For the past 10 years, a single festival has become synonymous with what is considered to be the latest, the greatest and certainly most bat-shit crazy additions to the world of genre cinema. Creatives from all over the globe bring their latest endeavors hoping to shock, awe and obliterate; all in equal measure. Debates are held, opinions are enthusiastically shared and, most importantly, good times are had by all. That festival is the appropriately named FANTASTIC FEST and it kicks off today.
This year, the festival’s 11th, promises to be one of the best yet. Taking place at the lovingly renovated South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse in beautiful Austin, TX, Fantastic Fest 2015 has brought together an incredible sampling of what the fringes of cinema and it’s fandom have to offer.
A variety of films will be making their World Premieres (Bone Tomahawk, What We Become, Camino), US premieres (The Lobster, Green Room, High-Rise, along with a few festival favorites (The Witch, Tikkun) and for good measure there’s even special screenings of Ridley Scott’s latest opus, The Martian and my personal favorite film of the year that debuted back in March at SXSW, Karyn Kasuma’s The Invitation.
Coupled with all of the various premiers assaulting festival goers over the next 8 days are an array of different looks at mondo cinema of the past. These include a Shaw Bros. retrospective, a look at the utterly bizarre world of Turkish cinema and a trio of films curated by director Nicolas Winding Refn himself to compliment his book release, The Act of Seeing.
What’s crazy is that the movies are just the tip of the iceberg with everything Fantastic Fest has to offer. There’s the Fantastic Debates, the Feud, Chaos Reigns Karaoke and so, so much more.
Basically if you aren’t here, you really f$cked up.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter and Instagram at @capnnarcolepsy for up to date info on the film’s, foods and other random debauchery.
