Hyperreal Film Club's Full Fantastic Fest 2023 Coverage
The Toxic Avenger
It must be both the purest desire and the greatest trap of the film reviewer to proclaim, in any of the multi-versal ways this can show up or apply, “the movies are back!” Seemingly anything that has even the slightest potential to loosen the superhero industrial complex’s stranglehold on Hollywood dollars is heralded as messianic, an omen that better days are ahead. Who am I to break from tradition? Macon Blair’s The Toxic Avenger has arrived, and THE MOVIES ARE BACK!
Macon and co. remember something that superhero movies long ago hath forgot—movies can be… fun? Rather than serving as a delivery mechanism for lore and sequel-baiting, Toxie is here for a good time, not for a long time. A totally reckless, wildly imaginative energy is woven through every mutant cell of this movie, a testament to the high highs and occasional delicious misses of something that hasn’t been focus grouped into an early and pristine grave.
Obviously it remains to be seen what, if anything, will be our next Easy Rider cultural reset moment and bust through the mile-thick skulls of studio execs holding the bank PINs—but with Avenger and another fest entry The Creator, it looks like we might finally have some contenders. Go see this movie, tell your friends to see this movie, make it a bundle, and maybe, just maybe together, we can wield our steaming mops to force our own Garbingers in the right direction.
-David McMichael
Check out Blake Williams’ full review of the film here
The People’s Joker
If the phrases “cracked egg,” “t4t,” or even “Joker-pilled” mean nothing to you, then I apologize—you've clearly gotten lost on your way to reviews of films which are far less interesting and cool than the one discussed within. If what I say resonates, however, please remember to do your injection and check the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector and run, don't walk, to the nearest possible screening of The People’s Joker, a crown (clown?) jewel of Fantastic Fest 2023 and one of the most essential queer films in years. My gut tells me to mention it's flat-out one of the best movies I've ever seen, but popping that declarative in the first paragraph doesn't leave much suspense for the review. Suffice to say, The People’s Joker is flat-out one of the best movies I've ever seen.
-Morgan Hyde
Check out Morgan’s full review here
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines
The time period hangs heavy over the film as Jud worries about getting drafted to Vietnam, Manny and his sister Donna (Isabella Star LaBlanc) discuss joining the American Indian movement in time to participate in the Occupation of Alcatraz, and hippies start to realize that the Age of Aquarius isn't turning out to be everything it was promised to be. These become the most engaging moments of the film, as Beer attempts to push her way out of the increasingly necessitated beats of a Pet Sematary adaptation: a few quasi-jump scares regarding a speeding truck, a character gets their Achilles tendon cut, the phrase "Dead is better" is uttered past the point of parody.
-Ziah Grace
Check out Ziah’s full review of the film here
Baby Assassins 2 Babies
Even with my lack of knowledge of the franchise there’s a feeling that nags at me that makes Baby Assassins 2 feel like a B-side. While we get introduced to new rivals, there isn’t much at stake. That could be by design—after all, I’ve already touched on Sakamoto’s “hang out” approach to this story of kid assassins, but here nothing much seems to feel expansive in any shape or form. Even the main characters relationships seem at a standstill, despite a few moments in the story that seem aimed at testing their bonds. I’m probably asking too much from a movie called Baby Assassins 2 Babies, but still, a little character growth never hurt anybody!
Check out Justin’s full review of the film here
Conann
I’ve been told that the first Bertrand Mandico movie you see will always be your favorite, and that’s fine by me! My most dazzling experience of Fantastic Fest ’23, Conann (maybe now titled SHE IS CONANN?) threads the impossible needle of being both a ‘50s-feeling think-y philosophical French art cinematic experience and a contemporary gory queer buzzsaw of a time at the movies.
I will always fall head over heels for something this maximalist—I’ve hardly seen anything that packs out every frame to such an extent apart from middle-period Peter Greenaway with films like Prospero’s Books and Baby of Macon. The entire depth of field in every moment is full of wildly costumed characters, ambitious and fantastical physical sets, physically projected backgrounds, sparkles everywhere, smoke and smoke and smoke, and a camera that knows how to dance through it all and not miss a thing.
