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 but one charged with black comedy and a desire to shock the viewer, it seems like a great tone-setter and one that sets you up for a socially-charged dark comedy about a rural community being torn apart by disputes over crops and animals. On paper, it’s maybe not the most exciting thing, but recent films have made visceral experiences out of table tennis and the consequences of wine-drunk pre-nuptial conversations, so with the right execution this could work. And for the first ten minutes or so, I was completely on board, and was looking forward to see just how mad and intense this conflict got. Then it quite quickly shifts focus, and it becomes a still decent though much less compelling fish-out-of-water story that kind of knocked the wind out of my sails.

You can perceive Too Many Beasts as following a similar path to Jaws: a police officer arrives in a town struggling to fit in, while having to deal with an ongoing situation that tests his resolve and causes tension with the townsfolk. That’s about where the comparisons end though, as Too Many Beasts is a very different, well, beast. 

The film tries to shift focus from a dark comedy to a more absurdist thriller, as Alexis Manenti’s police officer, clearly mentally scarred from events unbeknownst to the audience, struggles to control both the feud and his sanity. Some scenes play out in a similar fashion to the exchanges between James Gandolfini and Lorraine Bracco in The Sopranos, as the cop relays his past experiences and internal feelings to a psychologist character who’s clearly becoming more concerned for this guy’s wellbeing, and more interested than a healthy work balance would normally allow.

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There’s a certain flat and deadpan quality to much of the film’s middle section, except for some well-done hallucinogenic moments where this officer begins really losing it. Most of the time the deadpan nature works well, especially with Manenti’s performance which is perfectly-pitched, but other times I found myself begging for the film to get crazier. Perhaps that’s a by-product of the off-kilter opening, but I wanted something to match that energy, and there just wasn’t enough of that. 

The opening hook continues to play out throughout the course of the film, as this police officer is determined to clear up the mess and get to the bottom of what’s going on. But as viewers, while we still don’t know much about what’s been going on, we arguably know more than the officer does. The first ten minutes may be a frenzy of crime and disloyalty, but it quickly lets us know roughly who’s on what side, and who’s committed a certain violent act that sends shockwaves through the farming community, so it can be a little frustrating watching Manenti’s character play catch-up with us for most of the runtime. As well as this, we simply don’t focus on the investigation enough. The inciting incident is brilliant, but too much of the film is dedicated to Manenti for this plot to feel truly gripping or to establish a solid tone. The spiky dark comedy of those opening scenes is overtaken by the prevailing drollness of its central character and the flat natural look of the cinematography, and the film didn’t have the same interest in that farming feud as I clearly did. 

The third act managed to turn things back around for me, but not entirely. It suffers from a feeling of too-little-too-late when the plot suddenly circles back to the thing I was interested in in the first place, but there’s enough of a quirky energy here that keeps things moving nicely, and the final scene is admittedly really funny, paying off a certain tension throughout the film in a way that makes perfect sense given what came before. 

Too Many Beasts has a lot to like and, ironically given its title, it doesn’t have too much to do. But its priorities, in my view, are slightly skewed away from what I wanted out of it in favor of a story we’ve seen before, but told in a more offbeat way. For many, I’m sure that will be enough, and the film has received a positive response from the festivals it’s played at. I’m sure the audience who see it in person at Fantastic Fest and the upcoming BFI London Film Festival will have a ball. I admired it, which I suppose is a higher compliment than saying I just enjoyed it, but the route it took was considerably less fun. 

ALEX’S ARCHIVE – TOO MANY BEASTS