Tombville

I don't know very much about Belgium.  Apparently some of their filmmakers follow the French style of cinema, which in my experience often involves existential madness, poor lighting, and melodramatic music.  Tombville delivers on all of the above.  David finds himself in a town sort of, or at least a place with some buildings (it's very dark).  He doesn't remember anything at first, including his name, but quickly finds himself on the run from the town's inhabitants, unable to escape until he remembers how he arrived.  Memories of his childhood, with his verbally abusive prostitute mother, are intermixed, tracing through his life up to it's defining moment.

Tombville

2014, 69 minutes, directed by Nikolas List

The Island of Dr. Moreau

To be fair, I'm watching this film pancake style, meaning they talked over much of the dialog and skipped a bit in the middle.  However, being one of the few to see this film in its original theatrical release in 1996 thinking it would be good - as opposed to the vast majority who watch it because it is so bad - I feel qualified to pass judgement.

It's just stupid.  There's barely a film here, pasted together in edit from the corny scenes, half-baked dialog, and who-gives-fuck acting from the cast who already knew it was doomed before shooting began.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

1996, 96 minutes, directed by John Frankenheimer

Ich Seh Ich Seh (I See I See)

This is a terrible film.  Elias' twin brother Lukas is dead, but is alive in Elias' mind and on screen.  No, they don't say out loud until they last scene, but is obvious from the start with how his mom responds to her child(ren).  The accident seems to have driven his parents to divorce, but rather than seek psychiatric help for her schizophrenic son, Marie-Christine gets plastic surgery to advance her television career, and retreats to their lake home to recuperate, Elias in tow.  Convinced the lady under the bandages isn't his mother, and egged on by the voice of his brother in his head, Elias demands to know what happened to his "real mom", eventually torturing and killing her in the process.

There are no redeeming qualities.  There's no discernible plot.  No mystery to solve.  It's just bad cinema.

Ich Seh Ich Seh (I See I See)

2014, directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz

Welp (Cub)

Scouts, in the woods, but there's something out there...

There's something weird about society.  No, it's not the existence of a cub-scout-themed horror film.  It's the fact that, of all the deaths in the film, it's the dog's death that makes the audience uncomfortable.

Welp (Cub)
2014, 85 minutes, directed by Jonas Govaerts

Realiti

This film is a head trip.  Vic (Nathan Meister) is a former journalist and up-and-coming junior executive at Tri Media Corporation.  They're involved in something - Realiti - a drug in development - secret trials - espionage - consumer manipulation - hallucination.  The story feels like Descent Into Madness, but maybe that depends on where it picks up...

Realiti

2014, 95 minutes, directed by Jonathan King

Tusk

I could listen to Michael Parks tell stories of his life at sea for hours, but I think I'll pass on the tea.

This film is sad, because the sadness highlights the insanity.  Both Parks and Justin Long give solid, on target performances, just serious enough to be plausible.  Alas, the Johnny Depp character is too far over the line and breaks the immersion, unfortunate for the scenes that should be the serious break for the batshit crazy of the grotto.

Tusk

2014, 102 minutes, directed by Kevin Smith

Carrie

At Fantastic Fest, I saw this film, except it ends with a man with a gun, and it was daring.  Here, it ends with a woman with telekinetic powers, and it's classic pulp.  Funny how a little sci fi bypasses the typical "this is horrible!" reaction and turns it into pop fun.

Carrie
2013, 100 minutes, directed by Kimberly Peirce

LFO

As with several other late-FF-2013 reviews, my original notes were lost and I'm writing this almost a year later.  I keep a film blog to help me remember the movies I've seen, and unfortunately without my notes I struggle for details.

I seem to recall liking this film.  Robert escapes life in his basement, experimenting with sound.  When he finds a frequency that gives him complete control over those who hear it, hilarity ensues as he lives out his fantasies, until he realizes just how far he can go.

LFO
2013,  94 minutes, directed by Antonio Tublen

The Congress

Somehow my reviews of the last days of Fantastic Fest 2013 weren't saved here.  I even recall going through my notes, determining they had all been posted, and consciously throwing them away.  C'est la vie.  This is from memory.

