Genre film is having a bit of a moment. On the heels of one of the most profitable years for horror in 2017, this year has served up an exceptional wave of genre films, from crowd-pleasing fare like A Quiet Place and Halloween to hardcore head trips like Annihilation, Hereditary and Suspiria, and streaming gems like The Ritual and pretty much every Shudder exclusive from Revenge to The Witch in the Window. It's been a really good year for creative genre cinema across the board, but there are a whole lot of festival films that made the rounds this year and haven't even made it to screens yet.

With 2019 on the horizon, I wanted to single out some of the most exciting, odd and unusual films I saw this year that you should put on your radar. Sure, we're all looking forward to IT Chapter Two, but there's a lot of lowkey brilliant movies headed your way too. I was lucky enough to attend three excellent genre festivals this year -- Fantasia International Film Festival, North Bend Film Fest, and Fantastic Fest -- which means I got to see a lot of below-the-radar movies you're going to want to keep an eye out for next year.

Can 2019 live up to the standards of genre cinema we saw in the last 2 years? Only time will tell, but if these movies are any indication, there's a whole lot of exciting, unusual and occasionally downright brilliant movies coming your way.

One Cut of the Dead

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Image via Shudder

Pom! The good buzz on One Cut of the Dead follows this little genre gem wherever it goes. I first caught wind of the found footage-esque zombie comedy out of Fantasia, where everyone I knew who saw it simply raved and Indiewire called it the "best zombie comedy since Shaun of the Dead." That trend continued at Fantastic Fest, where One Cut of the Dead scooped up the Audience Award and left crowd after crowd in stitches. Since then, the workshop film has become a blockbuster success in Japan, and boy, let me tell you, it is worth every bit of the hype.

Set in an abandoned warehouse where a frantic crew attempts to shoot a low-budget zombie film in the midst of what may be a real zombie outbreak, One Cut of the Dead unfolds with some of the most clever structuring and laugh-out-loud-until-you're-literally-crying comedic payoff I've seen in ages. The first third of the film, which unfolds in an extended single take, is a bit of a patience-tester at time, but lord have mercy is the payoff worth it, especially for anyone who's ever suffered for the love of filmmaking. The film doesn't have a US release date yet, but you're gonna want to get this gem in front of your eyes as soon as possible, and preferably with the largest crowd you can find.

Piercing

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Image via Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Nicolas Pesce's The Eyes of My Mother was a gorgeously-shot, somewhat divisive horror throwback that demonstrated a spectacular knack for technical execution and disturbing imagery from the debut feature director. For his sophomore film Piercing, Pesce leaves behind the black-and-white Hitchcokian vibes in favor of a lush, stylish giallo throwback with one seriously twisted romance at its core. The film stars Christopher Abbot as an Average Joe husband and father who's just absolutely desperate to kill someone. When he stages a business trip to purge himself of his dark desires, he orders a hooker (Mia Wasikowska in her best performance yet), who has some deviant desires of her own. Surreal and strangely sexy with a surprising amount of humor and tenderness beneath the depravity, Piercing is a surprising and impressive followup for the filmmaker that will make you even more curious what he's going to do with The Grudge.

Universal Pictures Content Group will release Piercing in Theaters, on VOD and Digital HD on February 1, 2019.

Buffalo Boys

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Image via Samuel Goldwyn Films

If your tastes veer more towards action, than keep an eye out for Buffalo Boys a ballistic, polished Neo-Western that transplants the tropes of the Wild West to Indonesia, where two brothers of royal blood look to reclaim their land from the brutal colonist Captain Van Trach. The film has some silly moments of forced drama and an unfortunate reliance on sexual assault as a narrative shorthand, but overall Buffalo Boys is a rousing, thrilling action-packed Western with a refreshing infusion of international culture. As the brothers,Yoshi Sudarso and Ario Bayu make for a charismatic and commanding duo, and they sure know how to handle an action scene. Thankfully, so does debut director Mike Wiluan (who produced Crazy Rich Asians and Headshot), and he gives them plenty of rollicking, explosive sequences to show off their skills.

Samuel Goldwyn Films will release Buffalo Boys in theaters on January 11, 2019.

Climax

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Image via Wild Bunch

Look, you walk into a Gaspar Noe film and you more or less know what you're going to get -- saturated colors, disorienting camera work, truly depraved humor, and grisly violence. It's what he does. And his latest provocation, the kinetically-charged dance horror Climax, has all those qualities, but it's also one of the most accessible and most enjoyable (?) movies he's ever made. The bonkers film follows a prestigious troupe of diverse and sexy young dancers to a warehouse where they settle in to rehearse and party. Problem is, someone spiked the sangria with a bad dose of LSD, and it's not long before the dance-offs and sexual dynamic boil over into an outright hellish nightmare. Led by one hell of a performance from Sofia Boutella, who continues to find new ways to put her impressive physical skills to use in film, Climax is a strange brew that is alternately invigorating and exhausting, delicious and disgusting. It's sexy and sinister with a pitch black streak of humor, but it is never ever boring and it will keep your anxiety flowing from the first sip of Sangria until the sun, mercifully, rises on this parade into hell.

A24 acquired Climax out of Cannes and will release the film in 2019.

Nightmare Cinema

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Image via Mike Moriatis / Cinelou Films

Remember Masters of Horror? Do ya miss Masters of Horror? Of course you do. Well, good news because Mick Garris reunited a batch of some of the horror greats for the new horror anthology Nightmare Cinema, which sees Joe Dante, David Slade, Alejandro Brugués, Ryûhei Kitamura, and Garris himself each direct a segment envisioning unique spins on a the subgenres of horror. Set in the titular nightmare cinema, the film follows five people who walk into the theater where a sinister projectionist (Mickey Rourke) transports them into their nightmares. Like all anthologies, some segments are stronger than others, but this one's got a pretty good batting average with two knockout sequences -- Slade's descent into a surreal black-and-white hellscape and Brugués clever spin on the well-worn slasher tropes -- and solid craftsmanship across the board. Dante's Twilight Zone-inspired yarn is well worth the cost of admission as well, and Kitamura's piece offers some of the most insane possession action out there. As with almost all anthologies, Nighmare Cinema is an imperfect creation, but horror fans will find a lot to love.

Nightmare Cinema premiered at Fantasia Film Festival in 2018. Cranked Up Films and Shudder hold the North American rights for a planned 2019 release.

 

Profile

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Image via Bazelevs Company

Timur Bekmambetov wasn't the first person to make movies using the so-called ScreenLife format -- a film where everything is told from the perspective of a device screen -- but he's certainly become the champion of the new cinematic language, producing the Unfriended films and Searching among many many other ScreenLife films in development. His company even created a Beta program that allows you to make ScreenLife films on your own computer. With Profile, the Wanted director tries his hand at the format, turning to a true-life story for inspiration and harvesting a relentless stream of tension as a result. Valene Kane (The Fall) stars as a British journalist desperate for her big story, who goes undercover in the world of online ISIS recruiting and soon finds the lines between her realities blurring beyond recognition. As the #1 supporter of ScreenLife (you can why he loves it so much in our extended Witching Hour interview), Bekmambetov has a lot of ideas for how to use the screen as a framing device for thrills and revelations, and he makes fine work of it, constructing a vice around his audience and slowly tightening his grip. The first hour of the film is some of the most breathless tension I've seen on screen this year, and while the finale can't quite match, it's an impressive pulse-pounder all the way through.

Profile premiered at the 68th Annual Berlin Film Festival and does not yet have a release date.

Luz

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Image via Yellow Veil Pictures

Luz started picking up positive word of mouth right away out of Fantasia, where the bizarre and immersive little possession thriller made its North American debut earlier this year before going on to Fantastic Fest and Sitges. The experimental arthouse horror movie was shot on 16mm as director Tilman Singer's thesis film, and the final product is a peculiar mix of throwback cinematic technique and innovative storytelling that manages to build a whole world and mythology through the power of performances and wow-worthy clever staging. A labyrinthine and ambiguous film, Luz leaves a lot up to the viewer, but never frustrates for lack of answers -- Singer gives you all the pieces to his otherworldly puzzle, they're just not the kind of pieces we're used to playing with. Smart and stylish as hell, Luz is an exciting feature debut that will leave you pondering the world it creates and dying to know what Singer will do next.

The newly-founded genre banner Yellow Veil Pictures acquired Luz out of Berlinale. The film does not yet have. US release date.

