Top 10: Most Anticipated Films Of Fantastic Fest 2022
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 2022 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 get us amped. Running alphabetically through the list, these are our ten most anticipated films of the 2022 festival!
We’ve been fans of writer/director Martin McDonagh since his debut feature, In Bruges, so naturally, we were very excited to hear he was back with another feature. We were even more excited by the fact that The Banshees of Inisherin reunites In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendon Gleeson in another black comedy that is sure to be a delightfully dark and biting treat. This go around, the pair of veteran actors play two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them. At the current, we know very little about the film — and we’re all the better for it — but from what we can glean from the trailer and its synopsis, McDonagh appears to have crafted a film that skewers the absurdity of the Irish civil war.
Luca Guadagnino is no stranger to films about young love and identity, but a cannibal romance… that certainly has our interest piqued. Following his remake of Suspiria, which marked Guadagnino’s big splash into horror, we are very excited that he stuck with the genre and are super curious to see what horrors he cooks up next. Bones & All will reunite the director with Call Me By Your Name stars Timothée Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg, who will star alongside Waves actress Taylor Russell. The film follows cannibalistic lovers, Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet), as they embark on a road trip across Reagan-era America.
We’ve been advocates of Oklahoma writer/director Mickey Reece since we saw his film Climate Of The Hunter at Fantastic Fest 2019. Climate was the first Reece picture we saw, but it was far from Reece’s first; the filmmaker had been grinding it out for over a decade making ambitious films with friends, and at the time of Climate’s release, Reece had an astounding 27 features under his belt. With an extensive back catalogue worth exploring (T-Rex and Mickey Reece’s Alien being two of our favorites), it’s been a pleasure watching this enterprising and hungry filmmaker continuously grow, both in terms of skill and scope. Shot is lush black and white, Country Gold harks back to Mickey Reece’s Alien, which saw the filmmaker playing around with the iconography of Elvis, but will no doubt doubt push the filmmaker’s craft in a forward trajectory. Every Reece film is a comedy, and this one is sure to be an absurdly good time. The film’s official synopsis is: “George Jones invites an up and coming country music superstar out on the town in Nashville the night before George is to be cryogenically frozen in 1994.” With Ben Hall playing George Jones and Reece himself playing a Garth Brooks offshoot, Troyal Brux, what more could you ask for?! We are absolutely on board for this one!
It’s been six long years since we’ve gotten another film from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook, but the master filmmaker is finally making his triumphant return. Following his sexually-charged period thriller, The Handmaiden, Park is back with a tantalizing police procedural that’s been likened to Vertigo and Basic Instinct. The film also earned him the Best Director Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. We know very little about the film, but we have more than enough to be ecstatic about another dazzling Park Chan-wook film!
Back in 2019, we had the privilege of interviewing writer/director Carlota Pereda about her short film, Piggy. During our email correspondence, she mentioned that she would be expanding the short for her debut feature. We were intrigued by the short film, and we are certainly interested in seeing how the twisted concepts plays in long format. The film centers around an overweight teen who faces a moral dilemma when she witnesses her bullies being violently kidnapped.
Shin Godzilla was one of the most memorable Godzilla films to come out in a long time, and we were stoked to see director Shinji Higuchi tackling another kaiju film. Reteaming with Shin Godzilla co-director Hideaki Anno in a writing-only capacity, this updated spin on the retro 60s character is sure to be a cheesy good time. While we are admittedly a novice to the likes of Ultraman, we are always down for city-destroying carnage and giant creature battles.
We know next to nothing about Smile or its writer/director Parker Finn, but the film’s snappy and unsettling marketing certainly had us leaning in. The teasers built a lot of intrigue, and the film’s official trailer still — thankfully — leaves a lot of the film’s particulars unexplained. From the little that we’ve seen, we’re picking up notes of It Follows and Ringu, but we’re still extremely curious about this flick and itching to know more. Here’s the film’s official synopsis: “After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.”
We are massive fans of Ruben Östlund and his unique brand of squirm-inducing social satires. We have eagerly awaited Triangle Of Sadness since the filmmaker first teased the concept during The Square’s festival fun. It’s been five long years, and it’s finally here, and we couldn’t be happier that it’s playing Fantastic Fest. The film received an eight-minute standing ovation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and earned Östlund his second Palme d'Or. The film flips the standard social hierarchy on its head when a luxury cruise for the uber-rich, helmed by an unhinged boat captain (Woody Harrelson), is shipwrecked and its occupants stranded on a desert island fighting for survival. This is probably the film we’re most excited to see, and we couldn’t be happier to see it amongst a Fantastic Fest crowd.
We don’t know much about Alberto Vázquez’ Unicorn Wars, but we are fully intrigued by its FF write-up as we perused the list of this year’s films. Described as “half Apocalypse Now and half Bambi,” we were pulled in by the absurdity of this juxtaposition. We don’t exactly know what we’re in for here, but we’re sure as hell down for the experience!
A Wounded Fawn caught our eye thanks to FF’s write-up on the film, which described it as “[n]early indescribable and immaculately shot on gritty 16mm, the film occupies a space somewhere in between Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, and Kenneth Anger.” Ummmmm, yes please! This experimental treat doesn’t even have a trailer yet, which has us even more intrigued as to what this flick is all about. We know it’s already been picked up for distribution from Shudder, which is a good sign, as the horror streaming platform also picked up some of our favorites from last year’s festival, like Hellbender and The Innocents.
Fiending for more Fantastic Fest?! Check out the links below:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri review
Five Fun Facts About Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Call Me By Your Name review
”The Four Seasons of Film” — Summer: Call Me By Your Name
Suspiria (2018) review
Interview with Carlota Pereda On Her Short Piggy
The Square review
Five Fun Facts About Force Majeure
TITANE review
Possession review
After Blue (Dirty Paradise) review
She Will review
Last Night In Soho review
Bingo Hell review
The Beta Test review
V/H/S/94 review
Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes review
Lamb review
Agnes review
Agnes Interview with Mickey Reece and John Selvidge
Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It review
Hellbender review
The Innocents review
First Love review
Happy Face review
The Wave review
The Mortuary Collection review
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street review
Climate Of the Hunter review
Climate Of The Hunter audio interview w/Mickey Reece (and cast/crew)
Climate Of The Hunter print interview w/Mickey Reece (and cast/crew)
Come To Daddy review
Parasite review
Die Kinder Der Toten review
Rock, Paper, And Scissors review
Butt Boy review
4X4 review
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!