Fantasia Festival 2020: 10 Exciting Films to Look Out For

The 2020 Fantasia Festival kicks off this weekend and it is yet another 2020 festival that is going completely virtual.  But one thing that a virtual film festival offers is the chance for everyone to view the films of the festival since no one has the travel to the actual festival.  Fantasia offers up a number exciting titles from all over the world.  The festival focuses on genre films, namely horror, thrillers, and comedies, along with some timeless classics.  I am excited and honored to be covering this year’s festival and they are the films I am most excited to check out.  Here are my picks for the most exciting movies to see at the 2020 Fantasia Festival.

 

You can view the full slate of movies and festival schedule by clicking HERE.

 

 

 

 

CLASS ACTION PARK (Seth Porges, Chris Charles Scott III)

What The Film Is About: A documentary that focuses on a dangerously legendary water park and its slew of injuries and crimes along with child safety concerns. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: As a theme-park enthusiast, I am intrigued to see how crazy and dangerous this theme park really was.

 

 

CRAZY SAMURAI MUSASHI (Yûji Shimomura)

What The Film Is About: In this 77-minute, one-scene, no-cut action sequence, Miyamoto (Tak Sakaguchi) defeats 588 enemies, one after the other. There is no room for error, no room for corny or unconvincing moves. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: A 77-minute-long take about a samurai chopping down nearly 600 enemies?  I love the gimmick, I love samurai movies, and I love the runtime.

 

 

THE DARK AND THE WICKED (Bryan Bertino)

What The Film Is About: On a secluded farm in a nondescript rural town, a man is slowly dying. His family gathers to mourn, and soon a darkness grows, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over the family. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: Bryan Bertino’s debut, The Strangers, is one of my favorite horror movies of the last fifteen years.  I didn’t see his second feature, but if The Dark and the Wicked is anything like The Strangers, we are in for a wild ride.

 

 

FEELS GOOD MAN (Arthur Jones)

What The Film Is About: Artist Matt Furie, creator of the comic character Pepe the Frog, begins an uphill battle to take back his iconic cartoon image from those who used it for their own purposes. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: I heard a lot of good buzz about this movie out of Sundance and am interested in seeing how an artist deals with his art being used negatively.

 

 

FRIED BARRY (Ryan Kruger)

What The Film Is About: Barry is a drug-addled, abusive bastard who – after yet another bender – is abducted by aliens. Barry takes a backseat as an alien visitor assumes control of his body and takes it for a joyride through Cape Town. What follows is an onslaught of drugs, sex and violence as our alien tourist enters the weird and wonderful world of humankind. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: This movie sounds absolutely bananas, which I absolutely love.

 

 

KAKEGURUI (Tsutomu Hanabusa)

What The Film Is About: Hyakaou Academy is an institute where the academic ranking is based on the pupils’ gambling winnings. Yumeko is new to the academy. Her pretty enchantress looks are only surpassed by her voracious appetite to gamble it all and win it all. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: I love gambling and gambling movies and I’ve heard the manga that this is based on is pretty great.

 

 

MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (Minoru Kawasaki)

What The Film Is About: Yuta, a young master at the Tsukiji Fish Market, accidentally drops his meal of mixed seafood into the Sumida River. Some time afterwards a gigantic mutated squid monster arises from the depths and begins to wreak havoc upon an awe-stricken Tokyo. Attempts by the Japan Self-Defense Forces to stop the creature prove futile. As it seems things couldn’t get any worse an enormous mutant octopus monster emerges from the deep and heads into a clash of the titans with the gargantuan squid. As a last ditch effort, the government forms the “Seafood Monster Attack Team (SMAT)” and an all-new plan of attack is immediately put into action. But just as the tide appears to be turning in humanity’s favor, a colossal crab monster appears, joining in the Monster Seafood Wars and plunging the world into culinary chaos. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: Giant mutated seafood wreaking chaos and mayhem on Tokyo sounds like incredible midnight madness.

 

 

THE OLD MAN MOVIE (Oskar Lehemaa, Mikk Mägi)

What The Film Is About: A trio of city kids are dropped off for the summer at their grandfather’s farm for a taste of country living. Enough with the smartphones and videogames and other amenities of modern urban life. Time for them to toughen up, dirty their hands, and learn the value of hard work. Their grandfather will see to that. That includes the care and maintenance of the Old Man’s miserable cow, which must be milked, lest a shocking disaster from the dark past of the village repeat itself. A sinister survivor of that disaster, by the way, lurks in the shadows with dire intent. When the precious cow escapes into the wild, a crisis is set in motion, and so begins a hair-raising hellride of back-country horrors, gross-out gags, and rural surrealism breaks loose. (via Fantasia Festival)

Why I’m Excited: I love stop-motion animation and this sounds like a dark, weird, not-so-kid-friendly animated movie, which is right up my alley.

 

 

THE PAPER TIGERS (Quoc Bao Tran)

What The Film Is About: Three Kung Fu prodigies have grown into washed-up, middle-aged men, now one kick away from pulling their hamstrings. But when their master is murdered, they must juggle their dead-end jobs, dad duties, and old grudges to avenge his death. (via IMDb)

Why I’m Excited: This sounds like one of the most original takes on the revenge film I’ve heard in a long, long time.

 

 

UNEARTH (John C. Lyons, Dorota Swies)

What The Film Is About: Two neighboring farm families whose relationships are strained when one of them chooses to lease their land to an oil and gas company. In the midst of growing tension, the land is drilled, and something long dormant and terrifying, deep beneath the earth’s surface is released. “Unearth” is about the horrifying repercussions sown by shortsighted decisions, and what our children reap from our actions.

Why I’m Excited: Unearth sounds like a horror movie that will be equal parts horror and social commentary, which makes for the most interesting and fascinating horror films.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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