The 19th edition of Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival is well underway, and it’s about time I bring you my must-watch movie list for the year — even if I’m a few days late.

While my counterpart, King Hazard, veered away from horror on his list this year, I haven’t. I’ve stuck the the horror roots and I don’t really care if something is too mainstream or not, good movies are good movies. Don’t worry though, there’s plenty of indie and foreign inclusions on this list… maybe a little something for everyone.

Have a great fest, and feel free to come back to Yell! Magazine to tell us what you saw, what you liked, loved, and hated. The festival runs from July 14th to August 4th.

No.10 We Are Still Here

Director: Ted Geoghegan

Ghosts and gore make the perfect combo in Ted Geoghegan’s debut We Are Still Here, starring everyone’s favorite horror starlet, Barbara Crampton, of Re-Animator and From Beyond fame.

The year is 1979. Anne (Crampton) and Paul (Andrew Sensenig, Upstream Color) are mourning the loss of their teenage son and attempting to start over in rural New England. Before long, however, noises in the basement, falling photos, and a cryptic visit from a very strange neighbor suggest they’re not alone. Anne invites over hippie spiritualists May (Lisa Marie of Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! ) and Jacob (Larry Fessenden, also at Fantasia with his Tales From Beyond the Pale radio drama), and things get even more alarming when it becomes apparent the locals are harboring a secret about the house — and the horrible fate that befell its former inhabitants. Soon, a failed attempt at spiritual contact opens the doorway to a supernatural slaughter that would have Lucio Fulci grinning in his grave. The spirits in We Are Still Here aren’t simply content to slam doors and lurk in shadows. They’re out for blood — and get plenty, literally painting the walls crimson.

Screening Time:
July 19 • 7:20 PM – Concordia Hall Theatre

No.9 A Christmas Horror Story

Directors: Grant Harvey, Brett Sullivan, Steven Hoban

The snowy climes of Canada have long lent themselves to Yuletide fear, from Bob Clark’s classic Black Christmas to Jason Eisener’s short Treevenge. Now comes a quartet of intertwined holiday terror tales from the team behind the Ginger Snaps franchise. In Bailey Downs (the small-town setting of the original Snaps), Christmas Eve is anything but cheerful. Teenaged Molly leads two of her friends into the bowels of a convent-turned-academy where a horrible crucifixion murder took place a year before, and where the bad mojo still dwells. Molly’s friend, Caprice, goes on a family outing that leads them into an encounter with Krampus, the “anti-Santa Claus” who punishes the naughty. Scott, the cop who investigated that convent killing, takes his wife and son to cut down a Christmas tree, and they wind up also bringing something horrible home with them. And throughout it all, Santa himself engages in pitched battle with… no, that one’s too good to give away.

Screening Time:
July 20 • 9:55 PM – J.A. De Seve Theatre

No.8 Synchronicity

Director: Jacob Gentry

Jim Beale (Chad McKnight) and his team of physicists have invented a tremendously powerful device — nothing short of a time machine, that can fold space and time into a directional wormhole. Getting the hole to open is one well-rehearsed thing, but showing it can actually work is another. It also requires tremendous resources, that the ruthless venture capitalist Klaus Meisner (a superbly cast Michael Ironside, also of this year’s Turbo Kid) has no problem shelling out… up to a point. Now that a rare Dahlia specimen has appeared from the future, Klaus is determined to screw Jim out of his invention, much like Edison did to Tesla once upon a time. Unless, of course, Jim is able to prove to Klaus that it truly works, and that there is a corresponding flower on this side of the time-space continuum. At which point Jim meets Abby (Brianne Davis), an unexpected femme fatale that might very well be his doom… or his salvation.

Screening Time:
July 22 • 7:15 PM – J.A. De Seve Theatre
July 30 • 12:45 PM – J.A. De Seve Theatre

No.7 Tales of Halloween

Directors: Neil Marshall, Lucky McKee, Darren Lynn Bousman, John Skipp, Andrew Kasch, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Paul Solet, Axelle Carolyn, Dave Parker, Adam Gierasch

