Fantasia 2023 Curtain Raiser: 19 Films We Hope To See at This Year’s Festival

The high-profile case of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Stanleyville), accused of murdering three young girls and streaming their brutal deaths in the “red rooms” of the Dark Web, has just gone to trial and Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy, Boost) is obsessed. Every morning she makes her way from her luxurious condo in downtown Montreal to the gates of the Palais de Justice. Snuff: what was once urban legend is now a sordid reality that captures the province’s imagination and inspires a group of devoted, conspiratorial admirers. When reality blurs with her fantasies, Kelly-Anne goes down a dark path to obtain the final piece of the case’s puzzle.

Yuval Adler, the acclaimed director of Bethlehem, gives new meaning to “cruise control” as we follow two men one fateful night in Sin City, aka Las Vegas. On the shadowy, neon-lit streets where anything goes, we find a driver (Joel Kinnaman, The Suicide Squad) at the end of his day, and he’s got a lot on his mind. His wife is in labor, and as he makes his way to the hospital, a passenger (Nicholas Cage) gets into his car with a gun. Dressed in a red satin jacket with matching fiery hair, this man has a serious agenda, and as the tension builds between passenger and driver, so does the danger.

Robert Frost’s immortal lament to the woods is blasted into the cosmos in Teresa Sutherland’s feature debut Lovely, Dark, and Deep. The enigmatic Lennon (the incomparably talented Georgina Campbell of 2022’s Barbarian) is granted a long-awaited position as a park ranger in an isolated outpost. Immediately, the woods tower ominous and great, and are strangely shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories pertaining to bizarre disappearances. Once Lennon settles into this minimalist life, visions quickly start to manifest, blending the past, present, and perhaps something even more sinister lurking in the serene, writhing landscape. Steadily, Lennon descends further and further into the horror that lays dormant at the roots of this landscape. As these mysteries arise and blossom, the lines between reality and dream quickly begin to blur twisting and turning like vines.

Beware of the super-long ghostly tongue!! Out of money and without shelter, mild mannered Ning (Leslie Cheung) seeks refuge in a deserted temple one dark night. It’s very spacious and devoid of annoying people until he meets Siu-Sin (Joey Wong), a lovely young woman who charms him to point that they fall hopelessly in love. Unbeknownst to him, this is a haunted place where innocent people are seduced and drained of their life force by her master, the Tree Demoness. Siu-Sin is disastrously short of her quota of sacrifices, so the impatient demoness decides to betroth her to a dark lord from hell. To make it clear that she means business, she has also threatened to destroy Siu-Sin’s ashes and crush her chances of reincarnation. Now trapped in this forest, the lovebirds and their new buddy, a jaded Taoist swordsman (Wu Ma), must journey to hell to defeat this dark legion and recover her ashes in time.

“The word ‘no’ doesn’t exist in a concierge’s dictionary.” That’s just one of the demanding rules that Akino must abide by in her new job as a saleswoman at the elegant and expansive Hokkyoku Department Store. It’s a very special store — the customers are all animals, and the most valued among them are of extinct species. Sea minks, laughing owls, Japanese wolves, even an enormous mammoth — that’s Mr. Woolly, the celebrated sculptor whose works are showcased at the store. It’s still a luxury retail space, though, and anxious Akino finds her hands full with the customers’ challenging requests. These range from hard-to-find merchandise to more complicated matters of the heart. Can the inexperienced Akino fulfill their whims and meet their expectations? If she wants to keep her job, she’ll have to succeed while under constant observation by the fussy floor manager Mr. Todo, a creepy consultant eager to downsize the staff, and the store’s enigmatic president (who is not a penguin, by the way!).

In modern-day Moscow, disaffected former journalism student Roman (Pavel Tabakov) follows a cryptic invitation to join “the elite” and finds himself forcibly transformed into a vampire. But not your typical creature of the night. Thanks to a parasitical worm known as the Tongue, Roman (now called Rama) has become part of a ruling class of vampires who exercise an “anonymous dictatorship” over humans based not on a thirst for blood but the hunger for money. As various instructors school him in the ways of their elite breed, and Rama explores his new supernatural abilities, he begins a tentative relationship with another newly turned vampire, Hera (Taya Radchenko). His desire for more knowledge about this intoxicating new world also leads him into potentially deadly conflict with Mithra (Miron Fedorov), his mentor who becomes his nemesis.

