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Death! Destruction! Popcorn!
Hot on the heels of the ACL festival comes another Austin fest that is already becoming the stuff of legend - only this time, we're not talking about music - we're talking about MOVIES. The second annual Fantastic Fest starts this Thursday at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. While it might not have the same name recognition as some of our other film festivals - it's only a matter of time.
Fantastic Fest bills itself as a film festival with the boring parts cut out. While we love moody, poetic, relationship dramas as much as the next guy, sometimes we just want to sit in a dark room and watch a big monster stomp the shit out of a major metropolitan city. That's what Fantastic Fest is all about: ninjas, zombies, big guns, monsters, serial killers and things that explode. This description may make the festival seem pretty low-brow, and it is…at times. But it is also much, much more...
*Fantastic details after the jump...*
To give you an idea of the diversity of programming for this year's fest, here are a few highlights:
- The Fountain advance screening
Director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) will be live and in-person to present an advance screening of his new film The Fountain. He will also introduce a special screening of René Laloux’s animated classic Fantastic Planet. - Ram Gopal Varma retrospective
Never heard of films by Ram Gopal Varma? A true maverick among Indian filmmakers, he's been hailed as a Bollywood Martin Scorsese. Lose the singing and dancing and substitute gangsters and bullets and you start to get the picture. Check out this trailer for evidence. - THE WOODS premiere
Director Lucky McKee’s first film, MAY, went straight-to-video but gained a huge cult-following. Fans have been eagerly awaiting his follow-up, but for some reason, the release has been held up for almost two years. Leave it to Fantastic Fest to give the film its long awaited U.S. Premiere. McKee will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A. - Full Moon Travelling Roadshow
Direct-to-video schlock-meister Charles Band (Puppetmaster, Demonic Toys) will host an interactive presentation with clips from his “illustrious” filmmaking career, surprise guests and a live beheading. Following the event, is a rare screening of Band's "classic" PARASITE 3-D - in which a young Demi Moore is menaced by a very angry flying worm. - Greg Nicotero's Greatest Hits
Greg Nicotero is a special effects genius responsible for eye-popping effects in more movies that we can include here. He's currently in town working on Quentin Tarantino's segment of Grindhouse and the Alamo guys have wisely snagged him to present this compilation of 40 of his greatest effects. - Tideland advance screening
His last few films have been hit or miss, but Terry Gilliam has channeled his frustration with the studio system into his latest work. Gilliam describes the film as "Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho." It is already being billed as his most artistically successful film.
These highlights only scratch the surface of what you can expect from this years Fantastic Fest. We haven't even mentioned the killer after parties, the AICN secret sneak preview, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre premiere or The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell!
If these sound like your kind of flicks, we suggest you head over to the website and get your tickets now!. Festival passes are available for just $110. For 8 days of movies, $110 is a steal. Tickets will also be available for individual shows, but you can only get them in person on the day of the show. Based on our experience at last year's fest, your odds of getting an individual ticket into any of the high-profile events is slim-to-none. Why risk it?
