Editorials
Celebrating 15 Years of Horror at Fantastic Fest!
This year marks the 15th anniversary of Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States. Founded in 2005 by Tim League, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, Tim McCanlies and Harry Knowles (the latter of whom is no longer associated with the festival), Fantastic Fest focuses on genre films such as horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, Asian, and cult, making it somewhat of a safe haven for genre aficionados. Over the course of eight days more than 80 feature films and 75 short films screen for the festival-goers hungry for some of the weirdest (and Fantastic) films cinema has to offer.
In celebration of this momentous occasion, we dug through the archives of Fantastic Fest’s previous screenings to reminisce about the best horror films to screen there each year. First up, 2005!
2005
Wolf Creek | Pulse | Marebito
Winner: Wolf Creek
A film festival’s first year is more of a dry run for future years. This is evidenced by the small amount of films that screened at Fantastic Fest’s debut. The most notable horror films to screen that year were a dismal J-horror remake, an early Takashi Shimizu (Ju-On) film and Greg McLean’s (The Belko Experiment, Rogue) feature directorial debut. It should come as no surprise that Wolf Creek wins this round. It’s a brutal, terrifying Australian horror film that pulls no punches.
2006
Winner: Bug
Many will cry foul that Bong Joon-ho’s brilliant The Host doesn’t win out here, but William Friedkin’s (The Exorcist) adaptation of Tracy Letts’ play of the same name is a masterful examination of paranoid schizophrenia that is as compelling as it is disturbing (Ashley Judd’s climactic “queen mother bug” monologue is one for the books). It’s just too bad the marketing for the film sold it as an actual killer bug movie. Audiences rewarded the deception with an all-too-rare F CinemaScore.
2007
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End | Spiral | Inside
Winner: Inside
Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s contribution to the New French Extremity movement is considered one of the best horror films ever made, and for good reason. This home invasion film about a woman (Béatrice Dalle) who will stop at nothing to get the baby inside her target (Alysson Paradis) is a blood-soaked extravaganza that should satisfy even the hungriest of gorehounds. Stay far away from that American remake, though.
2008
Deadgirl | Let the Right One In | Martyrs
Winner: Martyrs
Two years in a row of French films! Though Tomas Alfredson’s swedish vampire tale is wonderful, it doesn’t have the lasting impact that Pascal Laugier’s polarizing Martyrs, which is why it gets the slight edge. Can you imagine seeing this film in a packed theater?
2009
Antichrist | Daybreakers | The Human Centipede (First Sequence) | [REC] 2 | Trick ‘r Treat | Zombieland
Winner: [REC] 2
Sure, [REC] is a masterpiece of Spanish horror (and found footage) cinema, but the sequel is arguably the superior film as it expands upon the mythology of the original and adds in a nice third-act twist. Plus, it’s scary.
2010
Hatchet II | Let Me In | Mother’s Day | Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Winner: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Jalmari Helnader’s debut feature manages to do the impossible: make a good horror film about a murderous Santa Claus. Sure, we all get a good laugh out of Santa’s Slay, but Rare Exports takes a less cheesy approach to the material, injecting some dark comedy into the Christmas horror of it all.
2011
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) | The Innkeepers | You’re Next
Winner: You’re Next
Festival-goers fortunate enough to see Adam Wingard’s You’re Next during its 2011 festival run were lucky souls indeed, seeing as how the film didn’t see a theatrical release until August of 2013. This clever little subversion of the home invasion sub-genre was a crowd-pleaser of the highest order, giving audiences a heroine (Sharni Vinson) they could really root for.
2012
American Mary | The Collection | Frankenweenie | Paranormal Activity 4 | Sinister
Winner: American Mary
The Soska Sisters’ sophomore feature (following their 2009 film Dead Hooker in a Trunk) boasts a career-defining performance from Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) as Mary, a medical student who begins performing underground body modification surgeries in order to pay her way through school. It’s not an easy watch (especially as it dabbles into rape revenge territory), but it’s not a film you’ll soon forget.
2013
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane | Cheap Thrills | Escape From Tomorrow | The Sacrament | We Are What We Are
Winner: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
Poor Jonathan Levine (Long Shot, 50/50). His All the Boys Love Mandy Lane made waves at TIFF in 2006 and earned positive word-of-mouth. Unfortunately, it was quickly secured for distribution by Senator Entertainment, which went bankrupt shortly thereafter and left the film in limbo for seven years. It finally saw a limited theatrical release in October of 2013, but not before one final festival screening at Fantastic Fest in September of that same year. Seven years of hype hurt the film’s reception, but this doesn’t mean that Mandy Lane isn’t capable of standing on its own. It’s one of the more stylish slashers to be get released in the past 15 years.
2014
The Babadook | Dead Snow 2: Red Vs. Dead | It Follows | Horns | Housebound | Spring | The Town That Dreaded Sundown | Tusk | V/H/S Viral
Winner: It Follows
2014 was a pretty phenomenal year for Fantastic Fest, as evidenced by all of the films listed above. This is the year that Fantastic Fest clearly established itself as a prestigious genre film festival. While Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook is a standout of that year, it’s David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows that emerges victorious. This insanely terrifying film is not only the best film of the festival that year, but it’s also one of the best films, horror or otherwise, of the decade.
2015
Baskin | Bone Tomahawk | The Devil’s Candy | The Blackcoat’s Daughter | The Invitation | Southbound | The Witch
Winner: The Invitation
You need only look at my review for Karyn Kusama’s superb The Invitation to know that, even amidst Oz Perkins’ chilling The Blackcoat’s Daughter (then still called February) and Robert Eggers’ The Witch, I consider it one of the very best films of the 21st century. This tense tale of a dinner party gone wrong plays with viewer expectations masterfully before a third-act reveal that blows everything up in the viewer’s face. After the poor critical and commercial reception of Aeon Flux and Jennifer’s Body (the latter of which has received a reappraisal in the past year or so), Kusama needed a hit. The Invitation was that hit.
2016
The Autopsy of Jane Doe | The Girl With All the Gifts | The Lure | Phantasm: Ravager | Raw | Better Watch Out | The Void
Winner: Better Watch Out
If anyone else was writing this article, Raw would win this round. But it’s me, and that means Better Watch Out (my review), Chris Peckover’s twisted take on Home Alone, wins out. This ultra-dark comedy manages to subvert viewer expectations multiple times throughout its 89-minute runtime (if they haven’t watched the spoiler-filled trailer, that is), inspiring gasps and guffaws in the process.
2017
Anna and the Apocalypse | The Endless | Gerald’s Game | Good Manners | Revenge | Thelma | Thoroughbreds | Tigers Are Not Afraid
Winner: Tigers Are Not Afraid
It’s a shame that it took so long for Issa López’s dark fable this long to get released (it premiered on Shudder just last week), because it’s one of the more touching horror(ish) films to emerge from Fantastic Fest since its inception. Tigers Are Not Afraid tells the story of five children trying to survive the drug wars taking place in Mexico, expertly blending horror, fantasy and reality into a near-perfect film.
2018
Apostle | Cam | Climax | Halloween | In Fabric | Knife + Heart | Lords of Chaos | One Cut of the Dead | Overlord | The Perfection | Terrified
Winner: The Perfection
2019
The word is still out on what will be the best horror film at Fantastic Fest’s fifteenth year, but there is no shortage of horror films to choose from. Keep an eye out for reviews from Meagan Navarro and myself over the next week to see which films earn our recommendations!
Fantastic Fest 2019 will take place in Austin, Texas from September 19-September 26.
Despite what the higher-ups at Marvel would have you believe, Stan Lee’s original vision for Spider-Man was very different from the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler that fans ultimately got.
It was comics maestro Steve Ditko that turned him into the lovable web-head that we all know and love, though even that first draft of the character wasn’t exactly meant to be a child-friendly mascot. Ditko envisioned an uncanny arachnid-human hybrid whose freakish poses and dark costume would strike terror into the hearts of criminals, with the inclusion of web-shooters possibly having been a suggestion by Ditko’s roommate at the time, renowned fetish artist and bondage enthusiast Eric Stanton.
These more adult-oriented origins may have changed over the years, but one could argue that Spidey never completely lost his darker side. In fact, we’d eventually see several grim storylines that explored the horrific consequences of Spider-Man’s radioactive blood. While having his irradiated body fluids give Mary Jane cancer is likely the most terrifying of these yarns (track down Spider-Man: Reign if you’re up for a depressing read that was at one point set to be adapted to film by Michael Jackson), one of the most memorable horror-adjacent moments in these comics has to be the acceleration of Peter Parker’s mutation and the eventual introduction of Man-Spider – a storyline that appears to have been one of the main inspirations behind the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
I sincerely doubt that Marvel Studios is really going to give their toy-selling juggernaut a Cronenbergian rebrand, but the most recent trailer for Brand New Day suggests that the creative team is pulling from some surprisingly spooky source material in this latest superhero sequel. Specifically, the trailer makes it seem like the film is set to be a loose adaptation of the Neogenic Nightmare arc from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, commonly known as the best exploration of Spidey’s radioactive dark side that also features the most iconic version of Man-Spider.