Sophie’s (Judy Greer, Halloween) life takes a sudden hard turn when either fate or a terrible chance of circumstance sees her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi, The Harder They Fall) killed in a drunk-driving accident. Left to parent her grief-torn teenaged daughter (Faithe Herman, Shazam!) on her own while trying to keep things together with an emotionally taxing nursing job, her breaking point might be coming up fast and it takes every bit of her remaining strength not to fall apart. One day, her husband’s best friend (Payman Maadi, A Separation), a brilliant former physicist, approaches her with an experimental machine that he’s secretly been working on for years. One that’s capable of bending time in specific ways. A device that could — perhaps — bring a version of Sophie’s old life back to her. She understands that by taking a chance with this, the consequences will be entirely unforeseeable. It’s an impossible choice to make. And a lifeline that’s all but impossible to resist.

“While the body rots to dust and bones, there’s a tear in the heart, where the devil roams.” Maggie, Seven and Eve (Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams) are a travelling family of performers, driving town-to-town through the tough, dying carnival circuit of Depression-era America. It’s a time of desperation in a climate steeped in superstition and distrust. And engulfed, for better or worse, in actual occult magic. The family’s creative collaborations bond them in special ways. As do their crimes, and the mounting bodies left in their wake. One day, an ominous carny, Mr. Tibbs (Sam Rodd), catches young Eve’s attention with a sensationally gruesome act that can only be performed with assistance from the shadow realm. Eve can’t resist but to steal his magic. Darkest prayers will be answered, in sawdust and sacrilege, as a damning devil’s dance is set in motion.

Ryan (Nick Stahl; Let the Right One In) is a talented chef with crushing gambling problems. Circumstances being what they are, he leaves town in a hurry for the safe haven of an unnamed Latin American country where his friend Jack (Brian Groh), a more prestigious chef with his own unique troubles, welcomes him into his home. Ryan has no idea how Jack’s able to afford his extravagant lifestyle, and he doesn’t want to feel envious, but he knows that he wants it for himself. Soon, a grim twist of fate will give that to him. Ryan assumes his friend’s identity. And soon discovers just what Jack’s been doing to maintain the lifestyle he so desperately craved.

Still reeling from a recent break up, Ariane (Ariane Castellanos) is close to losing her condo if can’t keep up with her mortgage payments. Jumping on the first opportunity she is offered by a friend, she finds herself working for Stéphane (Marc-André Grondin, Les Affamés, C.R.A.Z.Y.), insensitive and rigid both as a man and an employer. Within her functions as an interpreter for the plant’s seasonal Guatemalan workers, Ariane has little to no influence over what befalls them, and must bear witness to their horrible treatment. Despite herself, she bonds with the men over their shared heritage, and she will have to face the limits of what she is willing to do in the name of justice.

Indie director/producer Jenn Wexler made her mark with her 2018 debut, The Ringer a horror crime caper with punk rock rebels terrorized by a deranged park ranger. We’ve waited patiently for her next feature, and now fans can applaud her return with The Sacrifice Game. In a girl’s Catholic school in the ’70s, a couple of lonely misfit girls, Samantha (Madison Baines) and Clara (Georgia Acken), must spend their Christmas break in their near-deserted school with a young teacher named Rose (Chloë Levine). As they hunker down for quiet times and turkey, a group of marauding killers set on unleashing supernatural evil find themselves at the school’s gates. They force their way in, bringing mayhem, madness, and gore as they torment the innocent girls and remaining staff, but little do they know there are other forces at play, and the nastiness they inflict is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Until that thing knocked on my door, I thought I was in control.” Suitable Flesh, the newest feature from filmmaker Joe Lynch (Mayhem), follows Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham), a well-respected psychiatrist working out of Miskatonic University who has written the book on out-of-body experiences. After a young patient, Asa Waite (Judah Lewis), shows up at her office seeking help, Elizabeth becomes obsessed with his case and the young man himself. Unbeknownst to her, this visit leads to the murder of Asa and a downward spiral of sex, possession, and death as she tries to piece together the mystery of the beast she has become involved with.