Anyway, The Congress started with a solid, sci-fi-worthy human dilemma.  Faced with her own aging body and marketability as an actress, Robin Wright (as a fiction version of herself) is offered one last role of a "lifetime".  She'll be digitally scanned - physically, mentally, emotionally - and "Robin Wright" the actress would officially become a separately-owned property from Robin Wright the person.  It's a dilemma to decide if one's identity, one's external "worth", should be sold at any cost, and one I thought the film would take much of its run time to explore.

Instead, faced with a sick child, Robin makes the decision relatively quickly.  Then the film devolves into an animated world, one where everyone takes pills to see the world as cartoon.  Twenty years later, as "her" star power peaks, she's invited to The Congress, a New World gathering, as a celebrity of sorts.  Not everyone desires such new world order, and the gathering devolves into anarchy and chaos.  Robin escapes, but is hurt and in a coma.

Much later, she wakes, this time to a cartoon world entirely whimsical, where everyone is whoever they want to be.  Her goal, though, is to find her son, and for that she must pierce the veil and see the world for the run-down ghettos it may actually be, and find a way to cycle around again.

As the film dove more and more into the surreal, it got harder and harder to follow.  I can picture the director of the film trying to explain his vision to a studio for funding, and everyone in the room gets so confused that they decide it must be brilliant.  I just thought it was confusing.

The Congress
2013, 122 minutes, directed by Ari Folman 

Child of God

Fantastic Fest's legendary secret screenings provide opportunity to screen horrible films I'd never voluntarily walk in to see.  This time, though, it's James Franco's latest experiment, a biopic tale of a very sad, shy & mentally impaired man in the 1930s, descending into madness as the rural society of Sevier County, Tennessee, rejects him.

It's a really, really good film.  It really is.  But its also sad, creepy, and depressing, and speaks to our nation's - or species' - atrocious history of treating mental illness.  Much of the glory of this masterpiece has to be placed at the feet of Scott Haze, whose portrayal of Lester Ballard is outstanding.

Child of God
2013, 104 minutes, directed by James Franco

The Dirties

The director and star of the film summed it up best: "It's the story of everything leading up to the point where they're immediately and forever portrayed as monsters."

Matt and Owen are picked on.  By everyone.  They escape into the world of cinema, making films for their multimedia class.  Their latest, The Dirties, is a police drama, where they hunt down and punish bullies for their crimes.  As the bullying gets worse and their friendship suffers, Matt decides to film a remake...

The camera man is really distracting.  Someone - two people actually - follow Matt and Owen around and film everything, but these characters are never seen, never say a word, and only occasionally referenced.  In the Q&A Matthew says he originally wrote characters for them ("Jared"), but ended up cutting it as it distracted from the plot.  Meh.

The Dirties
2013, 80 minutes, directed by Matthew Johnson

Yes, this was actually filmed in a high school, using high school students as extras, and most of the time the kids didn't even know they were on film.  But it was in Canada, where they're less crazy about these sorts of things.

Cheap Thrills

What series of increasingly disgusting and debasing things will two desperate people do for money?  And that's not the worst of it.  It's the concept of rich people doing this sort of thing for fun.  I really haven't been this angry with a film in a long time; what a way to ruin an otherwise good day.  This is why I don't join the Alamo Alliance; they buy bad films.

Cheap Thrills
2013, 85 minutes, directed by E.L. Katz

Afflicted

Derek and Cliff set out on a year trip around the world, the fulfillment of a long-time dream and a chance for Derek to push aside his life-threatening medical problems.  They have everything set up to document and share their adventures with the internet and the world.  Things quickly go awry when Derek contracts a strange illness, but the filming continues, as he becomes more and more afflicted...

Holy hell, this was the first FF film that has truly come from nowhere and smacked me with awesome.  Shot on a very low budget on Canon 5Ds, with the writers and directors as the principle cast, they showed what an excellent result young talent can achieve with a story and a vision.