Also, meet your new contender for best movie character of the year with Rainer! Dog? Witch? Photographer? Demon? Smug philosopher? Gilted lover? Acolyte/Wormtongue? Yes! We will always love a movie that has got the guts to try and add something new to the language of cinema, and Conann has got guts to the top of the throne room and back. Buckle in, your future self is coming to impale you through the mouth!
-David McMichael
Check out Justin Norris’ full review of the film here
River
Yamaguchi's debut film, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, was a mind-bogglingly intricate time-travel movie in which a character's laptop transmitted messages two minutes in the future to a nearby television set. Shot in a pseudo-one-shot style, the film was at once undeniably impressive, ambitious, and somewhat exhausting to watch as every possible variation and complication was squeezed out of the central conceit. If they did not, in fact, actually go beyond the infinite two minutes, they went about as far as was possible in a micro-budget indie movie. But in River, Yamaguchi finds an emotional core to transform his ambitious two-minute-long gimmicks into a sincerely touching story of love, loss, regret, and professionalism.
-Ziah Grace
Read Ziah’s full review of the film here
Strange Darling
“A THRILLER IN SIX CHAPTERS.” JT Mollner’s Strange Darling begins with Chapter 3. A total gut rush of a thriller that boils down to a 90-minute chase scene—literal and psychological. The leads are fantastic, and it’s clear the film lives or dies on their chemistry. Surprises galore, I won’t reveal too much. It’s gorgeous, provocative, fresh, and fun.
With its storytelling framed with chapters in flux, I relished in its the film's deliberate, tactile escalation. Landing in the thick of it, backward then forward but never feeling scrambled. The eternal orgy of fear and desire. The Devil in the details.
-Dawson Turner
Check out Dawson’s full review here
Tiger Stripes
Tiger Stripes is an entrancing tale of a young girl’s rejection of her community’s demand that she shed her nature and turn inward. It is a call to feral womanhood. The debut feature from director Amanda Nell Eu, it won the Critics’ Week Grand Prix at Cannes. It is in turns realist, fantastical, tense, and wildly funny. Performances by all of the young girls, but particularly by the captivating lead Zafreen Zairizal, are natural, effortless, and joyous, overflowing with youthful exuberance.
We need more women doing body horror. We need more films examining the horrors of having a body under patriarchy. Patriarchy is a system diametrically opposed to visceral embodiment, and Tiger Stripes expresses all of the attendant frustrations, fears, and anguish with the knowing wink of someone who has experienced them and who knows the folly and the futility of stifling oneself. It is an invitation into the jungle, into the darkness, the vast, unknowable id. Go. Get lost. You may come out transformed.
-Julia Hebner
Check out Julia’s full review here
Bark
In Bark (2023), German director Marc Schölermann pushes the micro-genre's tradition of tight corners and a locked door into the outdoors—specifically a wide-open forest. Nolan Bentley (Michael Weston) wakes up with his hands tied behind a tree, his memories hazy, and his business suit attire decidedly not suited for the outdoors. Soon, an outdoorsman (A.J. Buckley) arrives, seemingly uninterested in either helping or harming Nolan. Instead, he seems content to listen to Nolan talk, or, at least, to let Nolan talk at him as he sets up his camp right next to the tree. From there, the film slowly reveals who Nolan is and what might have led someone to enact such a nasty revenge on him.
-Ziah Grace
Read Ziah’s full review of the movie here
Messiah of Evil
The year was 1974 when Messiah of Evil blew into theaters on the howl of some cold winter wind, heralding the start of a decade which would permanently alter the shape of cinematic terror. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre spilt blood earlier that year, Dawn of the Dead arrived to terrify in ‘78, and Halloween stalked onto screens a mere month after Romero’s opus. But while all these titles sit rightly on their thrones of terror, Messiah of Evil went largely unnoticed and unregarded… until recently, when it seems mainstream culture finally shone light on this undersung classic. Say a blasphemous prayer, raise your gaze to the night sky, and rejoice. With the Fantastic Fest premiere of AGFA’s new restoration, one of American horror’s most stunning and unsettling works finally shines in all its gloomy glory.
