Fantastic Fest Reveals More Movies and a New Director

in

The seventh annual Fantastic Fest is just over a month away, and the anticipation is building, especially with the newly announced second wave of programming.

What stands out the most for me is the announcement that Alamo Drafthouse veteran Kristen Bell is officially the Fantastic Fest Director. If you've ever spent any time at the South Lamar Alamo, you've probably seen Kristen (not to be confused with the star of Veronica Mars) as General Manager, taking care of business and making sure guests have a good experience. She's been an integral part of making Fantastic Fest a success in years past. Fantastic Fest co-founder Tim League said, "We are all excited to have Kristen assume this expanded role at the festival and look forward to working with her to continue to improve what is undoubtedly my favorite eight days of the year." Congratulations, Kristen!

As deserving as Kristen is, you're probably more interested in hearing about what's going to be onscreen and not behind the scenes at next month's fest. The second wave of titles includes 17 new world, North America and U.S. premiere films, including a special vintage program of Asian Grindhouse titles called "Movies on Fire: Hong Kong Action Classics," which will be introduced by New York Asian Film Festival's Grady Hendrix. The first wave was announced in July.

Before I get to the films, there are Other Things Going On as part of Fantastic Fest. The annual bumper contest and 100 Best Kills party are again featured this year. The bumpers are often shocking, funny and always a hot topic. The 100 Best Kills, well, if you are a Fantastic Fest newbie, just think of getting all the payoffs and none of the wasted plots in your favorite genre movies. And like the bumper contest, there's a contest involved with 100 Best Kills; submit your favorite deaths and be eligible to win 100 DVDs and Blu-rays.

A new aspect to Fantastic Fest is sponsor Fandango will be "the exclusive showtime and ticketing partner for all Fantastic Fest screenings that are available for advance purchase." Shiner Beer is a new sponsor, so those of you who love a nice cold Shiner Bock will be happy. And a new "outdoor-tented pavilion" will be sponsored by FEARnet (I have to wonder where they're putting that considering the dearth of parking around the South Lamar location).

Among the many guests in attendance will be festival fave Ti West (pictured at top), kicking off a retrospective of his films sponsored by Austin Film Society. Leading the retrospective is SXSW 2011 selection The Innkeepers, about the last two employees of a failing hotel deciding to do a little ghosthunting. Another notable fest attendee will be Fantastic Fest fixture (and Karaoke God) Nacho Vigalondo, who's bringing his latest feature Extraterrestrial along with him.

There are a lot of intriguing titles on this list, but the one that stands out to me is Ahn Sang-hoon's Blind, which immediately called to mind Wait Until Dark -- however, Ahn's take raises the "blind woman versus bad guys" up several notches, as a woman is pitted against a serial killer out to eliminate witnesses. Which film are you most excited to see?

Aardvark (2010)
Texas Premiere
Director Kitao Sakurai live in person
Director: Kitao Sakurai, Japan, 80 minutes
Larry (Aardvark's blind-since-birth protagonist) has an innate curiosity that lands him smack in the middle of a bizarre criminal underworld replete with mixed martial arts, intrigue, murder and pillow humping.

Blind (2011)
US Premiere
Director - Ahn Sang-hoon, Korea, 111minutes
A blind woman narrowly escapes from the clutches of a serial killer. When he circles back to get rid of any witnesses, the woman must rely on her other acute senses to identify and outwit the killer.

Calibre 9 (2011)
World Premiere
Director Jean-Christian Tassy & Producer Axel Guyot live in person
Director: Jean-ChristianTassy, France, 84 minutes
A city planner becomes strangely linked to a gun possessed by the soul of a dead hooker.

The Corridor (2010)
US Premiere
Director Evan Kelly live in person!
Director: Evan Kelly, Canada, 100 minutes
Five friends stay in a remote cabin for the weekend and uncover a supernatural anomaly in the woods.

Extraterrestrial (2011)
US Premiere
Director Nacho Vigalondo and Producer Nahikari Ipiña live in person
Director: Nacho Vigalando, Spain, 90 minutes
A man wakes in a strange apartment after a long night of drinking. When his unfamiliar bedmate tries to usher him out, they both discover that spaceships are hovering over Madrid.