For many of us, Halloween is the holiday worthy of celebration. For some of us, it’s practically a lifestyle. With that in mind, Fantasia is All Hallows happy to conjure October into July for a special mid-summer Halloween horrorthon. The brainchild of filmmaker Axelle Carolyn (Soulmate), Tales of Halloween is a Samhain-centric anthology feature made by a group of friends who also just happen to be considerable talents in the horror universe. Carolyn contributed an entry, and she’s joined by Lucky McKee (May), Darren Lynn Bousman (Repo: The Genetic Opera), Neil Marshall (The Descent), Mike Mendez (Big Ass Spider!), Paul Solet (Grace), Adam Gierasch (Night of the Demons), Dave Parker (The Hills Run Red), Ryan Schifrin (Abominable), Andrew Kasch (Never Sleep Again), and splatterpunk icon John Skipp. Each interconnecting entry takes place on Halloween in an American suburb. Count on tons of gruesome invention in this cheerfully blood-soaked moviemaking party.

Screening Time:
July 24 • 9:00 PM – Concordia Hall Theatre

No.6 He Never Died

Director: Jason Krawczyk

Punk-rock icon and master of multiple media, Henry Rollins, has often acted fed up with people, and that’s a literal part of his role in He Never Died. Rollins’ Jack is a reluctant cannibal, preferring to hole up in his urban apartment rather than pose a threat to the populace, getting most of his sustenance from black-market blood packs. Circumstances do sometimes lead him to sup on bad people, and that’s when the beast inside him shows itself, along with a capacity to withstand even the most severe injury. It is possible to touch his heart, though, and his tentative relationship with diner waitress Cara (Kate Greenhouse, a Fantasia award-winner for The Dark Hours) and protectiveness for the teen daughter (Jordan Todosey) he meets for the first time, motivate him to plunge deeper into the city’s criminal underworld than he ever might if left to his own devices. And there will be a body count…

Screening Time:
July 26 • 5:00 PM – Concordia Hall Theatre

Get the other half of my list, plus a bonus entry, after the jump…

After a highly successful second European edition at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in April, Frontières returns to the Fantasia International Film Festival for its sixth edition, which will take place July 23rd-26th, in Montreal.

Following the announcement of a first-wave of projects, Frontières is pleased to announce an additional 13 projects from a strong cross-section of experienced and emerging directors and producers from across North America and Europe, including Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok (The House of the Devil, Stake Land, The Innkeepers), and Jennifer Jonas (Gerontophilia, Trigger, Monkey Warfare).

These projects join a lineup of previously announced titles from John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Wild Things), producers Michael Roiff (Waitress, In Your Eyes) and Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox), director Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film), and producer Rob Cotterill (Hobo with a Shotgun).

See the lineup below and visit the Frontieres website for more info.

Fantasia 2015: Second-Wave of Projects

12 FRAMES / SECOND (Québec)

Director/Writer: Martin Laroche
Producer: Yanick Létourneau (Peripheria Productions)

THE BEAUTIFUL (USA)

Director/Writer: Todd E. Freeman
Producers: Jason Freeman, Todd E. Freeman, Lara Cuddy (Polluted Pictures)

BUTCHER SHOP (USA)

Directors / Writers: Cezil Reed & Lydelle Jackson
Producer: Michelle Miller (BAPart Films)

COUNTRY HOUSE (Spain)

Director / Writer: Fernando Ronchese
Producer: Angel Sala (Level 5 Consulting SL / La Fiera Group Production SL)

THE DESIGNER (USA)

Director/Writer: Graham Reznick
Producers: Larry Fessenden, Peter Phok, Graham Reznick (Glass Eye Pix)

THE DEVIL ON WHEELS (Spain / UK)

Director/Writer: Enric Folch
Producers: Enric Folch, Roger Allen, Orio Marcos (The Devil on Wheels Productions LTD / SETMÀGIC Audiovisual)

THE DREAMLANDS (Germany)

Director / Writer: Huan Vu
Producers: Jan Roth, Huan Vu (Sphärentor UG)

EL GIGANTE (Canada)

Director: Gigi Saul Guerrero
Writers: Shane McKenzie / Co-Written by Luke Bramley, Gigi Saul Guerrero
Producer: Raynor Shima (LuchaGore Productions)

THE EXISTENCE OF LIBERTY WHITE (UK)

Director: Nick Parish
Writer: Gwilym Davies
Producer: Zack Winfield (Milkwood Film Productions)

FRAY (Finland)

Director: Mikko Lopponen
Writers: Mikko Lopponen, Ramin Sohrab, Kevin Frazier
Producers: Ramin Sohrab, Sonja Farling, Kevin Frazier (Sonram Productions)

LEAGUE OF MONSTER SLAYERS (Canada)

Writers: Leonard Farlinger & Aaron Woodley
Producers: Jennifer Jonas & Shannon Fewster (New Real Films)

NEVER TEAR US APART (Québec)

Director / Writer: Sid Zanforlin
Producers: Patricia Gomez Zlatar, Chris Bavota (Head on the Door Productions)

PILL #1618 (Lithuania / Italy)

Director: Domante Urmonaite
Writers: Domante Urmonaite / Story by Martynas Mendelis, Domante Urmonaite
Producers: Stasys Baltakis (Baltic Productions / Film Jam), Chiara Barbo (Pilgrim Film)

Check out the previously announced first-wave lineup after the jump…

Cybernatural (directed by Leo Gabriadze, written by Nelson Greaves, and produced by Timur Bekmambetov) made its world premiere at Fantasia 2014, and we were there to screen it. And are we ever glad we did! This is a film that defies conventions and, in the process, redefines a genre. Telling the story of a cyber haunting via one character’s perspective, Blaire (Shelley Hennig), the genre this film redefines is, first and foremost, that of “found-footage.” However, part of that redefinition means that there’s no, or at least very little, shaky-cam footage, and there’s no lost tapes that we’ve suddenly become privy to.

What we are privy to is interactive communication between friends, almost like we’re the spirit doing the haunting in Cybernatural, or as if we’re eavesdropping on the conversation.

What we see via Blaire’s perspective is limited to what she sees on her computer screen… and that’s it. If you were to watch Cybernatural on your computer, you might actually feel like you’re part of the film as you appear to lose control of your computer. But the interactive experience isn’t lost in the theater either, as Gabriadze did a fantastic job of making everything feel familiar to anyone who uses social media. It’s also especially poignant for teenagers, who live in this cyber world. Additionally, the humor used aids in immersing the audience in the experience.

I don’t want to give away too much of the film, so I’ll divert to the synopsis given on IMDB:

While video chatting one night, six high school friends receive a Skype message from a classmate who killed herself exactly one year ago. At first they think it’s a prank, but when the girl starts revealing the friends’ darkest secrets, they realize they are dealing with something out of this world, something that wants them dead.

In addition to making a social commentary on our use of social media, Cybernatural also addresses the epidemic of bullying, and more specifically how bullying is conducted in today’s world. The days of the school-yard bully almost feel like a distant memory, though I’m sure they still exist. As Cybernatural makes clear, anyone can be a bully or a victim with the Internet to hide behind.

The cast (which includes Shelley Hennig, Renee Olstead, Jacob Wysocki, Courtney Halverson, and Moses Jacob Storm) has incredible chemistry, and given the fact that they basically improvised the script, much of this film’s flawlessness is owed to them. But more than being witness to their chemistry, you will sympathize their plight and feel as though you are one of them.

The Verdict: 4/5 Skulls

Cybernatural is a truly unique film, one that redefines so much of our horror experience. And that’s what this film really is, an experience rather than a third-person observation. If Paranormal Activity was the successor to The Blair Witch Project, then Cybernatural succeeds Paranormal Activity. Cybernatural is a must-see for any genre fan who’s growing tired of the same old tricks, and it’s for anyone looking for something totally awesome.

Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival is one of the biggest and best for genre fans, which is why thousands attend to see the plethora of amazing horror and sci-fi movies. As well, that’s why filmmakers want their works to screen there. And if you’re a filmmaker with a terrifying short or a bloody feature, then you’ll be happy to know that there’s still time for you to submit your film for this year’s event. That’s right! The submission deadline has been pushed back to April 24, 2015.

To submit your project, please prepare the documents outlined here and fill out the application form here.

The 6th edition of the Frontières International Co-Production Market, returning to the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal after an edition in Brussels, will take place from July 23 to 26, 2015.

To learn more about Frontières, please visit frontieresmarket.com.

Rock Hard \m/

The day after screening Cybernatural‘s World Premiere on July 20th at Fantasia 2014, we had the chance to speak with the film’s director, Leo Gabriadze. The interview about the genre-redefining film, written by Nelson Greaves, was enlightening and interesting. Coming away from it, after learning that Leo was initially attracted to the project because of the bullying aspect, we have a sneaking suspicion that the soft-spoken Russian commercial director (who bears a physical similarity to Jean Reno) has a closer relationship to being bullied than he lets on.