In a society where zombies (known as “living-impaired”) roam among us, with no cannibalistic tendencies, the imposing shadow of the Coleman Corporation looms over a city. They offer a retirement plan for the living-impaired, promising to conduct research about them by collecting decomposing family members from their homes. Through these collections, a trio of friends infiltrate Coleman’s network to recover the zombies and sell them on their own. Everything seems to be working fine until their grandmother is kidnapped. To pay the ransom, they have to accept assigments that could prove rather dangerous, especially in a society where everything has gone wrong.

At the breaking point of their dysfunctional marriage, Cass (Emily Sweet) and Gav (Brad Thomas) take a trip through former Yugoslavia in an attempt to mend what has soured. After meeting a mysterious local, Saint Peter (Bruno Veljanovski), who eagerly offers to be their guide, the couple embark on an impromptu sightseeing expedition. However, Cass becomes increasingly disturbed by Saint Peter’s unsettling fixation on them, as they soon find themselves trapped in a nightmarish descent where supernatural forces threaten their lives!

The Yates are a nomadic, indigenous people, reindeer herders who have lived on the sparse and unforgiving Siberian tundra for countless generations. Krisha, a strong-willed and impetuous Yate girl, is quick to fight for her way in things, whether it’s with her troublesome little brother Kolya, or with the bullying Russian military officer Vladimir and his surly subordinate Bazak, a Yate hunter at odds with his own people. When the health of Krisha’s mother Shura takes a turn for the worse, the village shaman offers her wisdom—follow the North Star to the Ancient Forest and find its guardian and master, the great red bear of legend which has haunted Krisha with visions.

This feature-film debut of Ukrainian filmmaker Eva Strelnikova, follows Katya (Liza Zaitseva), a volunteer from Kyiv who is fighting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While using a laptop donated to the resistance, she comes into contact with the original owner’s superhero-obsessed son, who is looking for his lost parents. In an effort to make a positive change in this boy’s life and pull herself out of a destructive cycle, Katya risks all that she holds dear to locate his parents.

Above the clouds, there’s a casino where deities wager on the lives of mortals to pass the time. Everything you can think of is embraced in the game, from thrilling horse races to the somewhat less exciting lifespan of turtles. One day, a newcomer eager to take a higher risk wants to bet on the existence of true love, with a wager of flaming clouds, implying the end of an immortal’s life. Chosen as their pawn, Sangui (Charles Hu), a newborn baby at that point, is cursed, causing everyone he kisses to fall into a deep sleep. Only true love holds the power to break the curse. Determined, Sangui sets out on a journey to White Stone City in search of a cure. During his adventures, he encounters Yu Yu (Zhou Ye), a dreamer yearning to become a princess, and a reclusive former superstar Xu Yuexia (Yao Chen, a bona fide top star herself). Finally, he arrives at his destiny, uncovering a clue that leads him to Ting Ting (Zhou Yiran), his long-lost love. However, the real test is only just beginning…

Clowns. So weird, right? Who in their right mind would want to be a clown? It’s a total crap job — you annoy people, frighten children, and generally get no respect from anyone. And yet, clowns are still everywhere, and in Ireland they’re mourning one of their own, the legendary teacher Jean Ducoque. As Ireland’s clown community (all eight of them) arrive at Ducoque’s funeral, everything is plunged into chaos when a mysterious electrical surge renders the country powerless. Now, four desperate clowns — the lovelorn Bobo (David Earl), newbie Pepe (Fionn Foley), has-been The Great Alphonso (Ivan Kaye) and the bugnut insane Funzo (the amazing Natalie Palamides) — along with journalist Jenny Malone (Amy De Bhrún), are trapped in the Irish countryside, where they will find that a world without power is a world that needs laughter. And they’re just the clowns to bring it.

It’s Halloween evening in 1977 and late-night talk show icon Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian, The Suicide Squad) has a live broadcast planned that’s going to be unlike anything anyone’s ever experienced. He downright needs it to be, as he faces declining viewership. And tonight, Delroy’s going to deliver. On levels his worst nightmares can’t imagine. Among this evening’s guests will be parapsychologist and author Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon, Undertow), currently on the circuit promoting her new book, Conversations with the Devil. With her will be young teen Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the sole survivor of a Satanic church’s mass suicide, and the subject of said book, its title stemming from the fact that she claims to be demonically marked — and intermittently possessed. The studio audience fills the room as a multi-camera setup prepares to bring the event into living rooms across the country…