Headhunters (2011)
US Premiere
Director: Morten Tyldum, Norway, 100 Minutes
Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is good at two things: hiring people and stealing from them. He'll risk it all when he meets a former mercenary who owns a painting worth millions.

The Innkeepers (2010)
Director Ti West live in person
Director: Ti West, USA, 101 Minutes
Luke and Claire work the desk at a quaint, failing hotel. On their last night, these two amateur ghost-hunters try to capture definitive proof that their workplace is haunted. The Innkeepers kicks off a Ti West retrospective at the Alamo Drafthouse sponsored by the Austin Film Society.

Let the Bullets Fly (2010)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jiang Wen, Hong Kong, 132 minutes
The highest grossing domestic Chinese release ever, Let the Bullets Fly features the hilarious and bloody antics of a band of thieves traveling by train in this 1920s-set western satire. Writer/Director Jiang Wen stars opposite screen legend Chow Yun-Fat.

Melancholia (2011)
Regional Premiere
Director: Lars von Trier, Denmark, 130 minutes
The man who brought us Fantastic Fest hit Antichrist creates a very different type of genre film - an incredibly personal science fiction story about the end of the world.

Michael (2011)
US Premiere
Director: Markus Schleinzer, 96 minutes
Setting the record for the darkest of character studies, Markus Schleinzer's compelling and surprisingly humorous directorial debut follows five months in the lives of a pedophile and the ten-year-old boy he keeps in the basement.

Pastorela: A Christmas Play (2011)
World Premiere
Director: Emilio Portes Castro, Mexico, 90 minutes
Fantastic Fest again hosts another untraditional Christmas movie; this time Santa Claus is out and Satan is in. When Chucho (Joaquín Cosio) loses the beloved role of Satan in the town's Christmas play and tries to reclaim the part, all hell breaks loose and an epic battle between good and evil begins.

Penumbra (2011)
World Premiere
Director Adrian Garcia Bogliano and Producer Andrea Quiroz live in person
Director: Adrian Garcia Bogliano and Ramiro Garcia Bogliano Argentina, 85 minutes
A beautiful young woman is trapped in her apartment with a nervous realtor and an expanding cast of unsettling characters in the latest from the director of Cold Sweat.

Sleep Tight (2011)
US Premiere
Director Jaume Balagueró live in person
Director: Jaume Balagueró, Spain, 102 minutes
The location is familiar (a vertical shaft Barcelona apartment building) but the story is markedly different in Jaume Balagueros (Rec, Rec 2) solo feature debut. Lonely doorman Cesar must do whatever is necessary to keep the neighbors from uncovering his dark, disturbing obsession for his favorite resident Clara.

Snowman's Land (2011)
US Premiere
Director: Tomasz Thomson, Germany, 95 minutes
Tomasz Thomson's Snowman's Land is a bleak comedic thriller from Germany about an over-the-hill hit man who gets sent to the remote snow-covered wilderness to handle a job that may be his last.

The Squad (2011)
World Premiere
Director: Jaime Osorio, Columbia, 107 minutes
Haunted by memories of their last mission, a feuding special ops unit is tasked to uncover the mystery of what happened at a desolate military base in this tense and claustrophobic South American thriller.

Summerland (2010)
North American Premiere
Director: Grímur Hákonarson, Iceland, 85 minutes
Oscar and Lara have an entirely normal family other than the fact that Oscar runs a haunted house in their basement and Lara speaks with elves.

You're Next (2011)
US Premiere
Director Adam Wingard live in person
Director: Adam Wingard, USA, 95 minutes

From the team behind the Fantastic Fest award-winning film A Horrible Way to Die, You're Next traps a family inside secluded mansion in the middle of nowhere. Outside the home is a group of animal-masked killers who take a stab at making sure none of them leave alive.

Fantastic Fest runs September 22-29, primarily at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

[Photo credit: "Ti West" by Debbie Cerda]