I have been spending this last weekend mostly at the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights, and this year is the most movies I have seen during White Nights ever, a personal record! I was thinking that the really good movies were reserved for the Nights section in April and the main festival in September, but, wow, was I wrong...
A shout-out to the organizers and the Zoo Palast crew, the festival was amazing as always, and a heart warming highlight in this dark, cold and icy winter.
I put the films in the order of my personal delight, ranking from least to most, with the movie at the bottom of the page being my favorite of the festival. It doesn't mean that the lower ranking movies are bad or not worth watching, on the contrary, in this year's White Nights selection there wasn't one movie that wasn't worthwhile, but I will explain for each movie why they didn't make my personal best. The good news is, they all made it into the top ten! I missed two films and saw seven from a total of nine festival movies, no short film anthologies, only features. Let's take a look at them, I will try to make this as spoiler free as possible.
Present day, Italy. A sports teacher moves to Remis, the happiest town in the country - too bad he might be the saddest man in the country after the death of his son. The town's people are not naturally happy, though, they have supernatural help disguised as a service of the church; the outsider teenager Matteo. Matteo is a well kept secret, he doesn't only have supernatural powers, whoever hugs him is rid of suffering too. But isn't it our pain, our suffering that makes us us? And where does all that pain go once Matteo takes it over?
This initial concept of the movie was top notch, and I was really excited to see a movie exploring exactly these questions. Unfortunately, it started turning into a drag through the snow when new elements were introduced that felt like the makers wanted to cram in some tropes, which drew the picture out unnecessarily.
The heaviness of a concept such as the above is best processed in simplicity. There are two elements in The Holy Boy that felt superfluous to the movie:
Firstly, the additional supernatural powers Matteo has, namely the ability to inhabit human bodies as avatars. The way these were realized in the movie, is heavily reminiscent of the powers of Bran Stark from Game of Thrones, if you know the series, and the makers of The Holy Boy dwell on these powers gratuitously. I understand that the question of "rebellion" would eventually and perforce pop up when following a teenage boy who has been (physically and psychologically) abused for a long time by a large number of people, but the above mentioned similarity was something that wouldn't leave my mind while watching the rest of the movie.
The second thing that disturbs the watch is the end reveal of the actual nature of Matteo, which was basically the premise of James Herbert's Shrine (filmed in 2021 as The Unholy). And yet, gave no answers as to the origin of Matteo.
I have nothing against "tropes" in the sense of the word used nowadays. I understand them as dishes, like recipes that every chef can prepare and cook in their own style. But apply that trope one on one in the way of its trademark source (for example like the eyes whitening when taking over other people's bodies as avatars), and you end up making use of prefabricated lego blocks and merely mix and insert them in different combinations instead of creating something genuinely authentic. I'd rather have an author, a filmmaker not perfectly perfect in the technical sense, an author who does their own thing. BUT that's my own opinion, and I'm only ranting so much because there was true beautiful potential here and it's upsetting to know this had a shot at greatness.
I again stress that ALL movies in the festival were worthwhile, and so is this one - technically, it's almost immaculate, the nature shots are beautiful and all acting was casted very appropriately, Matteo was the perfect fine line between "ingénue" and creepy, so the movie has lots of merits speaking for it too.
Unfortunately, same problem here, but Shelby Oaks has much more goodness going on.
For once, Shelby Oaks is a whole half an hour shorter than The Holy Boy - don't worry, this will not turn into a comparison between the two movies. I still am an advocate of the concision of the 90 minute film format, and a movie better has a good excuse to be longer than that. Unfortunately people tend to drag and fill their movies with unnecessary things, and that seems to become the standard of our days. But not Chris Stuckmann, maker of Shelby Oaks.
Shelby Oaks too is a mixture of certain tropes and there is much left to be desired in terms of originality - but it is a genuine and authentic story of a woman searching her sister who got lost during the shooting of a social media video about haunted places. It makes use of found footage excerpts here and there, and combines this with a cult in the outbacks, haunted place, and the demon tropes. There's no denying - writer and director Chris Stuckmann is one of the most proficient people in the industry when it comes to horror, and the tension-building and the placements of jump scares were on the spot each time, that's his forte. The downside was that there were some plot holes that seemed a little farcical, like a photo album for our main character to find, that documents every stage of every question she has in her mind, the insistent focusing on a lost knife to make sure the audience notices, plus the really bad choices every horror movie lead makes like going alone into haunted places at night etc. I think those could have been done more subtly and not so stereotypically.
It is worth mentioning that this is a debut, and it's indie, a decent example of the supernatural cult sub-genre, with lots of scares and suspense. So please, as soon as it hits the theaters, go see it!
OK, so having criticized the two movies above for their lack of originality, that's definitely not something I can bring up here, because Every Heavy Thing was literally oozing style, psychedelic mystery, hipness, freshness.
We're following Joe who inadvertently witnesses and seals a deal with an infamous serial woman killer who wreaks havoc in Hightown City. The problem is that his new colleague at the paper he works for is on his heels and he needs to stop that.
Generational conflicts, an unexpected collusion, hallucinatory visuals, an unusual plot - it's all here, for open-minded people!
