Our Ten Most Anticipated Films Of Fantastic Fest 2023
As the end of September draws near, so too does Fantastic Fest, and our excitement level grows and grows! The festival is a week-long paradise for any adventurous cinephile, and each year it proves to be an absolute blast, full of badass and bizarro genre gems, special events, and parties.
The lineup for the 2023 festival recently dropped, and it’s shaping up to be another excellent year. There’s a lot of films listed this year that we’ve been dying to see, and there’s many more unknown treasures that cast spells of intrigue with their brief synopses, but there are ten in particular that have us amped. In no particular order, these are our ten most anticipated films of the 2023 festival!
The Toxic Avenger
We’re BIG fans of Macon Blair (from his collaborative work with Jeremy Saulnier to his solo efforts) and Lloyd Kaufman’s The Toxic Avenger, and when you add Peter Dinklage into the mix it only serves to further sweeten the pot! Frankly, we’ve been stoked (and very curious) about this project ever since it was announced that Blair would be writing and directing in March of 2019. The praise Kaufman gave in a 2021 interview made us even more excited and hopeful:
”Macon Blair knows Troma better than I do. He’s seen everything. He’s seen the cartoon [Toxic Crusaders], he’s seen the Halloween special, he’s seen everything. And he loves our movies... I’ve read the script and it’s better than the original and I leave it to him. If I’m called upon, I’d be happy to jump in. I learned on the [Toxic Avenger] musical to leave the creative to the creative. I learned to let them ask so if they want me, I’m there... I hope that Legendary keeps going. If they let Macon Blair direct it, I think it will be terrific. He knows the Troma sense of humor, the combination of slapstick, and satire with the environmental theme”
Divinity
Featuring Stephen Dorff and Scott Bakula and re-teaming writer/direct Eddie Alcazar with producing partner Steven Soderbergh, Divinity looks to be a promising — and visionary — dystopian sci-fi flick. The B&W 16mm cinematography looks stunning and will likely be amplified by Alcazar’s "Metascope" technique, his own stylish brand of stop-motion that blends animation and live action. It has the look of Darren Aronofsky’s Pi mixed with Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which is more than enough to have us giddy with excitement.
Suitable Flesh
Based on an unproduced screenplay from Re-Animator writer/director Stuart Gordon (which is itself an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “The Thing On The Doorstep”), and starring Barbara Crampton and Heather Graham, there’s a lot to be excited about with Joe Lynch’s latest feature, Suitable Flesh. Cosmic horrors, kinky sex, and gore?! Sign us up!
Your Lucky Day
We know relatively little about this tense thriller — the feature film debut from Dan Brown — other than it features one of the final performances from Euphoria’s Angus Cloud, who’s life was tragically cut short in July of this year. Cloud is one of the things we liked most about HBO’s Euphoria, and we’re very interested to see him breakout into different work — even if it’s sadly one of his last. We’ll definitely be trying to see the film at the world premiere on 9/23, provided we’re quick — and lucky — enough to snag a ticket.
Eileen
It’s been seven long years since William Oldroyd released a film, and we’re are thrilled to see him back once again! He wowed us with his debut, Lady MacBeth, a film that put Florence Pugh on the map, and we’re hoping he hasn’t lost any of his magic with his sophomore feature, Eileen, based on the novel of the same name by Ottessa Moshfegh. The film also features Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway, which further adds to its appeal.
Wake Up // We Are Zombies
Okay, so we cheated! For this entry, we’re shoehorning in two films — because this year’s Fantastic Fest features not one, but TWO films from filmmaking trio François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (AKA RKSS, or Roadkill Superstars). These are the filmmakers that gave us Turbo Kid and Summer Of 84, and we’re stoked to get a double dose of their fast-moving retro style. One is a horror-comedy and the other is branded as an 80s-vibe slasher, but both seem promising!
The Book Of Solutions
We’ve been fans of Michel Gondry’s since his early days as a music video director, and we’ve followed his insanely inventive career from his first team up with Charlie Kaufman all the way up to present. So with that said, there’s no way we’re gonna miss out seeing the French filmmaker’s return to cinema (it’s been eight years!). The Book Of Solutions is inspired by Gondry’s own disastrous, megalomaniacal experience of making his 2013 feature, Mood Indigo, and it’s said to pack in all the handmade charm of his earlier work, so naturally, we’re chomping at the bit.
Stopmotion
When we heard that Robert Morgan, director of gonzo shorts like Bobby Yeah and The Cat With Hands, was making his feature film debut at this year’s festival, we definitely got excited. The film stars Aisling Franciosi (of The Nightingale) and melds Morgan’s creepy stop-motion animation with a haunting character portrait to build toward what Fantastic Fest programmer Anna Bogutskaya calls “the most devastating finale I’ve seen in recent years.” Consider us down!
River
We really enjoyed the Kikaku Theater group’s first feature, Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, when it played Fantastic Fest back in 2021, and we’re eager to see what they’ve cooked up next with their sophomore effort, River. Although it seems to lock in on the group’s two-minute looping gimmick — the film follows a small village that finds its routine upended when its guests and employees end up repeating the same two minutes — but we’re hoping this just means they’re taking their craft to the next level (and maybe even carving out a time-loop trilogy).
Where The Devil Roams
We loved the Adams Family’s witchy coming-of-age folk-horror Hellbender when it screened at the 2021 festival, and we’ve been waiting to see what they’ve got up their sleeve next. The wait is finally over, as their next effort, Where The Devil Roams, is set to have its US premiere. Described as “a slow burn that will test your patience,” the film is set in the Great Depression and follows a murderous family of performers as they travel the land as part of a carnival. After Hellbender, we’ll follow this resourceful family of DIY artists anywhere — even if that’s where the devil roams.
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What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!