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AUSTIN – DOWNTOWN S T A Y Y O U R O W N W A Y SM Radisson Hotel & Suites Austin - Town Lake 111 Cesar Chavez @ Congress • Austin, TX 78701 • (512) 478-9611 www.radisson.com/austintx • 1-800-333-3333 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 3 European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals 13th Méliès d’Argent Competition Winners ( Méliès 2008-2009 )

by Tomas Alfredson Pascal Laugier Steven Sheil

A FILM BY TOMAS ALFREDSON

BASED ON THE BESTS JOHN AJVIDE LI ELLER FROM 2 NDQVIST 0 0 8 LEEDS SITGES FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL INTERNATIONAL DE CINEMA DE CATALUNYA www.leedsfilm.com BAVARIA FILM INTERNATIONAL KÅRE HEDEBRANT LINA LEANDERSSONAND EFTI PER RAGNAR PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION www.cinemasitges.com MAGGIE WIDSTRAND MARIA STRID WITH SANDREW METRONOME FILMPOOL NORD SVERIGES PETER CARLBERG IKA NORD FIDO FILM THE CHIMNEY POT LJUDLIGANFRIDA S ASP HENRIK DAHL KARIN BERGQUIST MIKAEL RAHM KARL MUSIC JOHAN SÖDERQVIST TELEVISION SVT AND WAG AN NOVEMBER 2008 GUNNAR CARLSSON PER-ERIK SVENSSON LENA REH EDTITOR EFTI PRODUCTION VENSKA FILMINSTITUTET DINO JONSÄTERSFI COMMISSIONING TOMAS ALFREDSON CONSULTANT EV PIODOR-ROBERT GUSTA LINDGRENFSSON ANDERS NORDA TTOMAS PEEDU ALFREDSON PALE OL FILM “LET THE RIGHT ONE IN” NBERG RICARD CONSTANTINOU A NORÉN OFSSON PRODUCED BY ANNA ZAKRISSON october 2008 JOHN NORDLING CARL MOLINDER ISK FILM & TV FONDNSC FSF DIRECTED BY TOMAS ALFREDSONSVEND ABRAHAMSEN SITGES FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA DE CATALUNYA www.cinemasitges.com october 2008

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FANTASTISK FILM FESTIVAL SITGES FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL www.fff.se DE CINEMA DE CATALUNYA www.cinemasitges.com SEPTEMBER 2009 OCTOBER 2009

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RIGA INTERNATIONAL UTOPIALES FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL BI-ANNUAL / FILM FESTIVAL DE SCIENCE-FICTION, NANTES NOVEMBER www.aRSENaLS.Lv MAY www.uTOPIaLES.ORg

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RAVENNA NIGhTMARE SEMANA INTERNACIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OCTOBER DE CINE FANTÁSTICO DE MALAGA NOVEMBER www.RavENNaNIgHTMaRE.COM www.fantastico.uma.es European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals 13th Méliès d’Argent Competition Winners ( Méliès 2008-2009 )

Veit Helmer Antti-Jussi Annila F. Javier Gutiérrez

SAUNA OPORTO INTERNATIONAL bRUSSELS INTERNATIONAL AMSTERDAM FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL FILM FESTIVAL www.fantasporto.com www.bifff.net www.afff.nl February - March 2009 MARCH-APRIL 2009 APRIL 2009

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ESPOO CINÉ INTERNATIONAL NEUChÂTEL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL www.espoocine.fi www.nifff.ch www.fanta-festival. JULY 2009 AUGUST 2009 JUNE 2009 Supporting Members

PUChON INTERNATIONAL FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL www.PIFaN.COM JULY

FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL www.FaNTaSIaFESTIvaL.COM EFFFF, Romain Roll JULY-AUGUST

8 rue de la Comtesse de Flandre • 1020 Brussels, FANTASTIC FEST AUSTIN www.FaNTaSTICFEST.COM tel : +352-621-169922 • fax : +352-26897898 SEPTEMBER e-mail: [email protected]

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Giant Gundams! Face-Offs!

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David Tennant Bo Burnham Fred Armisen Vincent Kartheiser

SEPTEMBER 2009

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Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 11 “THE HoTTEST Horror FLICK oF THE yEAr.” – salon.com

“DoN’T SAy I DIDN’T wArN you!” – rex reed

“AN IMMEDIATE INDIE CLASSIC” – Bloody-disgusting

SPECIAL FEATURES • Cast & Crew Commentary with Stars, Directors, Writer, & More • Behind the Scenes/Making of • Deleted Scenes • Make-Up Gallery

www.deadgirlthefilm.com © 2008 Deadlydoll, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by www.darkskyfilms.com FREE at over 1100 locations in austin! A Word from the Festival Director: It's hard to believe our little festival is now five years old. It seems like just yesterday that the founding team was meeting and discussing Fantastic Fest as a vague notion that we would like to someday cobble together. We're now fairly well rooted in the festival world, but I hope to think that we are far from grown-up. We want to always be known as the festival that understands and caters to the inner twelve-year-old inside all of us. We hope that from September 24 through October 1, you let that little kid out and let him play in our decidedly unsafe playhouse.

Karrie and I have been travelling the globe for the last eleven months scouring every international festival and market we could find looking for the very best and the very strangest films from all corners of the planet. Our season starts in November with the American Film Market in Los Angeles. We then head to Berlin for the European Film Market and to Cannes for the grand-daddy of all markets. We've visited the New York Asian Film Festival, Fantasia in Montreal and UK Frightfest in London, always on the prowl for the best nuggets to bring back to Austin in September. Meanwhile, the rest of the programming team: (AICN), Todd Brown (Twitch), Blake Ethridge (Cinema is Dope), Rodney Perkins (Twitch), Marc Walkow (New York Asian Film Festival) and Eric Vespe (AICN) are hitting festivals and markets in , Italy, Tokyo and Toronto, researching the web, watching submissions, following up with sales agents and emailing producers and directors from all nationalities. Collectively we watched thousands of films this year and pared that list down to the 120 official selections: 70 features and 50 shorts from over 26 countries. We hope you like our selections!

A new feature at Fantastic Fest is the Highball which opens exclusively for Fantastic Fest badgeholders on opening day of the festival. The Highball is the best diner/lounge this side of 1960 featuring eight lanes of bowling with rental by the hour; seven different themed karaoke rooms; four lanes of skeeball with ticketed prizes you won’t find anywhere else, and a ballroom event space set to host the best dance parties, live music, and karaoke nights that will leave you hoarse for days. We'll be at the Highball for the opening and closing night parties, a 3D Dance Party, the Fantastic Feud, a Michael Jackson dance party, and much more. The Highball opens daily at 4 PM, earlier on Saturday and Sunday and can also be used as a quiet retreat for bloggers, journalists and festival attendees to check email and post articles.