If you’re wondering what these influences could mean for the upcoming film, I’d like to invite you to join me as we look back on some of the animated series’ most horror-tinged episodes.
A fourteen-episode story arc that made up the show’s second season, Neogenic Nightmare began airing in September of 1995. At this point, the series had already earned a reputation as the definitive version of Spider-Man despite dealing with absurd levels of censorship and executive meddling. It’s widely known at this point that this incarnation of Spidey was prohibited from ever punching his villains, and the studio even insisted that realistic guns should be replaced with futuristic laser weapons in order to avoid enraging concerned parents.
And that’s not even mentioning bizarre demands like setting up Hobgoblin as the original Goblin villain simply because the folks responsible for the toy-line had already prepared the character’s merchandise before scripts were even written.
At the end of the day. the show’s success mostly came down to John Semper’s excellent writing, with the (mostly) faithful recreation of the Spider-Man’s core principals and a handful of iconic storylines (coupled with an excellent cast behind the scenes) elevating a what was intended to be a kid’s show promoting ToyBiz products.
Naturally, the rampant cartoon censorship of the 90s couldn’t keep Semper from wanting to explore darker themes from his own favorite Spider-Man comics, and that’s how his team came up with a season-long re-imagining of iconic arcs like the Six-Arm Saga, The Mutant Agenda and even the first appearance of the Sinister Six. These stories would be enhanced with additional “dark” characters like Blade, The Punisher and even Morbius (though the latter had to exchange his vampiric blood-drinking for bizarre plasma-absorbing powers in order to conform to network guidelines).
If you haven’t yet seen it, the complete Neogenic Nightmare arc follows Spider-Man as he discovers that his mutation is progressing beyond his initial superpowers and threatening to turn him into a more monstrous hybrid. After developing extra arms, Spidey goes so far as to request help from both the X-Men and several other super-heroes as he becomes embroiled in a criminal conspiracy involving a team-up between some of his most iconic villains. The arc eventually introduces us to the show’s version of Man-Spider, which is depicted here as the monstrous final stage of the process which began when Peter was first bitten by that radioactive spider.
Personally, I think this werewolf-like addition to Spidey’s genetic curse is the best incarnation of Man-Spider that we’ve ever seen. This is because the six-armed body horror of it all adds even more weight to Peter’s decision to keep helping others regardless of what his powers may cost him, with the creature’s final rampage even giving the supporting cast a chance to help Spider-Man for a change. While I don’t hate the Morbius movie as much as some other comic fans, it’s a shame that Sony relegated that story to a solo film instead of later incorporating it into the Man-Spider saga like Neogenic Nightmare did.
Season two of the animated series ended up being an even bigger hit than the first, with fans loving the show’s take on an expanded Marvel Universe (which even included the ’90s X-Men cast) as well as the darker take on a more monstrous Spider-Man. That’s why it makes sense that the MCU’s return to street-level comic adventures would harken back to this particular storyline – especially since it appears that the Disney wishes to use the upcoming film as an opportunity to shine a light on other Marvel characters just like Semper did back in the day.
From what we can see in the trailer, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appears to be going through his own additional transformations, including creepy fully black eyes and organic web-shooter, as well as the cocoon-building behavior previously seen in Marvel’s The Other arc in the comics. As I mentioned before, I doubt that the MCU will allow this particular cash cow to fully transform into a nightmarish spider freak that can scare away children, but there’s always a chance that the studio could surprise us with more horror elements. I’d also love to see the story explore Spidey’s mutation and use that as an excuse to formally introduce X-Men’s mutants into the MCU, especially since Sadie Sink is rumored to be playing Jean Grey in the flick.
However, even if Brand New Day doesn’t adapt as much of the Neogenic Nightmare as the promotional material has suggested, I’d argue that this particular season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series is still worth revisiting simply because it’s a great example of artists being able to work past network limitations in order to tell complex stories that approach full-on body-horror.
You must be logged in to post a comment.