While Fantastic Fest lasts for a week, I could only stay for about half of this year’s festival, which is probably about all I could take despite enticing further events like Fantastic Feud and the premiere of Bone Tomahawk. Fantastic Fest is fun, but it’s exhausting, and from Day 2 onwards, it always felt like I had been in Austin a day longer than I was actually there. Time ceased to have all meaning beyond the time of my next screening, and I had eight of them in the next two days. (In case you missed it, here's my recap of my first two days at Fantastic Fest)

April and the Extraordinary World

There are flashes of brilliance in this steampunk adventure, but for a film with secret worlds, lizard overlords, teleporting scientists, and all sorts of fun sci-fi touches, I found April and the Extraordinary World to be surprisingly limp. I think part of it came from festival fatigue, but it always seemed like Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci’s movie should be running a half step faster. It has some strong comic moments and great bits of absurdity, but the ambition never seemed to match the execution. April’s world may be extraordinary, but I never invested in the eponymous character, who felt more like an archetype rather than someone molded by life on the run after seeing her parents’ demise. It’s a movie that’s arguably worse than bad; it’s frustratingly mediocre.

Lovemilla

If you were to parody the kind of movies Fantastic Fest shows, Lovemilla would be your parody. Teemu Nikki’s Finnish film is absolutely soulless as it takes mundane relationships and then slathers on weird touches into the hopes that it can hook the audience. What separates a strange movie like Lovemilla from one like The Lobster is that the absurdities in The Lobster actually mean something whereas Lovemilla is a Mad Libs script. It chucks in zombies, bionic limbs, time travel, superheroes, and more in the hopes that it can make you care about a selfish guy who’s a crummy boyfriend, but all Nikki accomplishes is drawing our attention to the window dressing.

Too Late

After the one-two punch of April and Lovemilla, I was feeling pretty down. My allergies were still draining all my energy, and since Fantastic Fest is such a crapshoot, I didn’t have any place to put my faith. But then Too Late reinvigorated the hell out of me.

Dennis Hauck’s film was shot and projected in 35mm, and that actually means something at the Alamo Drafthouse. When you go to chain theaters in Atlanta like I do, you know that projection isn’t a high priority, and seeing how the projection mattered at the Drafthouse was like going from a dimly lit room to one where everyone turned on all the lights. It’s not just a “bigger” picture. It’s texture and scope wonderfully realized and it adds so much to Hauck’s neo-noir story.

John Hawkes stars as a private investigator looking into the death a young woman he met several years ago. To say any more would be to spoil a film that’s constantly trying to keep you on your toes. Too Late charges ahead with reckless speed complete with meta-references and corny dialogue that would derail the picture if it hesitated for even a second. But Hauck’s confident direction keeps the picture and its unique storytelling on track. The way he plays around with pacing and long takes is astonishing and not easily replicated. In Too Late, reel changes actually matter, and it’s disappointing that the experience won’t be the same to someone who catches this on VOD.

However, even outside of a 35mm theater (which is how you should see this film if and when possible), Hawkes’ performance will hold up. I never had any doubt that Hawkes is one of the best actors working today, but if I did, Too Late would obliterate it. The twisted arc of P.I. Sampson is filled with so much sadness, bemused indifference, wisdom, longing, and a whole host of other emotions that I couldn’t turn away for a second. There’s a strong supporting cast in Too Late, but this is ultimately Hawkes’ show and I cannot stop thinking about his performance. It’s one of the best the genre has ever seen.

The Boy and the Beast

This one was recommended to me while I was at TIFF, and I’m glad I trusted that recommendation. I had never seen any of Mamoru Hosoda’s films before this one, and now I want to seek them all out. The Boy and the Beast is not only gorgeously animated, but it’s built to make you cry as it’s a story that finds both the humor and the heartbreak in embracing your anger and frustration to find love. It also has a talking bear-man.

The story follows Ren, a nine-year-old boy who has just lost his mother, but doesn’t live with his father. Refusing to live with relatives, Ren runs away only to bump into Kumatetsu, a beast who wants to be the lord of the hidden world of Jutengai. Kumatetsu needs an apprentice, and Ren needs a father figure, and in this unique relationship they both find what they need. It’s along the lines of Beauty and the Beast but built along a master-apprentice relationship rather than a romance, and yet it still gets so much emotion from a story of surrogate fathers and sons trying to grow together, which ultimately means growing apart.

Although the grand finale drags a bit, the movie is so well constructed thematically, and the characters are so endearing, that I couldn’t help but be enraptured from start to finish. It was definitely a nice way to finish out Day 3.

The Deathless Devil

This was exactly the movie I was hoping it would be. A 1972 Turkish sci-fi film made with next to no money or talent, but a lot of energy, it’s the kind of film that gets glimpsed in the pre-roll the Drafthouse shows before the feature. It’s campy to the extreme, but that’s part of its charm. It’s indefensible in its craft, and yet that’s working under the assumption that every film has to be pristine, or that each element of filmmaking is judged piecemeal under a grading rubric, and that’s the wrong way to watch movies. Films have to be judged holistically, and while The Deathless Devil, which is about a superhero named Copperhead and his bumbling, Sherlock Holmes wannabe assistant trying to stop the nefarious Doctor Satan, is not a “good” movie, it’s very good for what it is—schlock cinema.

Man vs Snake

The film carries the subtitle “The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler,” but it may as well have been “If You Liked King of Kong, We Recommend This Similar Story.” Tim Kinzy and Andrew Seklir’s documentary follows Tim McVey (not the terrorist), who was the first person to get over a billion points in the arcade game Nibbler, and in 2009 tried to reclaim the title. It’s a fun, light movie that’s missing the treachery and stranger-than-fiction twists of King of Kong (Billy Mitchell and Walter Day both make appearances in Man vs. Snake, but they’re painted in a more positive light). Even the film admits that conquering Nibbler is kind of a dumb marathon, but it’s a marathon nonetheless, and the filmmakers get up wrapped up in wanting to see McVey accomplish his goal.

Southbound

The positive word from Perri Nemiroff and former Collider editor Evan Dickson got me to check out Southbound, a film I would typically avoid because I’m not a big horror guy and anthology movies tend to be a fool’s errand. Anthology films tend to be uneven in quality, so you’re just waiting to see which one is going to drop the ball. But Southbound never does.

Rather than get hung up on a framing device, Southbound wants to tie its narratives together thematically and geographically, and by focusing on protagonists with guilty consciences, the films come off as empathetic rather than vengeful. While there’s certainly some gore, the chapters excel far more at being creepy and keeping the viewer guessing about what lies in the darkness just beyond the headlights. Thankfully, none of the films get bogged down in exposition, and know just when to end and move onto the next horrific tale. [Click here for Perri’s review from TIFF]

The Devil's Candy

Fantastic Fest is where I go to see the kinds of films I don’t see often enough in my daily screenings, and that includes horror. I’m not big into the genre, studios avoid screening horror films for critics, and so they fall by the wayside. But with so much good buzz on The Devil’s Candy, I decided to close out my Fantastic Fest this year with Sean Byrne’s film. I left a bit underwhelmed.

The story follows a family that moves into a home they can get on a cheap because people died in it. It turns out those deaths were caused by their son (the always-reliable Pruitt Taylor Vince) who hears the devil’s voice in his head. The voice soon gets to the family’s patriarch, Jesse (Ethan Embry), who begins painting like a man possessed.

Devil’s Candy could have made for a fine short film if it had ditched its weak serial killer subplot or, if Byrne was bent on going for a feature, focused more on the artistic madness driving Jesse. Unfortunately, Byrne gravitates to the family dynamic, which is fine, but also a little predictable and safe. What could have been truly interesting about The Devil’s Candy is just outside the frame. [Click here for Perri’s review from TIFF]

Closing Thoughts

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay and play for more of Fantastic Fest even though it’s still going on for a few more days. I’ve been to a fair amount of film festivals, and none of them is as proud of its identity as Fantastic Fest. It’s boisterous, uproarious, and you can reaffirm your love of cinema by seeking out all the weird stuff that populates its unique lineup.