We have joined forces with RealD this year to bring together an incredible slate of 3D films, entertainment and education. First off, we are hosting a sneak-preview of TOY STORY 1 and 2 in 3D. The Alamo South Lamar has very recently been equipped with Sony 4K digital projection and RealD 3D lenses, just in time for the festivities. We are also getting a sneak peak at scenes from James Cameron's upcoming AVATAR. We have also teamed with the Festival to produce a 3D lounge featuring demos of 3D games and home entertainment. The 3DFF is also working with Fantastic Fest party coordinator Henri Mazza to produce the Double 3D Dance Party. 3D fun and 3 Decades of music from 3 DJs.

As you can tell from years past, I've had a particular fondness for Japanese films. This year there are ten feature films from and a whole passel of guests in attendance. In order to welcome them to Austin, we are hosting a "meet the Japanese" party at the new Highball event space. We'll be doling out complimentary sake and shochu, hosting the first U.S. Samurai Call competition, bringing to the stage some truly outrageous Japanese entertainment and of course singing karaoke into the wee hours. This is just a sampling of the fun times in store at Fantastic Fest 2009. Leave the sleep for October 2nd and beyond, at Fantastic Fest I demand that everyone overdose on fun.

Cheers,

Tim League director/co-founder Fantastic Fest founder

The looming giant beast that is Fantastic Fest is not possible without the coordinated effort of both staff and volunteers alike. We would like to thank each and every one of the folks below as well as all of our 2009 volunteers and everyone else who pitches in to make this event possible. Thank you for your months of hard work, the Fest would not be "fantastic" without you.

Tim League, director, head programmer Matt Kiernan, sponsorship coordinator Harry Knowles, co-founder, programmer Tim McCanlies, co-founder Mike Sherrill, chief operating officer Paul Alvarado, co-founder Henri Mazza, party coordinator John Bullington, executive chef Andrew McEathron, technical director Justin Ishmael, merchandise coordinator Karrie League, programmer Josh Jacobs, audio-visual director Rodney Perkins, programmer , facilities manager Zack Carlson, programmer Jill Lewis, guest manager Todd Brown, programmer Dan Cofer, projection coordinator Marc Walkow, programmer Daniel Osborne, special projects Blake Ethridge, programmer Thomas Hanawa, special projects Lars Nilsen, programmer Rae Anderson, volunteer coordinator Eric Vespe, programmer Carrie Matherly, programming assistant Brad Parrett, press liaison Kate Brown, programming assistant Colin Geddes, programming consultant Daniel Metz, programming assistant Scott Weinberg, programming consultant Julie Peterson, programming assistant Michael Lerman, programming consultant Adam Sweeney, programming assistant Fantastic Fest would like to thank our 2009 Sponsors: presenting sponsor

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supporting sponsors Love. Undying.

“Downright chilling” ~Variety SUNDANCEOFFICIAL SELECTION

“a blood-soaked piece OFFICIAL SELECTION OFFICIAL SELECTION of social commentary” SOuTSXSWh By SOuThwEST AFi DAllAS ~MSN

“a truly OFFICIAL SELECTION OFFICIAL SELECTION horrifying FILM” SitgES BrUSSElS ~CHUD

OFFICIAL SELECTION OFFICIAL SELECTION “like a SEAttlE SAN FrANCiSCo tale” ~USA Today.com

OFFICIAL SELECTION OFFICIAL SELECTION “let this be a warning: FANtASiA PUChoN view at your own risk” ~E-Online

OFFICIAL SELECTION OFFICIAL SELECTION “unforgettable... FrightFESt iFF journey into terror” ~Nikki Finke’s Deadline Daily

CLOSINg gALA FILm wINNEr prIx du jury toroNto AFtEr DArk gErArDmEr FEStivAl DU FANtAStiqUE

Now Available on DVD and Blu-ray t m ™

grace fantastic fest ad.indd 1 8/24/09 5:25:16 PM E! Entertainment CMY Cycle 1 133 Line Screen

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 17

File Name / Job #: Date: E! NETWORKS 5750 Wilshire Blvd. Description: G4 X-Play Full Page Ad for Fantastic Fest Guide - 4C Full Bleed Issue Date: Los Angeles, CA Publication: Trim [ ] Live [ ] Bleed [ ] 90036 E! Contact: Telephone: Email: British Horror At Its Most Rude

“A Nasty Shocker That Stomps In The Footprints Set By The Graphic Kill-Fests Of The 1980s.”– Fangoria

© 2008 Straightwire Films Limited. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by

© 2007 Lambart Productions. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by www.darkskyfilms.com screening schedule all shows are subject to change, please check www.fantasticfest.com for up to date schedule information.

September 23, 2009 The Children 11:45 PM South Lamar 3 Eugenie: Story of Her Journey 11:55 PM Ritz 1 Michael Jackson Dance Party 11:55 PM HighBall District 13: Ultimatum 11:59 PM South Lamar 2 September 24, 2009 Journey to Saturn 11:59 PM South Lamar 6 Van Diemen's Land 4:10 PM South Lamar 2 4:30 PM South Lamar 1 September 28, 2009 Gentlemen Broncos 7:00 PM Paramount Morphine 1:30 PM South Lamar 3 Merantau 7:00 PM South Lamar 1 1:45 PM South Lamar 2 Terribly Happy 7:15 PM South Lamar 2 Cropsey 2:00 PM South Lamar 1 Short Fuse Extreme Shorts 9:30 PM South Lamar 3 Mandrill 4:15 PM South Lamar 1 Solomon Kane 9:40 PM South Lamar 1 Bronson 4:30 PM South Lamar 3 Brutus and Balzaak Bash 10:00 PM HighBall Metropia 6:30 PM South Lamar 2 10:00 PM South Lamar 2 House of the Devil 6:45 PM South Lamar 1 Journey to Saturn 11:59 PM South Lamar 2 Crazy Racer 7:00 PM South Lamar 3 11:59 PM South Lamar 3 Venus in Furs 7:15 PM South Lamar 6 2 11:59 PM South Lamar 1 2009 Awards Ceremony 9:30 PM South Lamar 2 Stingray Sam 9:25 PM South Lamar 1 September 25, 2009 Terribly Happy 10:00 PM South Lamar 3 The Legend is Alive 12:35 PM South Lamar 2 REC 2 11:55 PM South Lamar 1 Kamogawa Horumo 12:50 PM South Lamar 1 Hard Revenge Milly 11:35 PM South Lamar 2 Tokyo Onlypics 2008 1:05 PM South Lamar 3 The Fantastic Debates 11:55 PM HighBall Krabat 3:30 PM South Lamar 2 Hard Revenge Milly 3:45 PM South Lamar 1 September 29, 2009 Drawn and Quartered Shorts 4:00 PM South Lamar 3 Salvage 1:00 PM South Lamar 3 Antichrist 6:45 PM South Lamar 2 Private Eye 1:10 PM South Lamar 1 6:45 PM Paramount Antichrist 1:25 PM South Lamar 2 Pancake Total Recall 7:00 PM Ritz 1 Breathless 3:45 PM South Lamar 3 Secret Screening #1 7:00 PM South Lamar 1 Under the Mountain 4:00 PM South Lamar 2 Sweet Karma 7:15 PM South Lamar 3 Rampage 4:15 PM South Lamar 1 Girl vs. Frank. Girl 9:30 PM South Lamar 1 Ninja Assassin 6:30 PM South Lamar 2 Pancake Total Recall 9:45 PM Ritz 1 Crazy Racer 6:45 PM South Lamar 1 Trick r Treat 9:45 PM South Lamar 2 Succubus 7:00 PM South Lamar 3 Town Called Panic 10:00 PM South Lamar 3 Kaifeck Murder 9:00 PM South Lamar 2 Doghouse 11:59 PM South Lamar 1 Short Fuse: Extreme Shorts 9:15 PM South Lamar 3 Meet the Japanese Party 11:59 PM HighBall Vampire Girl vs. Franken. Girl 9:30 PM South Lamar 1 Smash Cut 11:59 PM South Lamar 2 House (Hausu) 9:45 PM Ritz 1 Macabre 11:40 PM South Lamar 2 September 26, 2009 Clive Barker's Dread 11:55 PM South Lamar 1 Fish Story 11:00 AM South Lamar 3 100 Best Kills 11:59 PM South Lamar 3 Tokyo Onlypics 2008 11:20 AM South Lamar 1 K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces 12:45 PM South Lamar 2 September 30, 2009 Morphine 1:50 PM South Lamar 3 The Children 12:50 PM South Lamar 2 Toy Story 1 and 2 3D 2:15 PM South Lamar 1 Sweet Karma 1:15 PM South Lamar 1 Under the Mountain 4:15 PM South Lamar 2 Truffe 1:45 PM South Lamar 3 Cropsey 4:45 PM South Lamar 3 K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces 3:15 PM South Lamar 2 Yatterman 6:30 PM South Lamar 1 Yesterday 3:40 PM South Lamar 1 Metropia 6:45 PM South Lamar 2 Duress 4:00 PM South Lamar 3 The Assistant 6:45 PM Paramount Fish Story 6:15 PM South Lamar 3 Breathless 7:10 PM South Lamar 3 Private Eye 6:30 PM South Lamar 2 Clive Barker's Dread 9:30 PM South Lamar 2 The Bare Breasted Countess 6:45 PM South Lamar 1 Bronson 9:45 PM South Lamar 1 Stingray Sam 7:00 PM South Lamar 6 9:45 PM Paramount Kenny Begins 9:00 PM South Lamar 3 Yesterday 10:10 PM South Lamar 3 9:15 PM South Lamar 6 Fantastic Feud 11:55 PM HighBall Doghouse 9:30 PM South Lamar 2 Revenant 11:59 PM South Lamar 2 Avatar 3D preview footage 9:45 PM South Lamar 1 The Human Centipede 11:59 PM South Lamar 1 Fireball 11:45 PM South Lamar 1 3D Dance Party 11:55 PM HighBall September 27, 2009 S&M Hunter 11:55 PM Ritz 1 The of 3D: Panel 9:00 AM South Lamar 1 The Human Centipede 11:55 PM South Lamar 2 Kenny Begins 11:00 AM South Lamar 6 Van Diemen's Land 11:15 AM South Lamar 3 October 1, 2009 Town Called Panic 11:45 AM South Lamar 2 Kaifeck Murder 1:20 PM South Lamar 2 The Legend is Alive 1:30 PM South Lamar 6 House (Hausu) 1:30 PM South Lamar 1 Krabat 1:45 PM South Lamar 3 Merantau 1:45 PM South Lamar 3 Love Exposure 2:00 PM South Lamar 2 Dirty Mind 4:00 PM South Lamar 1 Buratino, Son of Pinocchio 4:00 PM South Lamar 1 District 13: Ultimatum 4:15 PM South Lamar 2 Groper Train 4:15 PM South Lamar 6 Drawn and Quartered Shorts 4:30 PM South Lamar 3 Duress 4:40 PM South Lamar 3 Revenant 6:45 PM South Lamar 1 Down Terrace 6:30 PM South Lamar 1 Fireball 7:00 PM South Lamar 2 Dirty Mind 6:45 PM South Lamar 6 Buratino, Son of Pinocchio 7:15 PM South Lamar 3 Truffe 7:00 PM South Lamar 3 Salvage 9:30 PM South Lamar 3 Mandrill 7:15 PM South Lamar 2 Daybreakers 9:45 PM South Lamar 2 Secret Screening #2 9:00 PM South Lamar 1 Kamogawa Horumo 10:00 PM South Lamar 1 Rampage 9:15 PM South Lamar 6 Closing Night Party 11:55 PM HighBall House of the Devil 9:30 PM South Lamar 2 A staple of the Incredibly Strange Film Festival Guide since 1995, “the icons” below are a quick, fun visual reference guide for the movies and events in the program. The 2009 Fantastic Fest Guide continues the tradition for discerning American audiences. Want to watch a date flick with primate love, Jungian concepts, voodoo and a shocking ending. No problem, let the icons before each movie summary guide you to complete cinematic satisfaction. Thanks again to Ant and Mike from the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in for conceiving and executing the movie icon art form.

Check out our eight new themes designed exclusively for Fantastic Fest 2009 by New Zealand icon king Michael Sheils. Ass to Face Beautiful Hair Religious Cult Head Trauma Retardation Penis Trauma Semen

Action Afro Alternate Anarchy Animal Backne Bald Sex Beehives Big Breasts Black Worlds Attacks

Blockbuster Bondage Bullying Bunnies Cannibal Castration Cheezy Fx Chicks In Christ Chains

Cinemascope Classic Cockumentary Comedy Coprophagilistic Dancing Date Flick Dick Head Documentary Domestic Violence

Dope Drugs Dubbed Dwarf Eyeball Female on Fanboys Fellatio Fishhook Flashback Violence Female Violence

Full Frontal Gang Bang Sex Genetic Giant Graphic Hardboiled Hippie Hitler Nudity Engineering Violence Dialogue

Hook Huge Mo’S Hypnotic Inbred Incest Inflatable Sex Isolation J.D. John Holmes Jungian Concepts

Jungle Fever Killer Cult Killer Kid Kitsch Kung Fu Lactation Lesbian Liposuction Low Budget Vampire

Mad Menage A Mild Violence Sex Mountain Music Nasty Necrophilia Abortion Trois Tapping

No Budget Noir Noodling Nudity Oscar Shame Pet Abuse Petrol Sniffing Police Politically Pretentious Brutality Incorrect

Primate Love Psychic Puppet Sex Racist Scenery Schizo Sci Fi Scientist Scopophilia Self Chewing Mutilation

Shocking Skeleton In Sleazy Special Event Stock Footage Strippers Stunts Suicide Surgery Surprise Ending The Closet

Surreal Talking Brain Terrifying The Works Torture Trash Trekkie Trippy True Story Twist Delight

Ultra Violence Underage Sex Vampires Voodoo Witch Doctor Workman’S Wrestling Z-Grade Crack Paramount Gala screenings! Gentlemen Broncos OPENING NIGHT FILM Sep 24, 7:00 PM, PARAMOUNT World Premiere, 2009, dir. Jared Hess, United States, 90 min., Language: English With GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, Jared and Jerusha Hess return to form with many of the elements that made NA- POLEON DYNAMITE such a breakout cult hit. Like Napoleon before him, Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano) is a loner misfit who would rather spend his time alone in his room honing his craft than interact with other kids his own age. But while Napoleon was all about nunchuk skills and drawing ligers, Benjamin dreams of just one thing: being a published fantasy/ writer, like his hero Ronald Chevalier. With that goal in mind, Benjamin takes his latest story, YEAST LORDS, with him to a writing convention specifically for other home-schooled chil- dren, and can't believe his eyes when Chevalier himself is one of the panelists and teachers for the weekend. Like much of Hess' work, a lot of the comedy in BRON- COS is derived from the eccentric characters who inhabit a world that seems just slightly off center from ours. To make things even more sublimely ridiculous, though, throughout the film we're also treated to several different versions of YEAST LORDS played as almost a film-within-the-film, and watching that story change as it passes through the hands of the various characters in the main film becomes one of the most entertaining aspects of BRONCOS. The absolute highlights of the film, though, are twofold - the jet pack-wearing stags armed with rocket launchers that the heroes of YEAST LORDS fly around on, and Jemaine Clements' outstanding portrayal of the smug, egotistical, and ultimately delusional Ronald Chevalier, whose scene-stealing performances will undoubtedly generate some of the most frequently quoted lines from any film in the festival.(Henri Mazza)

Daybreakers closing night film Oct 1, 9:45 PM, US Premiere, 2009, dir. Michael Spieri The year is 2019. A mysterious plague has swept over the earth, transforming the majority of the world's population into vampires. Humans are now an endangered, second-class species – forced into hiding as they are hunted and farmed for vampire consumption to the brink of extinction. It’s all up to Edward Dalton, a vampire researcher who refuses to feed on human blood, to perfect a blood substitute that might sustain vampires and spare the few remain- ing humans. But time and hope are running out – until Ed meets Audrey, a human survivor who leads him to a startling medical breakthrough. Armed with knowledge that both humans and vampires will kill for, Ed must battle his own kind in a deadly struggle that will decide the fate of the human race. DAYBREAKERS opens nationwide on January 8, 2010. Special thanks to Lionsgate for arranging this event. Following the screening, badgeholders are invited to stroll over to the Highball for the vampire- themed 2009 Fantastic Fest closing night party.

Zombieland Sep 25, 6:45 PM, PARAMOUNT Sneak Preview, 2009, dir. , United States, 90 min ’ horror comedy ZOMBIELAND focuses on two men who have found a way to survive a world overrun by . Columbus () is a big wuss – but when you're afraid of being eaten by zombies, fear can keep you alive. Tallahassee () is an AK-totin’, zombie-slayin’ badass whose single deter- mination is to get the last Twinkie on earth. As they join forces with Wichita () and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who have also found unique ways to survive the zombie mayhem, they will have to determine which is worse: relying on each other or succumbing to the zombies.

Survival of the Dead Sep 26, 9:45 PM, PARAMOUNT US Premiere, 2009, dir. George A. Romero, United States, 90 min.

In 2007, Fantastic Fest was honored by the presence of one of the true masters of horror, George A. Romero. Now, two years later, we are thrilled to welcome back the undisputed champion of all things undead for his latest blood-drenched thrillride, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD. When the idyllic retreat of Plum Island falls victim to the zombie plague, a new breed of clan war breaks out. On one side is the camp who want to exterminate all undead with a wickedly diverse array of brain-splattering headshots. On the other, devoted family members take the stance that “zombie-ism” is a disease, the undead have rights and they must be kept alive until a cure is found. Unable to simply agree to disagree, the two clans go to war and make their island microcosm a whole hell of a lot bloodier. An undead parallel to the tribal wars that are plaguing our own society today, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD exposes the futility of such conflict and the need for tolerance of the beliefs of others. Plus it’s got zombie horses in it! From the very beginning, Romero has been making more than simple gore films. Sure, he’s amazing at delivering “the blood-red goods,” but what makes his films classics are the underlying social and political threads interwoven with the rampant gut-munching. played with themes of Vietnam-era paranoia, DAWN OF THE DEAD poked fun at mass-consumerism all the way up to which took aim at the journalistic and new media ethics (or lack thereof). Raise a glass of scotch, ladies and gentlemen, and toast the triumphant return to of one of the few working legends of cinema, Mr. George A. Romero. (Tim League)

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 21 fantastic parties and signature events! Brutus and BalzAak Bash Thurs, Sept 24, after the premiere of GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, held at the Highball Following the premiere of the opening night film GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, Fantastic Fest badgeholders are invited to join the cast and crew at the exclusive afterparty at The Highball (1142 South Lamar Blvd next to Alamo South Lamar). We'll have futuristic cocktails and food, supplies to make your own popcorn sculptures, a photo diorama where you can get your picture taken on an actual Brutus and Balzaak Battle Stag, DJs spinning spacey music as well as art from the film on display. GENTLEMEN BRONCOS is the opening night film of Fantastic Fest 2009. Writer/director Jared Hess, co-writer Jerusha Hess as well as stars , and and will be in attendance. SAKE, SHOCHU, AND KARAOKE: MEET THE JAPANESE Friday, Sept 25, midnight at the Highball Over the years, the name Fantastic Fest has been pretty much synonymous with Awesome Karaoke. And yeah, we've had some fantastic karaoke parties in year's past, but you haven't seen anything yet. This party is going to run late and enter that world of crazy that can only be unlocked by the Japanese! You can expect live entertainment on the stage that will rival that found in many of the crazier films in this year's festival. We'll be doling out complimentary sake and shochu, hosting the first U.S. Samurai Call competition, and, of course, singing karaoke into the wee hours. FANTASTIC FEUD Sat, Sept 26, midnight at the Highball The Fantastic Feud, brainchild of Cinematical managing director Scott Weinberg, pits the greatest American horror scholars against the feeble competition from foreign lands. Much drinking and feats of mental agility ensue. We had no idea what we were in for when we hosted the first Fantastic Feud two years ago, but that simple night of horror trivia quickly became the stuff of legend, and the next morning it was all anyone at the festival was able to talk about. Don't be that one person in your group standing around and feeling left out. Be sure to witness the Feud, and spread the legend to a new level for its third year. THE MICHAEL JACKSON DANCE PARTY Sun, Sept 27, midnight at the Highball Alamo creative director Henri Mazza loves himself some MJ. After the untimely death of the King of Pop this summer, we organized an impromptu Michael Jackson Sing-Along Tribute at the Alamo Ritz so fans from all over Austin could dance away their tears. This party will take the best parts of a Michael Jackson Sing-Along experience and cram in more remixes, extra videos, and, of course, props, so the debut of the Highball's dance floor will go down in history. THE FANTASTIC DEBATES Mon, Sept 28, midnight at the Highball It's time to settle the scores. Journalists, directors and film professionals will be entering the Fantastic Fest arena for a formal debate followed by a round of boxing. In this , the great issues facing the fan community will be solved once and for all. At press time, our master programmers of the oratory and physical debates were still duking it out between themselves to choose what the categories for this year's throwdowns will be, but whether they decide to hash out the superiority of zombies or battle over the assertion that the genre is poised to make a huge comeback, rest assured that the arguments that win out in this arena will be the sort of thing that changes the world. THE 100 BEST KILLS PARTY TUES, Sept 29, midnight at South Lamar The excitement inherent in the best horror and action movies can be boiled down to three main ingredients: VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE and VIOLENCE!!! From the golden age of goremaster to the innovative new fluid-spurting technologies of the modern effects masters, cold-blooded murder has become a legitimately appealing visual art that deserves it's very own fancy Louvre...and THIS IS IT! Yep, at this year's Fantastic Fest, we'll be celebrating the absolute finest in on-screen annihilation with an interactive celebration of on-screen intestine-ripping, head-bursting and unrepentant baby-mashing! You can share your most beloved homicide as well. It's easy...just bring along anything good, goopy n' gory that can play on a laptop or all-region DVD player and you'll be called on to nauseate the masses with your ultimate beloved gutblast! THE DOUBLE 3D DANCE PARTY Weds, Sept 30, midnight at the Highball We're teaming up with Real D and the 3D Film Festival along with some of Austin's hottest DJs to bring you a party like nothing ever. The first set of 3D will be the 3D visuals that will be projected on a silver screen over the stage as well as on several new Panasonic 3D televisions that are so new that you can't even buy them yet. And then in addition to the 3D sights, we'll have 3D sound with music from 3 decades being spun throughout the night. We'll start with an hour of the best 80s dance music, then have an hour of the best of the 90s, then go straight into the greatest dance music playing in the clubs today. Come dressed up as your favorite of those decades, and we'll have a triple 3D dance party on our hands! THE CLOSING NIGHT VAMPIRE PARTY Thurs, Oct 1, midnight at the Highball True, vampires are all over pop culture right now, and some would say that the overexposure they're experiencing is making them wish that they could drive a stake through Edward's heart once and for all. We say, "Bite me," and that doesn't make us fourteen year old girls. So for our closing night party this year, we'll spend one more night in the Highball together, and we'll spend it as if exposure to daylight would kill us all. Dress up in your vampy best and come drink from blood bags and dance till dawn. Master Pancake Total Recall Sep 25, 7:00 PM, RITZ, Sep 25, 9:45 PM, RITZ 2009, dir. United States, United States, 113 min., Language: EnglishFULL Description Directed by inscrutable Dutchman Paul Verhoeven (SHOWGIRLS, ), based on a story by master mind-fuck artist Philip K. Dick, and starring lumpy Austrian politico Arnold Schwarzenegger (HERCULES IN NEW YORK, PUMPING IRON) as the world's least-plausible "average Joe": Douglas Quaid, a man who really really needs a vacation. The complex plot – involving cover-ups, conspiracies and false memories -- is made even more opaque by Ahnold's thick accent and his tendency to add extra syllables to words: "air" become "eeyaher." "Mars" becomes "Mee-ah-er-zah." And two-boobed ladies become three-boobed ladies in this over-the-top feast for the eyes. Join Master Pancake as they "Dick" around with one of the best-worst sci-fi movies of the 90's. AICN presents A JESS FRANCO RETROSPECTIVE

For almost 50 years Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco has been making his own kind of cinematic poetry, steeped with themes of sex, violence, jazz, and subversive black humor. He has made around 200 feature films, though no one can say exactly how many. Once an obscure but busy man, he has become a well-known and respected figure over the past ten or so years as DVD audiences have joined earlier admirers like and in acclaiming Franco's talent and vitality. Last year he was awarded 's highest film honor, the Goya Award and the Cinematheque Francaise devoted a season to his work. Fantastic Fest is deeply honored to present its first Lifetime Achievement Award to Jess Franco. We will screen a selection of three of Franco's finest works. We will also be graced with the presence of his muse and inseparable collaborator Lina Romay. This will be Jess Franco's first ever North American film festival appearance. Scheduled films are: VENUS IN FURS, with awards presentation on Monday 9/28, SUCCUBUS on 9/29 and THE BARE BREASTED COUNTESS on 9/30. Additionally, we will screen EUGENIE, THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION on Wednesday 9/23 as part of the Weird Wednesday Series at the Ritz. This series is made possible by Ain't It Cool News.

The Bare Breasted Countess Sep 30 6:45 PM 1973, dir. Jess Franco, , 82 min., Language: English By 1973 when this film was made, Jess Franco had directed over 50 feature films. In that year alone, he made 10. He was becoming hyper-prolific, which had the effect of making his entire output a single fascinating saga of nymphomaniacs, vampires, amazons, undercover strippers, tragic gangsters, sexy nuns and the like. Also by this time, his mastery of the technical side of film was so polished, and his sense of story so acute that he could make a film on almost no budget - mostly just a travel allowance and the film cost. THE BARE BREASTED COUNTESS is one of the best films of this period. It has a small cast, only a few locations and very apparent technical limitations. Some critics of Franco take this movie to task for what they consider an overuse of the zoom lens. But a sharper-eyed viewing shows Franco's zoom use to be a brilliant new form of cinematic expression, different but similar to the way Robert Altman and Richard Rush were using the telephoto lens in the U.S. The film's overriding visual asset is the teenage actress Lina Romay, who became Franco's cinematic muse following the death of actress Soledad Miranda. Romay burns up the screen, and Franco wisely gives her the room to do it. It is, finally, a cinematic record of the tremendous sex appeal of a beautiful actress. The screen action, such as it is, is a pas de deux between Romay's Countess Irina Karlstein, a vampire who extracts the love juice of her victims, and Franco regular 's Baron von Rathony, who feels imperceptibly drawn to the Countess until they are finally together in the most intimate way possible. Structured as a surreal tone poem accompanied by the unforgettable music of Daniel White, this is a film like no other. (Lars) Succubus Sep 29, 7:00 PM 1973, dir. Jess Franco, France, 82 min., Language: English In the '60s, previously empty arthouse theaters became part of an interesting trend. When they began playing tittilating European imports starring the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Gina Lollobrigida, their ticket sales skyrocketed. Suddenly their theaters were full of patrons, not just a half-dozen sullen espresso sippers. European producers were quick to respond to the resulting demand for product. The Euro-sex movie was born. SUCCUBUS might be seen as the culmination of this period. A serious-minded but playful artist with an uncanny eye for depicting sex provocatively on screen, Jess Franco was perfectly situated to make a masterpiece of the form. SUCCUBUS is like the shiny side of the REPULSION coin, as we see into the dream life of a vivacious sexpot (Janine Reynaud) whose nightclub act depicts sexualized torture on stage. As we follow her through Lisbon and Berlin, through encounters with , sadists and little people, we begin to see signs that she is carrying her work home with her. Surreal, at times pretentious, but always compelling and new, even Fritz Lang liked this movie, he called it "a beautiful piece of cinema." We are indebted to another well-known admirer of this film for the loan of the print: . (Lars)

Eugenie: The Story of Her Journey Into Perversion Sep 23, 11:59 PM, RITZ 1970, dir. Jess Franco, United States, 86 min., Language: English This year Fantastic Fest welcomes hugely prolific Jess Franco, a man who has carved out a special place in film history with his wholly unique oeuvre of sex films.We will show a selection of Mr. Franco's films during Fantastic Fest and present him with our first Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Ain't It Cool News. This special pre-Fantastic Fest Weird Wednesday presentation was made possible by the generous cooperation of Blue Underground. The works of the Marquis De Sade have provided the spark of inspiration for some of Jess Franco's most memorable works. This film, made during his fruitful association with English producer Harry Alan Towers, is among Franco's best, and one of his own favorites. It's the story of a teenage girl, played by the lovely Marie Liljedahl, who enters the cruel and corrupting orbit of her father's mistress and her slightly insane half-brother when she visits their secluded island retreat for a weekend. The adventurously shot film, full of lugubrious set pieces is a joy to behold. The gorgeous psychedelic dream world Franco creates makes the viewer feel the blood-racing excitement of sexual abandon, an uncommon achievement in sex films, as anyone who has laughed and yawned through a number of them will assent. Featuring Franco regulars Maria Rohm, Paul Muller, Jack Taylor and , who later claimed he didn't know it was an adult film. (Lars) Please Note: Mr. Franco will not be present at this screening. Venus in Furs Sep 28, 7:15 PM 1969, dir. Jess Franco, , 86 min., Language: English Jess Franco is a great admirer of jazz music, and a gifted pianist himself. This film, one of his very best, is based on a story the great trumpeter Chet Baker told Franco. Baker said that when he plays solos his mind wanders, seemingly endlessly, outside of time and space. This rudimentary idea forms the basis for this film. As is so often the case in Franco's best work, logic isn't within a mile of center stage. Obsession is the central theme, as we might call it the central theme of Franco's entire ouevre. Here, jazz musician James Darren finds the body of a woman he had met at a wild party the previous night washed up on a beach near Istanbul. He thinks back to the party, and a particularly depraved trio (Klaus Kinski, Dennis Price and Margaret Lee) he with the woman. Later in Rio, he sees her again. But is she the same woman? Is she real? Is the trumpeter himself even alive, or just a walking dead man a la POINT BLANK? Don't expect a simple solution – this is a film of its lysergic times, after all. Do expect Franco's seemingly effortless visual bravado and film sense in abundance. Stunning compositions and vistas of tremendous yet depraved beauty succeed one another faster than the eye can take them in. When it's over the viewer feels shaken, possibly a little confused, but oddly satisfied. (Lars) ODDITIES FROM JAPAN! Hausu Sept 29, 9:45 PM. RITZ, Oct 1, 1:30 PM, LAMAR Regional Premiere, 1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan, 87 min., Language: Japanese No one can deny that Japan has established a staggering legacy of skull-bursting cinematic hysteria. Since the post-atomic rumblings that spawned , the greatest genre thunder hails from the East. And in 1977, every last goddamn ounce of Japan's unleashed insanity was distilled into one single film. The story follows teenage girl Oshare, a doomed fantasist living in a garish, -pastel world of dancing rainbows and eternal sunsets, where two-dimensional subway trains take her away from the miseries of life and—eventually—to the remote home of her twisted, gnarled aunt. There, Oshare is joined by her friends, each named after her particular obsession; Melody plays music, Kung-Fu practices her high kicks, and so on. Of course, things aren't as they seem. Auntie is actually a restless, manic demonoid and even her fluffy cat is in on the super-unnatural hijinks. But that's only the beginning…it doesn't take long for the house itself to reveal its true nature as a living, breathing, virgin-devouring reality-annihilator. This ain't your mama's , either…anyone unlucky enough to pass through the doors is confronted with man-eating pianos, villainous mirrors and even a flying, ass-biting human head. All known rules of the universe slip away as the girls are transformed and/or decimated one by one in flat-out bizarre sequences that could only be described as the waking nightmares of an alien drowning in a vat of narcotics. Every aspect of this movie -- from the eye-defying color palate to the lazer-occult effects work -- is calculated to boil your organs. Obayashi's debut feature remains a crushing, 300-fisted assault on the senses, so viciously paced and perfectly presented that watching it would actually kill the average moviegoer. This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity to hit the screen. Ladies and gentlemen…HAUSU!!! (Zack Carlson)