Braid

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Image via Blue Fox Entertainment

I caught Braid at the inaugural North Bend Film Fest and walked out of the theater thinking "I have no idea what that was, or what just happened, but I know I liked it." Mitzi Peroine's feature directing debut is an enigmatic, often insane trip down a wild and colorful rabbit hole where fantasy and reality collide in a nightmarish game of make believe. Old friends Tilda (Sarah Hay) and Petula (Imogen Waterhouse) are a conniving pair of criminals on the run after they loose a fortune's worth of drugs in a police raid. Desperate to get the money they owe, they travel back to their psychotic and loaded childhood friend's (Madeline Brewer) mansion in hopes of cleaning out her family safe, but in order to get inside, they have to participate in a seriously fucked up game of make believe. This movie is insane. It often makes no sense. But I kind of love it, and there's no denying it's one wildly immersive experience. This one's also interesting because it's the first ever feature film fully funded by cryptocurrency.

Braid premiered in the Midnight section of Tribecca Film Festival this year and was acquired by Blue Fox Entertainment for an early 2019 release.

Level 16

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Image via Fantastic Fest

We've seen a lot of dystopian sci-fi in recent years, but few have been so tightly contained and impressively executed as Level 16. Canadian filmmaker Daniskha Esterhazy offers a unique spin on the familiar subgenre by taking us inside the walls of a mysterious institution where young girls are raised to uphold the virtues of femininity; things like cleanliness, obedience, and humility -- aka the traditionalist values that forced women into subservience for centuries -- and when the young girls fail to uphold their standards, even for a second, harsh punishments rain down fast. There's a real Handmaid's Tale vibe to the tale, which is some of the smartest YA dystopian storytelling this side of The Hunger Games, but Level 16 isn't a cheap imitator, it's got horrors all its own up its sleeves, and a strong sense of cinematic style that drags you into the nightmare and locks you up in the dreary world alongside the young women. A poignant tale of friendship and the power in female solidarity, Level 16 is a timely bit of storytelling with a whole lot to say.

Level 16 premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2018 and does not yet have a US release date.

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot

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Image via Epic Pictures

With a name like The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, you would think you know what kind of movie you're walking into. You would be wrong. Far removed from the camp and exploitation elements the title suggests, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot is a surprisingly serious, poetic meditation on regret and mortality led by the always extraordinary Sam Elliott. Elliott has been one of the best in the biz for decades, and while it's been a joy to watch him tap into the spotlight this year with his fantastic supporting performance in A Star Is Born, if you've been waiting for a drama to put legendary actor front and center, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot is surprisingly the movie you've been waiting for. Elliott stars as, you guessed it, the man who killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot, but he's no self-satisfied hero. Instead, Elliott portrays a man filled with regret, loathe to take a life under any circumstances, who lives in the shadow of his deeds without ever taking joy in them. It's deep stuff, well-executed by debut director Robert D. Krzykowski, just know what you're walking into and don't come for Bigfoot action. Come for Sam Elliott doing his best weary badass, and definitely come for the sight of him kicking ass to the sound of Bill Withers' Use Me.

RLJE Films Acquired The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot and will release the film in theaters, on VOD, and Digital HD in early 2019.

My Name Is Myesha

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Image via North Bend Film Festival

The strangest and possibly the most beautiful film on this list, My Name Is Myeisha is a difficult film to quantify. Part musical, part spoken word, part performance art... and all cinema, the film offers a portrait of a young woman tragically gunned down in her youth through a series of songs, dances, and visual vignettes that are as inspiring as they are heart-breaking. Adapted from the play Dreamscape by playwright Rickerby Hinds and director Gus Krieger, My Name Is Myeisha reimagines the real-life 1998 shooting of Tyisha Mills by police into a surreal, phantasmagorical journey through the mind of a dying woman. Bold and experimental, the film hinges on a swaggering yet vulnerable breakout performance by Rhaechyl Walker as Myeisha, thoroughly exploring the a time, a place, and a person's tragically short life through a string of overlapping memories, dreams and regrets. It's a stunning bravura work of experimental filmmaking that never pulls its punches.

My Name Is Myeisha won the Cinema Vista Best Film at North Bend Film Festival and the Narrative Feature Award at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival. It does not yet have a US release date.