-Morgan Hyde
Read Morgan’s full review of the film here
Divinity
What do you call a movie with stunning photography, outstanding production design, great wild big-swing ideas, utterly committed performances, and a fantastic central location, but that ultimately comes off as having been made in very bad faith? Divinity, unfortunately.
Divinity suffers deeply from that age-old terror that has been around as long as there have been males to gaze—the male gaze. For a movie released in the year of our lord 2023, there’s truly a shocking amount of narrative contortion employed to present an ogling gallery of naked women on screen in this thing. Why? “I guess he just watches a lot of porn?” was the post-movie sum-up from my movie partner.
There’s a pretty great version of this movie somewhere squirreled away in the editing room. What we have, though, is a cut that throws around art-house story ellipses to the point that a read through the Press Kit synopsis is necessary to even clock what’s going on. And yes, of course a legible narrative is not a pre-req for a great (or even decent movie), but in this case it feels more like the movie is trying to become Last Year at Marienbad or some other cryptic puzzle film by dint of omission rather than inherent structure or intent.
While director Eddie Alcazar is probably in need of a co-writer and some therapy, he’s certainly got the visual chops and backing (Steven Soderbergh Executive Produced Divinity) to release some splashy titles in the coming years. Keep an eye out, and here’s hoping!
-David McMichael
I’ll Crush Y’all
Watch Blake Williams’ interview with the producer and two of the stars here
V/H/S/85
As Bruckner noted in the post Q&A session, every V/H/S short should strive to become a “Fuck you movie." The only thing the filmmakers should be holding back on is the budget. During the Q&A, Derrickson and his short’s writer, C. Robert Cargill noted that they found a lot of value in this stripped-back-let-loose approach, as they both agreed that having tight parameters in moviemaking is both a blessing and a curse. Of course, the low budget can cause problems and make things stressful, but stress can lead to bursts of creativity to find solutions. That idea of finding creativity in a tight budget shines through in each of the filmmaker’s works here, resulting in the long-awaited V/H/S entry that doesn’t really have a noticeable miss.
-Justin Norris
Check out Justin’s full review here
Scala
Yes!! We love a movie about movies, and we love even more a movie about the places where people watch movies! As all of us here at Hyperreal continue our quest to open up our own theater, this story about a group of wacky cinephiles who crafted an entire world of cinema for themselves and their sprawling community was an inspirational adrenaline shot straight to the heart.
There was something, too, about seeing co-directors Ali Catterall and Jane Giles bopping around Fantastic Fest from 11 a.m. to midnight the entire week. Depending on whatever school of literary/film criticism you subscribe to, a text can stand on its own or can incorporate its total environment—spending seven+ years in film event production at this point has placed me irrevocably in the latter camp. I want to know who you are, what your values are, what you’re contributing to the community you’re a part of… these qualities feel as important to me now as a perfectly executed crane shot or whatever. For Ali and Jane, you can tell the love of movies runs deep and life-long.
A movie like this, naturally, has to include a bittersweet note of ending and transformation. Something like the Scala by design belongs to a particular era, and maybe more than anything it’s a bone-deep reminder to dig in, get involved, love what you can as long as you can. Nothing lasts forever, but goddamn you can have a time while it does.
-David McMichael
You’ll Never Find Me
Much of the film revolves around the Rock and Cowan’s ability to communicate as much as possible in dialogue and body language, as they’re portraying essentially the only characters in the story. Rock is impressive as the unreadable Patrick, a man who looks like even his secrets have secrets. However, he still manages to instill sympathy into his emotionally locked down character. Although some of the “life is meaningless” monologues he gives get tiresome, Rock is such a compelling actor to watch that, at least in the moment, you give him and his lines full attention.
-Justin Norris
Read Justin’s full review of the film here
What You Wish For
Fantastic Fest ’23 was my first proper film festival experience, and this movie gave me a new and cherished experience that I don’t know how you could possibly obtain outside of a fest setting—getting to a shocking twist about 30 minutes into the movie and not even knowing that a turn was coming. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything here because I don’t know how this movie could possibly market itself without at least hinting that you’re in for one.
Look, we know that The Movies are not an accurate cultural arbiter or prognosticator of the issues that are really real and pressing to The People—there’s just too much money and too many people involved for something angry and undiluted to make it to screen. That said, though, the swell in eat-the-rich movies over the past few years could be something? Are we finally catching the drift? Is a sea change coming, as the sea changes to cover 60% of Miami by 2060? Haha, probably not!
This movie excels at both Saying Something and ripping you along a breathless and squirmy thrill ride, and I’d be thrilled to see a dozen more like it every year. It’s not as bombastic/star-studded as The Menu, but it’s tighter and more fully cooked. Don’t miss this one!
Kim’s Video
An unbelievable true story of hunting down the legendary lost video collection of 55,000 movies. Following the closing of the iconic Kim’s Video rental store chain in New York City early this century, filmmaker David Redmon uses any means necessary to track down the collection and the mysterious store owner himself. The filmmaker feels called on by these rare films, and to do right by their masters and their appreciators.
What starts as a traditional documentary becomes a go for broke investigation into bureaucracy and corruption in Sicily. Within the opening 10 minutes, it’s clear this is going to be less of an oral history of the store and cinema with celebrity interviews than a literal mission to save the cinema of the world. All captured in real time, on Redmon’s shoulder. It goes places I could’ve never imagined. As Kim himself says to the camera, “unbelievable.”
-Dawson Turner
The Creator
It kind of all boils down to this, though: In the moment, everything in frame—most frames—looks cool as fuck. These painted urban and natural landscapes, objects, designs, colors, characters, costumes, were clearly made from the same seeds of inspiration. Nothing about the artistic design registered as leftover or trivial.
-Dawson Turner
Read Dawson’s full review of the film here
The Coffee Table
The Coffee Table offers an interesting look into the story of a family falling apart brought on by tragedy and secrets. The bones are there, and when the movie is on, it’s a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately it’s a bit dragged down by a second act that lingers, before coming back with a vengeance with a thrilling and nail biting third act.
-Blake Williams
Read Blake’s full review of the film here
One-Percenter
Sometimes you get to bear witness to cool things happening on a screen and you can’t help but to sit there and smile and be grateful for the opportunity. That’s One-Percenter in a nutshell. It takes a little bit to get started but once the movie starts to roll, it doesn’t stop. Cool action sequence after cool action sequence all with at least one cool finisher that made the crowd cheer. After the screening when trying to describe the cool things that happen in this movie, I had to bite my tongue and just say “You’ll see it and then you’ll understand.” Easier to understand is how the film works as an ode to Tak Sakaguchi, who plays Takuma Toshiro. He is the one-percenter, a martial artist who dedicates his entire life to the craft and will perfect it by any means necessary. In this case, he is an action star who loves making movies but also believes that action should be taken seriously and that most people making action films don’t give it the respect it deserves. He makes a pretty good argument throughout the film. Ignore the last five minutes though, no clue what they were thinking with that.
-Blake Williams
The Thaw and The Wait
Has your life ever felt like it was falling apart? As if every single thing that could go wrong, went wrong? At the moment, it’s a terrible feeling. But to see bad things continuously happen to someone else? Especially when you can hardly do anything to help, that can be wrenching. The last film I was able to catch at Fantastic Fest 2023, F. Javier Gutierrez’s The Wait, looks to capture this feeling of helplessness at the powers beyond us going out of its way to make everything terrible.
Read Justin’s full review of the films here
The Last Video Store
The Last Video Store is a love letter to the video stores of the past. Just a cool movie made by some cool people. The video store used to be an institution and at the risk of sounding like an old person, we were better for it. A place where you could go select a movie and just let your mind run free with whatever that weird cover meant. There was a code and we were a proper society. I remember summer days back home walking or biking to my nearest Family Video to pick a movie and a game to rent. This movie understands the video store and all the things that make people nostalgic for that experience today. One of the leads in this movie told me that the movie was getting some Blu-ray and DVD distribution next year, so be on the lookout for that and hopefully some distribution before that.
-Blake Williams