Afflicted
2013, 85 minutes, directed by Derek Lee and Cliff Prowse

Escape from Tomorrow

At this point, Escape from Tomorrow is better known for its surreptitious production than its story.  Filmed in secret at Walt Disney World in Florida, the film is billed as a parody of the make-believe story Disney wants its customers to see.

But then, there's the film itself.  Despite being fired that morning, Jim wants to have one good final day at the parks with his family.  Instead, he and his wife bicker and argue, and they take turns with their son and daughter separately, trying to keep either of them happy.  But then there's the two Parisian girls that Jim follows.  I don't think this was supposed to be an existential journey, so I keep trying to piece the parts together to make an arcing plot.  Exactly how are the scientists under the Spaceship Earth related to the aging witch with her mesmerizing necklace?  Was Jim selected as a child for this ultimate fate, and has his son now been selected to share the fate as well?

Escape from Tomorrow
2013, 90 minutes, directed by Randy Moore

Patrick

I didn't get to see You're Next at Fantastic Fest a few years ago, but really liked it during its encore screenings this spring at SXSW.  Amazingly, this is Sharni Vinson's next on-screen work, albeit in a more traditional role as a female heroine in a suspense/horror film.  Sharni is Kathy, a nurse who takes a recently-opened caregiver assignment as the mysterious Roget Clinic, where doctor Roget cares for and works to cure deep coma patients.  One particular patient is the focus of his attention - Patrick - and Kathy is drawn to his blight.  Wait, is he communicating with her?  Indeed, for Patrick is developing psychic powers, and has a secret plan that threatens Kathy, the clinic, and everyone she knows.

This is a remake of a campy 1970s horror, rewritten for modern pacing.  I probably would hate the original, but this one was pretty good.

Patrick
2013, 95 minutes, directed by Mark Hartley

Yellow

Yellow is a lost woman's spiral into depression, punctuated by the fantasies she constructs to cope.  Soaked with the hilarity of her hallucinations, the film has no real character development but leads from crazy to punchline.

Yellow
2012, 108 minutes, directed by Nick Cassavetes

Hours

2005.  New Orleans.  Something is wrong, and Abigail and her husband Nolan rush to the hospital.  Abigail dies in childbirth, leaving Nolan lost and barely able to relate to the premature baby in a ventilator that the nurse insists is his.

Then, Katrina.  The hospital is evacuated, except for Nolan and his baby, still attached to the ventilator that can save her life - if it keeps running when power goes out, order decays, and desperation sets in.

Maybe it's because of where I am in life, but this film moves me, in a way that few have.  It's intimate, raw emotion, and it's the first film since The Fountain that made me cry.  For me, it's the best film of the year.

Hours
2013, 97 minutes, directed by Eric Heisserer

Reality Show

Departing sharply from my string of music docs, Reality Show is anything but real. In a fully fictional story, a reality producer decides to create a wholly-original program by centering on a family who doesn't know they are under surveillance. When the randomly-chosen family does turn out to be as boring and predictable as they appear, pressure from the network leads the show team to inject drama into the story, leading to consequences spiraling out of control.

Normally this sort of story causes my to cringe, and while parts of it are difficult to watch, overall the whole piece is incredibly funny, making it well worth the suffering. It's depression and hilarity in one.

Reality Show
2013, 92 minutes, directed by Adam Rifkin

Snap

A schizophrenic's psychotic break, set to dubstep.  What more should you want?

Snap
2013, 88 minutes, directed by Youssef Delara and Victor Teran

La cinquième saison (The Fifth Season)

When I saw that Casa Kafka was a sponsor of this French-Belgian production, I knew it would be hopeless, depressing, senseless. In a small Belgian town, nature simply...stops. Chickens no longer lay eggs, cows stop producing milk, field lay fallow, trees die but won't burn. Young Alice and her friend Tom suffer and cope, with traveling beekeeper Pol and his son Octave as the only ones who maintain their senses against the seemingly global calamity. As food grows scarce and desperation grows, even they can't stop the tide of insanity.

There's seriously nothing cheerful about this film. Be warned.

La cinquième saison (The Fifth Season)
2012, 93 minutes, directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth