After three weeks of dedicated genre programming, including 125 features and 200+ shorts, the 30th edition of Fantasia has wrapped, but not without one final dispatch.
This year’s fest delivered no shortage of surprises either, from intense new spins on vampirism with No Rest for the Wicked to inventive DIY horror comedies like The Peril at Pincer Point. It also delivered on gory sequels like The Last Temptation of Becky and the latest from Alice Maio Mackay, Our Effed Up World.
A final batch of reviews adds a horror-comedy starring a real-life sketch comedy group to the mix, along with a new take on werewolves, and a worksploitation splatstick comedy.
Big Break
Much like its title implies, horror-comedy Big Break follows a group of friends all pursuing dreams of making it big in Hollywood. Only in this instance, art comically imitates life as real-life New York comedy group Simple Town takes center stage in director Ian Faria‘s feature debut. As that implies, Big Break may drop its erstwhile Hollywood dreamers into a familiar slasher setting, but this horror-comedy only has eyes for laughs.
Big Break reunites friends and former collaborators Will (Will Niedmann), Caroline (Caro Yost), and Felipe (Felipe Di Poi Tamargo) years after their comedy troop has disbanded. They gather for a weekend visit with estranged former colleague Sam (Sam Lanier), the only one who’s achieved success post-disbandment, at his remote country cabin, hoping to work their way into his hit sequel “The Gummy Bears Movie”. Instead, old grudges are exposed and dark secrets uncovered, and the four frenemies discover how far they’re willing to go to get their big break.
Some might even be willing to kill for it.
It’s a clever setup for incisive Hollywood satire, and it’s here where Big Break is at its strongest. Big Break bides its time acclimating to this friend group, exposing their flaws and volatile relationships well before the body count begins. As such, Simple Town injects energetic improv and sketch comedy humor, lending an “anything goes” atmosphere. Moreover, their real-life history translates well on screen, making quick work of establishing character dynamics that are dialed up to satirical excess. Their larger-than-life personas make an easy foothold into this world, but they also overshadow some of Faria’s more clever musings on the industry and horror tropes.
Much of the film is dedicated to Will, Caroline, and Felipe taking turns trying to win a job on Sam’s upcoming sequel, one-upping each other or getting in each other’s way. They’re so fixated on their dreams of making it big that they don’t notice the glaring red flags signalling imminent danger. Sam isn’t exactly subtle either; Lanier leans heavily into Hollywood yuppie sleaze with sociopathic, murderous tendencies. Messy personal lives and a constant erosion of morality also get thrown into the pressure cooker scenario, and tensions rise.
Though that tension never quite translates to the audience. Big Break is a smart satire, but one far more content to use horror tropes to skewer the industry rather than embrace them. Faria never loses sight of his characters or their comedic strengths, leaving the horror part of the equation pretty underserved. It all fizzles out by the climax. There are a few good kills, but it’s all without any real stakes or suspense. The slasher is purely allegory in a comedy that’s more of a hang-out with messy friends in way over their heads. That’s not necessarily a problem with calibrated expectations, but mileage does vary on the sketch comedy chaos.
Sleep No More
Body horror takes shape as metaphor once more in Sleep No More, a gory, surreal slice of Indonesian worksploitation. Director Edwin injects a somber subject with splatstick humor, offering a raucous but occasionally sleepy shift from hell.
A bleak Jakarta wig factory serves as center stage to this horror-comedy that introduces sisters Putri (Rachel Amanda) and Ida (Lutesha), who visit the facility to investigate their mother’s abrupt death. Instead of answers, though, they’re immediately forced into labor by the ruthless owner, Mrs. Maryati (Didik Nini Thowok), who demands they pay off their mother’s debts. Not even a reunion with their younger brother (Iqbaal Ramadhan) can distract from the bleak conditions. Every employee is overworked and exhausted beyond their means, leading to an increase in unsettling accidents. It’s up to the sisters to discover whether it’s a severe case of bad management or demonic possession.
Edwin, along with co-writers Eka Kurniawan and Daishi Matsunaga, takes a grounded approach to the working conditions and labor allegory, but a delightful absurdist approach to the horror. As if to prove it, the film’s original Indonesian title, Monster Pabrik Rambut, translates to “Monster of the Hair Factory.” The film’s overarching question posed is whether that monster is ruthless boss Mrs. Maryati or whatever ancient evil seems to be maiming and slaughtering laborers. For some, the ability to regenerate allows for further abuse.
It sounds dour, but Edwin relays workplace oppression critiques with pitch-black humor and practical effects. Sleep deprivation leads to literal extremes here, as Sleep No More dials up the gory antics for a wild finale that folds in folkloric evils to visual success. It makes for an entertaining creature feature of sorts, with inventive uses of carnage and body horror anchored by a relatable premise. But it is prone to pacing sags in its quieter depictions of overworked employees, an aspect that often clashes with the over-the-top horror elements. It doesn’t help that Sleep No More plays it almost too straightforward; there are no real surprises or horror exploration here beyond supernatural body mutations, and answers aren’t the most satisfying.
Still, there’s enough scrappy, gory splatstick charm for those who’ve ever felt exploited by terrible jobs and worse bosses…which is pretty much all of us.
When You Open the Door
Eriko Katagiri’s When You Open the Door brings Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves to mind, only in that both deliver dream-like visions of a repressed young woman who finds a means to rebel through lycanthropy. In execution, though, the films couldn’t be further apart. Katagiri takes a quieter, more methodical approach to externalizing the quiet, timid interiority of her heroine as she slowly transforms.
When You Open the Door even begins with a dream, setting the stage for the hazy voyage ahead. When we meet 27-year-old Miki (Serena Motola), she’s closed off and isolated in her own little bubble. She’s often overlooked at work, and the few interactions with co-workers expose Miki’s social awkwardness. Her husband loves her dearly, despite not seeming to really know her. Instead, Miki looks to her pet bird and various ephemera for companionship, until she’s bitten by a wolf in broad daylight.
While no one believes her – wolves went extinct in Japan long ago, after all – it marks the start of a peculiar transformation in Miki.
Katagiri, who co-writes with Shinozuka Tomoko, takes a subtle approach here. Telltale signs of werewolf infection are there, like the lengthening of nails and hair or sudden animalistic urges, but they’re handled with surrealism and restraint. The concept of a werewolf is infused with Japanese lore, giving a unique spin on the classic monster. Yet, When You Open the Door is only interested in using the werewolf as a means of exploring the isolating loneliness of the modern world.
It instead languishes in the mundanity of Miki’s life, and her quiet surrender to it. The arrival of Itako, spiritual mediums, sheds light on Miki’s strange circumstances and livens up both the film and the protagonist, but not even the final gasp of gore can awaken this sleepy pic. Cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa captures Miki’s loose sense of reality like a cozy dream, filled with montages, motifs, and shadows that are tough to decipher.
It’s a stunning vision of loneliness that makes smart use of the werewolf as metaphor, but it’s so internalized and introspective that it can be isolating for the viewer, too.