Leo raised some good points about why Cybernatrual feels so familiar, despite its supernatural elements. We could tell that he also had some theological opinions that he wanted to express, but we didn’t feel it necessary to pursue that angle.

To set the scene, after having our Fantasia coordinator call Leo’s room and waking him from a siesta, we met up with Leo in his hotel’s courtyard under a blistering sun. As he smoked his slim cigarettes, we had to strain our ears to hear his words and we had to help him with his English in some spots, but in the end we came away with a great interview.

So, see Cybernatural whenever you can get the chance, and enjoy our interview with Leo Gabriadze.

Cybernatural made its World Premiere last night; how did you feel about the audience reaction?
I was surprised. It was very good, I thought. There were a lot of reactions, a lot of laughing, it felt like they were scared. It was good. [The audience] was very young, a lot of students, young professionals, it was closer to our demographic, maybe we could go younger a little bit.

What’s the rating on the movie?
We don’t have a rating. There’s a lot of cursing there, so I guess an R. I don’t know how it’s done in America, but there’s a lot of “fucks.”

The subject matter, it’s very close to what school teenagers go through at this point, so it would be a pity if they don’t get to see it because it is for them I guess because it’s very much what’s hurting them… of this epidemic that’s happening right now.

With cyberbullying?
Yes, cyberbullying. We all, more or less, went through that ourselves. We witnessed it firsthand. It’s scary, it’s ugliness… sometimes bullies themselves become bullied. Anybody can be a bully; it’s so easy to fall into that crack to become a bully. It’s out of control. I said from the stage yesterday, when I was a kid we had in school proper bullies; we knew them, we were scared of them, we lived around them, we knew that the guy could come and be really rough. Now they’re hiding everywhere and I can be one myself, that’s the most dangerous part about it.

When we were kids it was more of physical thing and now it’s psychological…
Yeah, it’s psychological. It used to go away. One week you’d walk around with this pain in your heart, you would wish nobody knew about it, now it never goes away. It’s there. And what happened now with Google being sued by the Spanaird that he had the right to be forgotten. Generally, for humans the ability to forget is a big thing to be happy. So much stuff happens in life with everybody that if we weren’t able to forget about it, we would be really unhappy people. And now with computers, because that thing doesn’t know how to forget, it’s all there and we’ve lost the ability to forget.

Also, the Q&A session after the film was partially held via Skype; was that the first time something like that has been tried?
Yeah, I never participated in anything like that. But it was somehow appropriate (laughs).

Will there be a Cybernatural sequel? Find out after the jump…

But how far would you go for that elusive pot of gold?

Would you get involved in some illegal activity? Would you push your friends beyond their ethical limits? Would you betray your friends? Would you kill?

Well, that’s pretty much how it’s played out in Bradley King and B.P. Cooper’s Time Lapse, which screened at the Fantasia Film Fest in Montreal.

Basically, the film — starring Danielle Panabaker, Matt O’Leary, George Finn — tells a cautionary tale of three struggling friends who discover a machine, looking like something you’d see in Captain America, that takes pictures of the future, 24 hours at a time. They then use the machine for personal gain, and as karma would have it, things take an ugly turn for the worse.

The sci-fi is on the light side in this genre film, as it’s more of a character study that reveals the dark, greedy, and covetous side of humanity. This is beautifully executed in a way that’s not preachy and not over acted. All you want to do is watch, enthralled, to find out what happens in the end. And the end is definitely worth the wait.

Time Lapse definitely proves what you can do with a simple, familiar story and how you can make it feel original. It also proves what you can do with a small set, scope, and cast. In a sense, with the claustrophobic atmosphere created in Time Lapse, it’s a near Hitchcockian film, but with a Rod Serling vision.

The film is Suburban Gothic, the star is Matthew Gray Gubler, and the sub-genre is a light horror/comedy versus the “aggressive, fuck you of a movie” that Excision was.

Come watch our interview with Bates and find out how he came back from a dark place after Excision to create a fun, lighthearted paranormal horror/comedy. It’s honestly a path we’ve all been on and can fully appreciate. If you saw Suburban Gothic, then you know there is a shit ton of racist remarks about Mexicans, and maybe you’d like to know why those are in the movie beyond developing Ray Wise’s character. Well, Bates explains it.

It’s clear that Bates is a relaxed guy, and if you could have been a fly on the wall before and after the interview, you’d have been witness to a lengthy and enlightening conversation between us all. It’s our opinion that Bates is a director to keep an eye on. He’s shown us two extremes that he’s able to take the horror genre in, he’s shown us a dark sense of humor, and he knows how to make it relatable to the audience no matter how unlikely the situation is. The look and tone of his films is wickedly awesome as well.

And that’s enough verbal masturbation on my part. Get yourself into the interview, then go out and watch a Richard Bates Jr. flick.

Rock Hard \m/

Also, with a MacGuffin such as the real-life and legendary E.T. the Extra Terrestrial game for Atari, this movie was irresistible.

Based on the web series of the same name, writer, director, and star James Rolfe threw just about everything and anything into the film’s story. This includes bad jokes, good jokes, inside jokes, hot nerdy babes, hilarious one-liners, gushing blood, crazy military personnel, aliens, zombies, and Lloyd Kaufman!

Sounds fun, right?

After the success of Antisocial, writer/director Chad Archibald and Black Fawns Films have selected Fantasia to make The Drownsman’s World Premiere. The screening will be this Saturday, August 2nd.

Starring Michelle Mylett, Caroline Korycki, Gemma Bird Matheson, The Drownsman tells the story of Madison, who, after almost drowning in a lake, finds herself bound to a life of fear. Madison’s friends attempt an unconventional intervention in which they accidentally open a floodgate to a dark place where none of them are safe. As Madison and her friends dive deeper into the dark history of this figure that haunts them, it reaches out and begins dragging them to a horrifying place that they can never come back from.

Watch the trailer above and let us know what you think in the comments below. Personally, this looks terrifying.

Rock Hard \m/

Are you ready for a ride down a stretch of nondescript road? A road that’s both sweltering with desert heat and lined with evergreen foilage? A road that’s burning with sin and filled with redemptive hope?

Then you’re ready for a trip down the Devil’s Mile.

Taking a page from The Twilight Zone or even old time radio storytelling, writer/director Joe O’Brien has weaved a captivating tale of supernatural horror. You’ll be intrigued by the mystery contained in Devil’s Mile, even if the title tells you what to expect, but it doesn’t tell you everything. And this is one of those films that you will want to just let yourself go and to have the story guide you. To be immersed as a passenger in the car with Toby (David Hayter), Cally (Maria del Mar), Jacinta (Casey Hudecki), Kanako (Amanda Joy Lim), and Suki (Samantha Wan), but hopefully not one of the kidnapping victims riding in the trunk.

When we find our bad guys on the road, in peril with their two captives, you’d think that we’d have trouble finding any empathy for them, but it’s really not hard. It’s surprising what facing evil will do to your morals or ethics, and when the writer/director salt and peppers his script with the right amount of humor, as O’Brien has done, we all just fall in love with the baddies. In fact, we have a harder time finding any sympathy for the two kidnapped Japanese girls. More than that, by the time Suki had any screen time I was hoping that she’d die a grisly death. For the most part her character added very little to the film, although she did serve to deliver two plot points: that the boss, Mr. Arkadi (Frank Moore), was a major badass and that there was something more to Jacinta than meets the eye.

David Hayter (yes, the famous Hollywood writer and voice of Metal Gear‘s Snake) was amazing as Toby. His wry humor and straight-forward aproach made you hate to love him. But Hayter wasn’t alone in a stellar performance; the sorrow in Maria del Mar’s Cally was palatable and the riteous drive behind Casey Hudecki’s Jacinta was tangeable and satisfying.

Not to tell you too much, but not more than you couldn’t have figured out for yourself, but the stretch of road in Devil’s Mile is one that won’t let you go, not ever. What’s not perfectly clear is what exactly the Devil’s Mile is: Is it pergatory? Is it hell? Is it one soul’s hell? Is it a prison of sorts? Are all the characters in the film dead?

Whatever the answers are to these questions, it’s a fun supernatural film to watch and enjoy. Also, contrary to much of the spirit at Fantasia, Devil’s Mile will be just as enjoyable to watch with a group or alone.

The Verdict: 4/5 Skulls

If you’re in the mood for some classic storytelling, then Devil’s Mile is for you. It has a fantastic look and feel, the actors are fantastic, the strength of the plot, because “plot does matter,” as well as the strenght of the characters… all of this adds up to a great film.