Fantastic Fest continues this week at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. So many great movies are playing at this festival that it’s a little overwhelming to try to take them all in. For our first four days at the fest, we decided to concentrate on the low-budget indies and international. After all, the major label flicks will be in theaters or on DVD soon. But who knows when we might have another opportunity to watch Funky Forest or Ab Tak Chhappan?
Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell. Don’t let the name fool you because this is not a movie about bikini clad teenagers getting slaughtered by demons. Instead, it is the first part of a proposed trilogy billed as
History of the New America. Set in a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, this low-budget epic introduces a cast of characters so huge it’s almost Shakespearean. It’s gory, visionary, action-packed and, most importantly, hilarious. Usually, a very ambitious concept combined with a very low-budget is a recipe for disaster, but writer/co-director/lead actor Kevin Wheatley pulls it off. This movie is destined to be a cult classic and you should definitely see it.
Funky Forest: The First Contact is almost impossible to describe. It’s like a variety show style mash-up of science fiction, musicals, teen comedies and flat-out weirdness. This is the kind of beautiful weirdness that could only come from Japan. The film is composed of short episodes featuring characters like “Unpopular-With-Women Brothers,” “Babbling Hot Spring Vixens,” a dorky high school teacher in love with his student, an insane home room class and several others that are even harder to describe. At first, the episodes seem unrelated, but eventually the characters begin to cross over into each others stories. This doesn’t even get into the aliens, dream sequences or fleshy David Cronenberg-esque musical instruments. Seeing a movie like
Funky Forest in a theater filled with people is one of the things that makes Fantastic Fest so great. DVD is great, but there’s no way this movie would be as much fun if you were to watch it alone.
Severance – Following in the wake of
Wolf Creek are so many wilderness survival films that it’s getting hard to tell them apart.
Severance is unique within the genre in that it is a damn funny comedy. A group of employees from a weapons manufacturing company heads to the woods for a company retreat. Hilarity and gore ensue. Imagine the characters from
The Office U.K. terrorized by sadistic weapon-wielding villains and you begin to get an idea. Even though it’s funny,
Severance doesn’t hold back on the terror or the gore and features the best scene of bear trap violence in recent cinematic history.
Acquisitions Panel. While it’s not an actual movie, this event was free to the public and offers yet another shining example of the support that the Drafthouse provides for local filmmakers. Matt Dentler did an excellent job of hosting this panel, which featured John Pierson (indie film legend), Dustin Smith (film buyer for Roadside Attractions), and Jason Beck (film buyer for First Look). The panel covered the acquisitions process and revealed a massive amount of information about things a lot of independent filmmakers don’t even think about. From finding a sales agent to the expanding role of Video on Demand, this panel offered a very in-depth look at the sometimes mysterious acquisitions process.
Ab Tak Chhappan. This film has been
the highlight of Fantastic Fest for us thus far. It’s an Indian flick produced by Ram Gopal Varma, about whom we knew nothing before the Festival. The main character is a hit-man for the police department. That’s right. Once his boss tells him to bump off a gangster, Sadhu shows up - pop - and that’s it. There is very little carefully choreographed gunplay. Instead, it’s fast, dirty and realistic. As hard-boiled as this movie is, it doesn’t shy away from the interactions between family and friends. There is a light, warm humor to the way the characters deal with each other that is very realistic and quite nice. The first half of the movie follows Sadhu as he does his job and trains a new recruit. Then, about halfway through, the movie takes a hard right turn and we get to see Sadhu unleashed. It must be said that Sadhu is one of the baddest motherfuckers we’ve seen on screen in a long time.
Ab Tak Chhappan is playing as part of the Ram Gopal Varma retrospective, and is accompanied by a special Indian menu. Once the smell of Indian cuisine enters the theater, it’s very hard to resist ordering some for yourself.
Hopefully these films will illustrate that Fantastic Fest isn’t all about people getting killed with chainsaws and hatchets. The line-up this year is incredibly diverse and of very high quality. Best of all, it’s only halfway over. For most of these movies you don’t even need a badge, just show up a little early and buy a ticket. You’ll be glad you did.