I so didn't think AT ALL that this movie would impress me the way it did, but Crazy Old Lady turned out to be an unexpectedly intense portrait of an individual and the traces a very jarring past left on her, and all those past scars making her lose her mind in age. Ouf!
Laura is on the road with her daughter Elena and is at the same time trying to keep in touch with her mom Alicia who suffers from dementia and needs to be supervised. When she calls the nurse's number and it's her mom who answers, she reluctantly asks her ex-boyfriend Pedro to check up on her. Alicia manages to hunt him down and tie him to a chair, and do stuff to him in her delirious state.
The torture he suffers at her hands, the humiliation, the struggle, the evil coming his way from someone who is not able to understand it... It was very heavy stuff, carried by the performances of its two leads, Carmen Maura and Daniel Hendler.
If you enjoy that Argentine sense, atmosphere of horror, psychological suspense, and aren't shy or grossed out to watch torture on the screen, this is your flick.
Deathgasm 2: GoremageddonWe're entering the top three!
Picking up where Deathgasm 1 left, ten years later Brodie and Giles, battered but not broken, decide to resurrect their old band-mates from the dead by playing a forbidden heavy metal sheet music and to ultimately win the holy grail of every metalhead; Noizefest. The competition is strong, though, they need to beat obnoxious emo rockers who now have Brodie's ex Medina on their side... Not a good prospect.
There isn't much I can say about Deathgasm 2, except that you should experience it for yourself, it's awesome and I think I laughed the whole 102 minutes full of disgustingly glorious fun.
Number two in my ranking is Can Evrenol's new movie, a remake of Spanish filmmaker Caye Casas' The Coffee Table.
Young parents Zehra and Ä°brahim are looking for a coffee table for their home, and living in a marriage where his wife has the obvious upper hand (she gets to decide everything, the home decoration, details about their wedding, what her husband wears), Ä°brahim wants to decide this one thing and choose a coffee table to his own taste; a so-called "Neo-Ottoman" hideous piece consisting of two horses and a glass plate that the seller swears is unbreakable. The argument between him and his wife turns into a stubborn horn-locking and even though Ä°brahim doesn't seem very convinced of its aesthetic value, he takes the table home.
When something very very traumatic, almost unspeakably shocking occurs, the comedic tone of the movie shifts into something devastating, and everything happening from that point on, no matter how fun or light-hearted, is shadowed by the dark cloak of this incidence and turns everything bitterly, sarcastically funny - but all is eventually a road to nowhere. Catastrophe is bound to happen, and ultimately happens.
I have not seen the original of this remake bu I can recognize the Can-signature here, notably the gore. He was present at the event and answered some questions the audience had, usually concerning gender matters, like the dynamics in the marriage, the violence fantasies of the lead figure, Zehra being a woman who wears a headscarf, etc., but also about practical stuff about the making of the movie, and where he got the coffee table from.
The movie will be released in Türkiye in February, and I'm curious how the reactions will be. By having a relatively large budget compared to Can's previous films, and thus being able to hire actors of nationwide fame, this film doesn't run the risk of being left unnoticed. The question is, how will it be received? Each time a horror creator reaches out beyond the genre, I feel a little worried. Can is a filmmaker who pushes boundaries, and that's the best kind of filmmaker, very important to society. It's the first time he is using a project to venture out into the wide world, he specifically expressed not to have any further serious interest in mainstream film industry, and that can work well, but it can backfire too. My personal feeling is that they will tear him apart. Not that he can't take it, but if you happen to reach out to him on social media, make sure to give him some appreciation. He's a very easy to talk to, easy to like person and I'm sure the appreciation won't go unnoticed.
Finally, the number one!
If you know me just a little bit, or know my blog and my taste, you probably already guessed that Dolly would be my winner of this year's Fantasy Filmfest White Nights.
Where to start will this film... Well it's indie and reeks so from every pore, it's about a family in the backwoods so desperately neglected and left isolated that they started acting sick, the girl of the family, having grown up, incarcerated her one brother, killed the other, set up dolls around the woods they live, transformed herself into a giant doll somehow, and went to hunt into the woods for a live doll. And found our newly engaged couple Macy and Chase who were on a hike.
You need to know no further - just lay back and watch this feast of disgusting doll playing among humans, gore, cringe, a spectacle so repulsive to bring you out of your shell laughing in incredulity. The character Dolly is played by a WWF wrestler named Max the Impaler and that sets the tone.😆
I love films like these and had a "hell" of a time. Also, in the end credits they specified that no one associated with the film was paid for it.🥹 This degree of commitment should be rewarded, and only if by giving it the festival first place on my humble blog. Amazing. Laugh out loud repulsive.
So, my friends, off to our next stations of the film season (I'm a little bummed I can't call it Film February anymore...), which are:
🎥Berlinale February 12-22,
🎥the Final Girls Film Festival March 4-8 (I was offered a place in the jury this year, and I still can't believe it! OF COURSE I said yes!)
🎥Fantasy Filmfest Nights April 16-19.
I'm still a little drunk on the films I saw, can't wait to see more.
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