 1980s setting is prime for the story and with Lowell at the reins, this has every chance at being an incredibly fun mix of wrestling and supernatural mayhem.
#5: The Soul Eater
Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo have always lived in the shadow of their debut film, the New French Extremity classic Inside. The filmmaking duo have delivered several good films then, but it’s only recently that films like Kandisha and The Deep House have allowed them to step out of that shadow a little bit. So I’m very intrigued to see them going in a slightly different direction with The Soul Eater, which is being billed as more of a supernatural mystery. That’s not to say it doesn’t have their signature brutality at times though, because it does. The film sees two investigators arriving in a French town to find their separate cases — the violent murder of a married couple and a group of missing children — are related. Maury and Bustillo’s film is an adaptation of a French novel by Alexis Laipsker and looks to be a twisty story with plenty of creep factor. I was a very big fan of both of their last two films, and the ominous trailer for this one makes this seem likely to continue that streak.
#4: Hell Hole
One of my favorite parts of Fantasia every year is seeing what the Adams Family are going to bring next. The filmmaking family have become mainstays of the convention, having delivered The Deeper You Dig, Hellbender, and Where the Devil Roams which were all festival favorites of their respective years. Hell Hole sees the foursome expanding their collaborators again, working with Shudder to create a creature feature inspired by a road trip that saw them travel through oil mining fields in Alberta. The Family (absent Zelda, who was at college) put together a viscous little monster movie with elements of environmental horror and some topical themes about gender and more. The family put their increased resources to good use on Where the Devil Roams, and I’m as excited as ever to see their latest Fantasia offering.
#3: Cuckoo
Cuckoo has been one of the genre releases coming this year. The horror thriller has been earning a lot of praise for its performances, most notably from Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, and Jessica Henwick. But it isn’t just the buzz that puts it this high on the list. Rather, it’s the wild, giallo-esque feel coming off the film’s trailer that debuted earlier this year. I’m a huge fan of the Italian proto-slasher and everything about this film makes it feel like it’s going to deliver that kind of sensibility, if not necessarily the conventions of the subgenre. Schafer stars as Gretchen, a teen who moves with her family to the German Alps and ends up being subjected to visions and stalking that may be linked to the past of the town — and perhaps her own family. Schafer has already made quite a name for herself thanks to Euphoria, and Cuckoo appears to have every potential of being the film that breaks her out even further.
#2: Witchboard
The original Witchboard is a 1980s camp classic — but if I’m being honest, it isn’t great. That’s the perfect one-two punch of elements for a remake to take on, and Chuck Russell is the right guy to do it. Russell may have had a rough go of it the last several years, but he also directed two absolute classics of the 1980s in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Blob> The latter film was of course itself a remake, one that improved upon the 1958 original and updated it for a modern audience. The potential parallels here are obvious. The new Witchboard sees a not-Ouija board fall into the hands of young Emily and her fiancé, who are opening a restaurant in New Orleans. When Emily starts to fall under the board’s sway, an occult expert is brought in and things escalate from there. With an impressive cast that includes Madison Iseman, Aaron Dominguez, and Jamie Campbell Bower (aka Vecna from Stranger Things) and a stronger setting, Russell had a chance to give the cult classic a thrilling spin for a new audience.
#1: Shelby Oaks
Look, I’m a simple guy. I saw Mike Flanagan’s name attached to this film as an executive producer and I was instantly paying attention. But that was just the splashy name that put my eyes on the project; it’s everything else that puts this at the top of my list of Fantasia’s Most Anticipated in 2024. Chris Stuckmann built his credibility in the film community as a creator and film critic on YouTube, which puts him in the perfect position to write and direct this chiller about a woman (Mia Sullivan) who is talking to a documentary crew about the disappearance of her sister, the host of a paranormal research YouTube channel, years ago. She ends up going on the hunt for her sister and finds that things may not be all they seem. Stuckmann broke records on Kickstarter to fund this film and has strong talent both in front of and behind the camera for what has every chance to become a new genre favorite for many.
And there’s my top 20 films to look forward to! But even that is just a smattering of what’s available at Fantasia Fest this year. If you’re interested, you can check out the program here. I’m looking forward to covering it and discussing the films set to come out of it in the next few weeks. You can check out a playlist of trailers for films screening at the festival (including several of the above films) below:
