The dog days of summer are upon us, along with a season of mania, chaos, and high strangeness – all of which can be found in the line-up for the 29th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which continues to bring attendees the best, boldest, and often most bizarre genre offerings from across the globe.
Last year we had the pleasure of covering the 28th Fantasia Fest, where official selections included Tilman Singer’s delightfully creepy Cuckoo (2024), Koji Shiraishi’s haunting found-footage picture House of Sayuri (2024), and Lowell Dean’s entertaining grindhouse-style wrestling horror Dark Match (2024). A year later and Fantasia’s back with a gargantuan line-up of over 125 features and 200 shorts, and with so much variety and choice on offer, the task of choosing which titles to prioritise can seem impossibly daunting! Well, fret not, dear reader for I, a woman who has seen Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), a minimum of 5 times, am here to suggest ten treats and oddities from Fantasia’s 2025 line-up that caught my eye, and knowing Fantasia, it’s a miracle some of them didn’t pull it out of the socket!
1) Eddington (dir. Ari Aster) – Opening this year’s Fantasia is a “mainstream”, yet undeniably curious genre-bender from one of the most celebrated and controversial filmmakers in Hollywood. Aster’s follow-up to his polarising black-comedy epic Beau is Afraid (2023), tells the tale of a rivalry between the sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix), and the mayor (Pedro Pascal), of the titular small New Mexico town during the height of the 2020 COVID pandemic. Boasting an all-star cast of A-list names, and with the likes of Emma Stone and Austin Butler appearing in supporting roles, Aster’s latest has been described as a “twisted Western”. Whatever audiences make of this latest Aster/Phoenix outing, it’s sure to be the talk of the town.
2) Together (dir. Michael Shanks) – Another hotly-anticipated title that’s already confirmed for international cinema release after its Fantasia premiere, Shanks’ directorial debut stars real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco as lovers struggling with co-dependency following their recent move to a new home in the country. Those expecting a traditional relationship drama are in for a shock as the unfortunate couple are soon affected by a mysterious phenomenon that will change their relationship, their lives, and even their bodies in bizarre and horrifying ways. The trailer for this one is superb, and early viewer reactions sound incredibly promising, so this could be one of the horror highlights of the year.
3) Mother of Flies (dirs. Zelda Adams, John Adams, Toby Poser) – If you’re looking for even more rural horror goodness then look no further than the latest from the Adams family, whose previous works have been some of the most charming and exciting genre titles of the past few years. Following last year’s gooey creature-feature Hell Hole (2024), the filmmaking family return to their roots of personal, moody, occult regional horror in a film that follows Mickey (Zelda Adams) – a young woman who turns to the services of a woodland witch (Toby Poser), following a shock cancer diagnosis. Mother of Flies promises to be a moving, magical work of supernatural horror, and one which I will most certainly be seeking out.
4) Queens of the Dead (dir. Tina Romero) – Speaking of female-fronted horror and family ties, arguably my most highly-anticipated title of Fantasia is Tina Romero’s fresh, fierce continuation of the genre legacy that her father began. When the living dead descend upon a queer club night, the party-goers must set aside their differences and band together in order to survive. Featuring the stars of some of last year’s biggest queer hits, including Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding), and Jack Haven (I Saw the TV Glow), Romero’s feature debut sounds like a bold, beautiful resurrection of the zombie film – complete with a thoroughly welcome queer twist.
5) The Serpent’s Skin (dir. Alice Maio Mackay) – Because you can never have too much queer horror (although, let’s face it – real life can be quite the horror show for us queer folk right now), allow me to introduce you all to the sixth feature in 4 years(!), from transfeminine filmmaking powerhouse Alice Maio Mackay. This time she’s weaving a tale of witchcraft, small-town transphobia, and sapphic love in the face of it all, as two women fight to stop a demonic presence that they accidentally unleashed. Fantasia played host to Mackay’s previous cinematic venture (Carnage for Christmas), in 2024, and The Serpent’s Skin sees her teaming-up again with that film’s editor – Emmy nominee and The People’s Joker (2022) director Vera Drew. With Louise Weard (who directed Castration Movie), on producer duties, it’s a trans filmmaking crossover event that you’d be a sucker (of souls), to miss.