PINK FILM MINI-RETROSPECTIVE Since its inception, Fantastic Fest has provided a forum for screenings of the most outrageous Japanese "pink films." In the world of the "pinku eiga", filmmakers are essentiallyturned loose with a small budget. As long as the resulting film contains the requisite amount of sex and nudity (i.e. a LOT), the creators can seemingly get away with just about anything. A word of warning for all potental attendees: these films depict sexuality in strong (though non-explicit) detail. Be advised. We are indebted to Pink Eiga for the two pink films in this year's series, GROPER TRAIN – WEDDING CAPRICCIO and S&M HUNTER. See www.pinkeiga.com for a whole host of amazing pink films. Groper Train: Wedding Capriccio Sep 27, 4:15 PM 1984, dir. Yôjirô Takita, Japan, 64 min., Language: Japanese This year a Japanese film called DEPARTURES won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Its director Yojiro Takita, is a veteran of the Japanese film industry who started at the bottom and is now a very hot property. When we say he started at the bottom, we really mean it. For Mr. Yojiro Takita got his start making Pink Films, the peculiarly Japanese formulation of sex, sadism, and anything-goes initiative that thrills salarymen in back-alley adult theaters. To be fair, he was good at what he did, and his GROPER TRAIN titles are among the best and most subversive pink films ever made. And he's in good company - Masayuki Suo (SHALL WE DANCE) and Kyoshi Kurosawa (TOKYO SONATA) also got their start in pinku eiga. In GROPER TRAIN: WEDDING CAPRICCIO, part of a popular series: a wealthy politician, dying of cancer, hires a detective to find his estranged daughter. It transpires that the tycoon's daughter is happily married, and her daft brother, who wears a napoleonic hat everywhere, is involved in a scheme to get the old man's money. When the daughter turns up kidnapped and the son meets a sticky end, the detective must rely on the oddest clues to put the pieces together. If it sounds convoluted - oh lord, it is. And we haven't even mentioned the numerous sex scenes, many aboard a passenger train as stoic Japanese commuters, who aren't in on the , pretend not to notice. Somehow Takita pulls it off, with great comic moments and some legitimately sexy content. It's not exactly Lubitsch but you can see Takita's touch taking shape already. S&M Hunter Sep 30, 11:55 PM, RITZ 1986, dir. Shûji Kataoka, United States, 61 min., Language: English S&M HUNTER is an exercise in -style outrageousness guaranteed to offend everybody. The black-clad S&M Roper is a kind of bondage super hero with a supernatural genius for tying women up in configurations that leave them helplessly aroused. When the all-girl gang The Bombers kidnap a man for use as their personal sex toy, S&M Hunter accepts a mission to infiltrate The Bombers' hideout and show them the ropes. It should be noted that S&M HUNTER is a hugely politically incorrect film, loaded with swastikas, delirious patriarchal anxiety, Catholica used for sexual purposes and worse, but few will be able to resist its spiraling craziness for long. The climax, in which the rope-mad antihero employs a 200 foot tall construction crane to execute his bondage masterpiece has to be seen to be believed. Not for the weak! (Lars)

24 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com screenings the future of 3D Sep 27, 9:00 AM Panels and Presentations, a 3D production primer for filmmakers

Fantastic Fest, RealD and 3DFF and have assembled a half-day of panels and Presentation: presentations geared towards filmmakers who are interested in learning the Troublemaker presents a 3D Animation Primer fundamentals of shooting in 3D. This presentation is open to Fantastic Fest An early adopter of digital 3D technology, Robert Rodriguez's Troublemaker badgeholders as well as area filmmakers and students. The Panel will run from Studios have been creating computer generated 3D animation since 2002. Jabbar 9:00 AM – 1:30 PM and includes a lunch from the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Raisani and members of the digital post-production team from Troublemaker Tickets for this event are $75, $50 students and will go on sale at noon CST on Studios will introduce attendees to the basic concepts, techniques and tools used Wednesday, September 9. Admission is limited and we expect these to sell out to create 3D animation. quickly. Additional support for The Future of 3D Panels and Presentations is Following the presentation, attendees are invited to visit the 3D Lounge at the provided by the Texas Film Commission. Highball (1142 South Lamar, in the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar shopping Opening Panel: The Future of 3D center) for further conversation and demonstrations. Additional information and presenter bios will be updated at www.fantasticfest.com. With 3D technology taking hold in cinemas and the promise of home delivery mechanisms on the horizon, the growing amount of 3D content hints that 3D is back for good. Or is it? Leaders in 3D industry technology will explore the impact This presentation is made possible in part by: of 3D technology and content, how it has revolutionized the marketplace, and what the future holds. Presentation: 3D Theory, a Primer and Demonstration Whether you are shooting with two cameras screwed to a 2X4 or are using an automated, self-adjusting motorized camera rig, the camera operator in both scenarios must understand the basic theory of 3D. This presentation will provide a crash-course on 3D theory, illustrate the differences between parallel and convergence systems, and explore the concept of how 3D is perceived with each. Presentation: Simple Tools, Impressive 3D Results A leader in 3D music video production, 3DStereolabs have developed their own live 3D preview system for stereoscopic shoots as well as cutting edge stereoscopic workflows in Final Cut Pro. The 3DStereolabs team (Michael Page, Keith Driver and Fernando Apodaca) demonstrate how to combine elbow grease and consumer grade tools to effectively create stereoscopic effects.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 25 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlAntichriE st Date,Sep 25 TIME6:45 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. , , 104 min., Language: English Date,Sep 29 TIME1:25 PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY A groundbreaking, deeply disturbing and graphic nightmare vision about Shot in a deeply chilling and unsettling style that combines both the rigorously gender relations from one of the most important and influential directors of the choreographed, symbol-laden universe of Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky (to last 30 years. ANTICHRIST is a break from von Trier’s previous work in terms of whom the film is dedicated) and recent movies, ANTICHRIST is aesthetics, resembling a Japanese horror movie re-imagined by Andrei Tarkovsky. a vision of hell, proffering nightmarish, essentialized portraits of the sexes. The - Tiffreviews.com wife is irrational and explosive; the husband controlling and dismissive. Initially, perhaps because Dafoe's character is conventionally rational, we're more disturbed FULL Description by the wife's behaviour, but as the film proceeds and he has nothing to offer but Ever since his first feature, , played at Cannes in 1984, increasingly fatuous pop-psychology bromides, we begin to question both his Lars von Trier has remained one of the most controversial figures in international motives and his perspicacity (Von Trier has long been a vocal critic of contemporary cinema. That said, nothing he has done could possibly prepare people for the psychology). profoundly disturbing ANTICHRIST. That said, it's rather misleading to discuss them as individual characters, since we're The film follows an unnamed couple ( and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both deep in the realm of allegory. Chaucer and Boccaccio wouldn't be uncomfortable of whom deliver extraordinary performances) as they deal with the loss of their with the basic set-up. The film is driven by a deep-seated awareness of evil and a infant son. She collapses at the funeral and is hospitalized, but her psychologist horror of what we're capable of doing and thinking. (One caveat: if you think you're husband decides to care for her himself – and insists that she “deal” with her fears. prepared for some of the now notorious graphic sequences, you most assuredly are When he learns that she's terrified of their cottage, which they've forebodingly not.) I see a lot of movies, and I can't recall another film that has haunted me quite named Eden, he forces her to confront her terror of the place. It's hardly paradise like this one. - Toronto International Film Festival on earth. Few films have ever presented such a dark vision of the wilderness (even acorns are threatening).

