Getting its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026 is Kyle Mangione-Smith’s directorial feature debut, Compliance. And while the name may have had many outings over the years, the actual content of the movie is far less well-worn. On the eve of a landmark deal for a major tech start-up, […]
Movies & Documentaries
The Ones Who Grieve (Fantastic Fest 2026)
Director Quarxx had his English-language breakthrough with 2024’s vision of hellish ordeals, Pandemonium, offering himself up as a director specialising in “day-ruiners.” Making its World Premiere at 2026’s Fantastic Fest is the French director’s latest, The Ones Who Grieve. Taking place on an isolated farm in the French countryside, Zélie […]
Screamplay (Fantastic Fest 2026)
Interior: writer’s studio. The film reviewer sits hunched over her laptop, typing away like a madwoman – she has just begun writing her review of a recently-restored ‘80s horror gem that was recently remastered in 4K by Muscle Distribution, and premiered at the 2026 edition of Fantastic Fest. The door […]
Death Has No Master (Fantastic Fest 2026)
There is something drained, sickly, in the very colours of Jorge Thielen Armand’s film, which makes its way to Fantastic Fest from a successful Cannes premiere. I’m uncertain whether the film was shot digitally or on celluloid – whisper it around Christopher Nolan, but you can’t always tell these days […]
Too Many Beasts (Fantastic Fest 2026)
It’s sometimes unfair to judge a film based on what you wanted it to be more than what it is, but on this occasion, don’t blame me: the film started it. Sarah Arnold’s Too Many Beasts opens in medias res amid a conflict between farmers and hunters. An aggressive opening […]
Vertiginous (Fantastic Fest 2026)
In the 20th century, the idea of living in a simulation looked like it would really suck. From William Gibson to the Wachowski Sisters, fiction writers were very paranoid about our autonomy being ripped away from the fabric of our reality, bar getting a sick pair of shades and a […]
Phreaker (Fantastic Fest 2026)
Apparently it started with a whistle. A blind child from Richmond, Virginia, Josef Engressia, whistled down a phone line, heard a strange click, then realised he had free phone calls for life. This incident, which is dramatised in flashback in Adam Yorke’s debut film Phreaker, was the birth of “phone […]
Platypus (Fantastic Fest 2026)
The platypus is a confounding beast, one which defies and disregards all known laws of nature; it is undeniably a mammal, yet it has a bill, webbed feet, lays eggs, and produces venom. Even the plural of its name, “platypuses”, feels like it violates some deep, unspoken rule. British scientists […]
Girl in the Night (Fantastic Fest 2026)
One of the joys of film festivals is stumbling across something utterly new, sometimes that goes as far as a national cinema you know little about. Girl in the Night is, to the best of my knowledge, my first contemporary Slovenian film, and if it’s representative of the kinds of […]
Kung Fu Deadly (Fantastic Fest 2026)
Ireland and Hong Kong meet in Kung Fu Deadly, directed by Fergal Costello from a screenplay by Paul Markey and Paddy McDonald. Opening with a storybook sequence detailing its backstory, it’s elegantly presented, classically Chinese, and very tasteful. While it doesn’t quite set the tone for the irreverence ahead, it […]