6) Influencers (dir. Kurtis David Harder) – There’s surely space for at least one more queer horror offering on this list? The phenomenal Cassandra Naud returns as the mysterious CW in the sequel to 2022’s Shudder Original hit Influencer, and this time her girlfriend, Diane (Lisa Delamar), is joining her on her nightmare vacation. For those who haven’t seen it, I don’t want to spoil the first film’s ingenious reveal as it clearly informs the direction of the sequel, but you can most certainly expect an annoying social-media personality or two to get their just desserts in a bloody, bone-crunching fashion. As a fan of both Influencer and Harder’s prior horror outing Spiral (2019), I’m eager to see how this holiday from hell plays out.
7) Ya Boy Kongming! The Movie (dir. Shuhei Shibue) – Departing from the horror genre for a moment (though still in the ball-park of influencers and celebrity culture), I present to you the big-screen adaptation of the beloved Japanese anime adaptation of Yuto Yotsuba’s hit manga. The central concept is an absolutely irresistible one – what if a legendary 3rd-century Chinese war strategist was reborn as the manager of a modern-day J-pop star? Even though I’m unfamiliar with the source material, the premise alone has me hooked – and from the looks of things, the film’s going to be a joyous, music-filled romp, with plenty of cameos from the Japanese music scene.
8) Angel’s Egg (dir. Mamoru Oshii) – From the director who would go on to bring us 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, this cult classic OVA from 1985 is also making the journey from Japan to Canada in the form of a new 40th anniversary 4K remaster. It’s being shown as part of the “Fantasia Retro” strand of retrospective screenings and new restorations, and given that outside of the clips included in the now-infamous 1988 re-edit, In the Aftermath, this surreal and haunting film has been hard-to-find in any official format for far too long. That makes this screening an all the more exciting opportunity for Japanese cinema fans to see this cult classic revitalised for a new generation.
9) Dog of God (dirs. Lauris and Raitis Ābele) – Fans of animation won’t go hungry at this year’s Fantasia as the line-up has plenty to feast upon, including this visually stunning, psychedelic, deeply perverse folk-horror picture from Latvia. Witchcraft and werewolves feature in a tale that seems more in line with something like The Spine of Night (2021), than recent the Latvian animation breakout Flow (2024) – that being said, apparently a black cat features here too. This one sounds chaotically vulgar and mad – a decidedly adults-only cartoon for those who like their bread with a little ergot in it.
10) Fixed (dir. Genndy Tartakovsky) – Rampant horniness and animated dogs also feature heavily in the closing feature of this year’s festival, a film from the creator of Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack that’s already being compared to the work of John Waters. Fixed is a decidedly inappropriate canine comedy that follows sex-crazed pooch Bull (Adam DeVine), as he attempts to delay an inevitable trip to the vet that will put a stop to his hijinks. With a cast that includes Idris Elba, Fred Armisen, and Kathryn Hahn, you’ have to wonder how the hell a project like this came together, and more importantly, how it was pitched. Tartakovsky promises to do for dogs what Robert Crumb did for cats, and as painful as it sounds, he might just pull it off, making this one to watch.
As the festival is completely and utterly packed with interesting and cool titles worthy of your attention, it’s difficult to compile a list of ten highlights because there are just so many interesting films on offer. I could have just as easily mentioned Annapurna Sriram’s sex-worker comedy Fucktoys, Addison Heimann’s technicolour body-horror Touch Me, or Ronan Corrigan’s “screenlife” heist flick LifeHack – and that’s without even treading the waters of this year’s short offerings! On that note, some of the short films to look out for include Craig Williams’s The Fairy Moon, Lea Rose Sebastianis’s Please Love Me, Kalil Haddad’s Victim of Circumstance, and television premieres like Takashi Miike’s Nyaight of the Living Cat!
You can expect all of this and more from Fantasia International Film Festival (which runs from July 16th to August 3rd in Montreal, Canada), so keep your televisions on and listen closely for the voices in the static.
