Fantastic Fest 2008

Brief Summary: Fantastic Fest celebrates the great legacy of stomach-churning, blood-spurting movie magic with this interactive showdown party where YOU THE AUDIENCE are invited to join the FF programmers in providing the all-time greatest on-screen headbursts, rib-rips and gutblasts! Full Description: The excitement inherent in the best horror and action movies can be boiled down to three main ingredients: VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE and VIOLENCE!!! From the golden age of goremaster Herschell Gordon Lewis to the innovative new fluid-spurting technologies of the modern effects masters, cold-blooded murder has become a legitimately appealing visual art that deserves it's very own fancy Louvre...and THIS IS IT! Yep, at this year's Fantastic Fest, we'll be celebrating the absolute finest in on-screen annihilation with an interactive celebration of on-screen intestine-ripping, head-bursting and unrepentant baby-mashing! Your faithful FF programmers will of course get the festivities underway started with some of their all-time favorite examples of cinematic savagery, but for the first time ever, we'll be opening things up so YOU can share your most beloved homicide as well. It's easy...just bring along anything good, goopy n' gory that can play on a laptop or all-region DVD player and you'll be called on to nauseate the masses with your ultimate beloved gutblast! Note: This show is intended for the most severe and iron-stomached bloodhounds around, and we accept absolutely no responsibility for lost lunches. Wimps and weekend horrormeisters`, leave the hall...if you can't stand the meat, stay out of the kitchen!! (Zack Carlson)

Brief Summary: James Tresswick and Mark Vincent are victims of a brutal bully named Gary Parker who has maltreated both boys, marking their bodies and spoiling their young lives. In their last year of high school, James and Mark find a way to stop being victims. They're going to kill Gary... Full Description: High-Schoolers James Tresswick and Mark Vincent were mercilessly bullied throughout childhood by their nemesis Gary Parker. The torment only ended when Gary was hauled off to prison five years ago. Now back on the streets, he is once again beginning to make their lives a living hell. Their outlook is dim until Mark happens to witness a murder burying his victim deep in the nearby woods. The duo crafts what should be a perfect plan: blackmail the killer in to killing again, this time their mortal enemy Gary Parker. This perfect plan, however, doesn't work out exactly as envisioned, and the boys find themselves in a worse predicament than imaginable. ACOLYTES is a perfect accompaniment to our NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD Aussie Retrospective. Director Jon Hewitt shows that he’s a worthy heir to the Ozsploitation throne, delivering a tight knuckle-biter thriller with enough brutal violence to make the likes of Brian Trenchard-Smith stand up and cheer. The film is so much more than just a horror/thriller, though. Hewitt takes time to develop a fully-developed visual world. The first act establishes an idyllic tableau with rich detail and beautiful cinematography. These are innocent kids in a tranquil town living their lives with only childhood concerns. That is, of course, until they toy around with a murderer hell-bent on obliterating their serenity into a chaos of fear and brutality. (Tim League) Director Jon Hewitt will be live in person to introduce the film and answer questions afterwards. We also expect Jon to rock not only the Ozsploitation category of Fantastic Feud but also the subsequent Karaoke microphone.

Brief Summary: A prequel to one of the most graphic and visually creative horror movies in recent times, ART OF THE DEVIL 3 is a tale of unrequited love set amid the exotic world of rural Thai black magic. Full Description: Panor, a seductive rural teacher, longs to live a normal, peaceful life like everyone else in her village. But her beauty becomes her biggest curse as she becomes the object of desire from every man that enters her life. Male colleagues and students alike resort to a variety of black arts and love potions in an attempt to win her favor. To counter their endless menace, Panor herself must turn to witchcraft to combat her supernaturally charged suitors. The ART OF THE DEVIL franchise travels in some seriously demented territory. The bloody carnage isn't delivered by the hatchets and machetes of the American horror tradition, but rather by the ancient mythology and mysticism of Thailand. In part 2, you had flaying, boiling water down throats, lots of needles, voodoo dolls, unexpected eyeballs and a pack of lizards that rip forth from an unsuspecting man's back. The directors know why Part 2 was a smash hit - over-the-top visual mayhem and creepy Thai black magic gore. Check out the stills and watch the trailer...this installment (actually a prequel) is out with a mission: deliver the goods. "ART OF THE DEVIL 3 will be more shocking and violent than our previous films. We still want to send the same messages, though, that the gruesome fates of the characters are the consequences of their desire and lust. Only people with dark intents want to get involved with dark magic. We all believe that these things do exist in our modern world, but we want to warn the viewers that it'll only do them more harm than good to mess around with it," -- Ronin Team ART OF THE DEVIL 3 was directed by the seven-man collective known as "Ronin Team," a group behind numerous Thai smash hits: from the war epic BANG RAJAN to the period piece KUNPUN THE WARRIOR to the two previous ART OF THE DEVIL movies. Collaborating closely, the seven members of the team work together in every step from screenwriting to budgeting, casting and directing. One of the members of Ronin Team is also represented in Fantastic Fest 4 with his solo directorial debut, MUAY THAI CHAIYA. (Tim League)

Sure, it's a fact that psychopaths love to torture and destroy innocent people. But what happens when your average suburban family gets their hands on a pack of sadistic cannibals?

Sometimes there's just no way to remain safe...even in our secure homes. Quite possibly the most unexpected surprise in the fest!

Brief Summary: A cross-country manhunt searchers for an abducted woman and a marauding Indian tribe, but the real villains don't ride horses...they burrow from beneath the ground. Full Description: I appreciate it when horror elements are thrown into an unconventional scenario. This year SAUNA flips a horror body slam on Finnish Spa culture, and THE BURROWERS does the same to the American old west. The story opens with a young man named Coffey (Karl Geary) rehearsing and fumbling with his words. He has a wedding band in his hand and intends to propose to his sweetheart that very night. We cut to the scene of her house where domestic tranquility is interrupted by the all too familiar sound on the desolate prairie, the thundering hooves and whooping calls of an Indian attack. The women and children cloister themselves in a locked barn while the men try to ward off the attack. We catch fragments of the battle only through the sounds audible from inside the barn, but can soon tell that something is different about this attack, something foreign. No bodies are found, and Coffey sets out to follow the trail of the Indians in the seemingly desperate hope that his fiancee is still alive. He joins a scouting mission set on exterminating the tribe, but as they close on the trail, odd sounds are emanating from the perimeter of their camp and members of the party go missing in the middle of the night. Victims' bodies are later found, still twitching and half-alive, buried in shallow graves in the prairie. The search party's only information is filtered through a shifty Indian interpreter who - through a mix of willful manipulation and outright ignorance - informs the party that the "tribe" they are seeking is called "the burrowers", but he fails to warn of the deadly consequences of continuing the hunt. Compared by many to TREMORS (and there are similarities), THE BURROWERS creates an original and elaborate mythology of "the burrowers", steeped in Native American folklore with a subtle dash of environmentalist agenda. J.T. Petty paints a lush, classically western portrait with strong characters, both good and bad, and effectively evokes the hopelessness of the most famous wild west manhunt in film history, THE SEARCHERS. Since his first feature, SOFT FOR DIGGING, (which played the Alamo Drafthouse as part of Kier-la Janisse's Cinemuerte Film Festival) J.T. Petty has steered clear of the pitfalls of the modern horror film: booming musical cues, superficial characters and music-video inspired editing. His films are rooted in the classics with sure camera work, rich characters and stories and plenty of good old-fashioned gothic horror creepiness. THE BURROWERS delivers plenty of chills and thrills, but they are produced with a respect and an understanding of the western and film history in general. (Tim League)

This Hansel and Gretel-esque fairytale may seem comfortably familiar at first, but as it unfolds, something unexpectedly dark takes over.... Appearing as part of the skull-boiling SHORT FUSE program. CLICK HERE for details.

Technology and intimacy are at war. This movie is a genuinely creepy exploration of the casualties.

Brief Summary: A serial killer is preying on call-girls from various escort agencies. In the midst of police indifference and incompetence, Jung-Ho (Yun-Seok Kim), an ex-cop-turned-pimp must dust off his old flatfoot skills to find the killer and save the life of one of his girls who has gone missing. Full Description: I sat on the Asian Features Jury at the Puncheon International Fantasy Film Festival this year. Of the 32 films in competition, our jury unanimously decided THE CHASER to be the grand prize winner. This is a return to form for the Korean crime film after a string of fairly disappointing efforts. The story is gritty and intense, the pacing taut, and the performance of lead actor Yun-seok Kim is phenomenal. Korean genre films sometimes manage to pack in a much wider array of emotional notes and complex character interaction than their American counterparts. In much the same way that THE HOST was a dysfunctional family drama that happened to have a monster running a muck, THE CHASER is a tender portrait of a jaded, hard-boiled ex-cop who realizes that he still has deep pathos and compassion beneath his stony veneer. And there's bloody rampage serial killer on the loose. THE CHASER was a box-office hit in Korea this year, topping the charts until the blockbuster THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD took top honors. Look for the American remake, by the same production team behind Scorcese's award winning film THE DEPARTED, to begin production soon. (Tim League) Plot Summary The debut feature from award winning short film director Na Jong-Jin, THE CHASER, tells the story of Jung-Ho, a former cop turned pimp. Think for a moment about what sort of cop would choose to become a pimp in his post-law enforcement career and you have an immediate grasp of Jung-Ho. He is a surly, foul tempered, hard talking man driven by the pursuit of easy profits. And Jung-Ho is in a bad mood because a number of his girls - girls who he effectively owns, having bought out their bad debts - have recently gone missing. Jun-Ho believes a rival pimp is simply stealing his girls and reselling them for profit but the truth is far worse. There is a serial killer on the prowl, one that has not been detected because he preys exclusively on call girls hired from a variety of escort agencies. When the call comes in for a girl one night, Jung-Ho realizes too late that the client's phone number matches the number used to book sessions with a pair of his missing girls, and he rushes off to protect his investment. The rival must be captured and taken out of the picture. But while a chance encounter leads Jung-Ho to the correct man, his girl Mi-Jin is nowhere to be found, and the client - Young Min - is spouting nonsenses about having killed a dozen women. It's enough to bring Young-Min to the police but the killer is smart enough to give them only enough to taunt but not enough to actually charge him or even hold him for an extended period of time. And so the chase is on. It is not a chase to find the killer - he has already been found - it is a chase to find the girl. If they can't find her - or other significant evidence - within twelve hours, Young-Min must be set free. (Todd Brown)