26 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TBitlereathless Date,Sep 26 TIME7:10 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. Ik-June Yang, , 130 min., Language: Korean Sep 29 3:45 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY A sense of humor pokes through all of the grimness, but it never diminishes the BREATHLESS is a foul-mouthed drama that delivers an unlikely mix of pathos, reality that the film intends to convey. BREATHLESS is a risky film that indicates brutality and humor. First-time director Yang Ik-June plays a angry thug named who Yang Ik-June's emergence as an important new South Korean filmmaker. (Rodney gets involved in a dysfunctional relationship with a high-school girl. It eventually Perkins) becomes apparent that the pair are linked in ways that neither of them realize.

FULL Description Rotterdam Int’l Film Festival – 2009: Winner – Tiger Award BREATHLESS, the directorial debut of South Korean actor Yang Ik-June, is a foul- mouthed drama that delivers an unlikely mix of pathos, brutality and humor. Yang Ik-June plays a gangster named Sang-Hoon Kim. Sang-Hoon is a loose cannon who spends most of his time cracking heads, cursing people and smoking cigarettes. On the surface, Sang-Hoon shows little love for anybody or anything. His tough exterior cracks a little when he is around his little nephew, but his way of showing he cares involves slapping the boy around and calling him a bastard and an idiot. Sang-Hoon eventually meets Yeon-hee Han (Kot-bi Kim), a high-school girl with a dirty mouth and a fearless attitude. The pair quickly develop a dysfunctional relationship, and as the film progresses, it becomes apparent that they are linked in ways that neither of them realize.

BREATHLESS tells a familiar story of a tough guy's downfall, but the film goes a step further by connecting the chaos and violence to larger themes. BREATHLESS presents a vision of a society feeding on cycles of violence. Sang-Hoon is abusive and violent. Everywhere he goes, he sees abusive and violent behavior. The violence connects the characters to each other, and drives the narrative.Yang Ik-June turns in a great performance as a completely disagreeable thug whose sole epiphany in life comes too late to save him. The no-frills direction, which makes liberal use of hand- held camera, adds a sense of realism to all the punching, screaming and slapping.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 27 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titltitleBroEnson Date,Sep 26 TIME9:45 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. , United Kingdom, 92 min., Language: English SepDate, 28 4:30TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY BRONSON chronicles the blood-soaked life and philosophy of , Britain's most notorious and certainly one its most violent criminals . Nicolas Winding Refn’s (The Pusher trilogy) hallucinatory exploration captures the sheer brutality of the man and his unique art form: primal violence.

FULL Description BRONSON chronicles the blood-soaked life and philosophy of Charles Bronson, Britain's most notorious and certainly one its most violent criminals . Nicolas Winding Refn’s (The Pusher trilogy) hallucinatory exploration captures the sheer brutality of the man and his unique art form: primal violence.

Charles Bronson, the antihero of his own story, leads a life of violence and imprisonment that has kept him in solitary confinement for 30 of his last 34 years in prison. After changing his name in the ‘70s to promote a more ferocious image, Bronson’s bare-knuckle boxing career descends into assault and eventually multiple hostage situations. Following his rising profile and his fall from grace, this stylistic work features a tour de force performance by Tom Hardy, playing Bronson with the same intensity whether he is stripped naked and screaming or sitting down for tea.

Terrifying and fascinating, superb and engrossing, Bronson depicts this criminal in his search for fame and notoriety.

28 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TBitleuratino, Son of Pinocchio Date,Sep 27 TIME4:00 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Rasmus Merivoo, Estonia, 76 min., Language: Estonian Oct 1 7:15 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY most rundown locations in Russia, which gives the Badville sequences a certain A space-born magic seed initiates the virgin birth of Buratino, the Estonian son of authentic Iron Curtain flavor that you can only get in the motherland. Pinocchio who quickly forms a rock band, commits terrorist acts, falls in love and gets embroiled in a maniac's plot to conquer the world. And yes, it's a musical. With a foreign edge and indie spirit, this film will challenge you - nay, dare you - to name its equal. Love it or hate it, you will not see another like it. (Eric Vespe) FULL Description Imagine a mix of REPO MAN, OLIVER! and PINOCCHIO and you're on the road to grasping the tone of this bizarre Estonian take on Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy's character Buratino, a wooden boy (or boyus woodenus, as the doctors in the film refer to him). Buratino's virginal mother wishes upon a star for a son and is Plays with immediately answered by what can only be called a rape-splinter. The woman gives birth almost immediately to her little wooden Buratino. heartbreak motel 2008, , dir. Aaron McLoughlin , 7 min Growing up in Badville, the troubled Buratino forms a gang in his teenage years and robs the people of neighboring Goodville, often in song. The secret of Some people's are better left unexplored. Buratino's birth is soon discovered by the villainous Karabas Barabas who desires something hidden deep inside the boy. Buratino must do battle with Barabas' thugs and ultimately Barabas himself, all the while trying to make it with Barabas' hot, blue-haired daughter Malvina.

Bordering on the ridiculous at all times, this movie is always entertaining. Whether it's binocular hands that actually work, steaming mad coaches, sprout-pimples, laser guns, out of this world musical numbers or evil gardeners; there's no limit to the curveballs this movie throws at you. Also impressive is that Estonian filmmaker Rasmus Merivoo was only 26 when he directed this film, which marks his directorial debut. He was attending film school while co-writing the script alongside Kristin Kalamees and cobbling the film together on the side, ultimately a Russian-Estonian co-production. BURATINO was actually shot in some of the

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 29 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlThe EChildren Date,Sep 27 TIME11:45 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2008, dir. Tom Shankland, United Kingdom, 84 min., Language: English SepDate, 30 12:50TIME PM Location

tone. