The Best Things We Saw at Fantastic Fest This Year
After eight days at the Austin genre festival, these are the five screenings we’re still thinking about
Fantastic Fest returned to Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar Sept. 17-24 for its 21st edition, bringing premieres of short films, features and television shows, along with offscreen events and surprise guests. While we couldn’t see everything, these five screenings stayed with us. Here’s why they’re worth watching and when you can catch them.
“Wild Horse Nine”
Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” sends longtime CIA partners Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) to Easter Island shortly before Chile’s 1973 coup. Chris’s friendship with two rebellious students draws them into an increasingly unpredictable story. McDonagh’s screenplay is funny and bleak, the island is beautifully photographed, and Malkovich and Rockwell are compelling in every scene together. The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, where Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for best actor.
Theatrical release date: Nov. 6
“Primetime”
Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen in “Primetime,” a drama about the rise of “To Catch a Predator” from director Lance Oppenheim. The film gets the look of mid-2000s television exactly right, down to the grainy footage, bad highlights and oversized suits. Pattinson is fascinating as a host whose investigations expose real danger while turning each confrontation into a television event. Oppenheim leaves viewers to reckon with both sides of the show’s legacy, and the film’s haunting final scene is hard to shake.
Theatrical release date: Sept. 25
“Resident Evil”
Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier whose delivery route becomes a fight to survive a night of escalating horrors. It’s an intense, bloody film with a welcome sense of humor, moving quickly from one elaborate set piece to the next. The snowy setting and creature effects recall horror classics such as “The Thing,” but some of the film’s best moments draw on a feeling familiar to anyone who has played the games: the dread of pushing ahead when you know something terrible is waiting. At 97 minutes, it packs in an impressive amount without wearing out its premise.
Theatrical release date: September 18
“The Spiral”
Italian director Paolo Strippoli’s “The Spiral” (“L’estranea”) begins when Anna (Jasmine Trinca) arrives at her daughter Alice’s home on a stormy night with a confession: 20 years earlier, she made a dark bargain to save Alice’s leg. Told in four chapters, the film gradually reveals the consequences of that choice. It’s beautifully shot and deeply unsettling, with each chapter changing what we understand about Anna and Alice’s relationship.
Theatrical release date: TBA
“Carrie”
Mike Flanagan, known for “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass,” brings Stephen King’s “Carrie” into the present day in a new eight-episode Prime Video miniseries. Summer H. Howell plays Carrie White, a sheltered teenager entering public high school after years alone with her controlling mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). The first two episodes, screened at Fantastic Fest, tease Carrie’s eventual breakdown through police interviews with survivors, then return to the events leading up to it. The preview left us eager to see how the rest unfolds.
Streaming release date: October 7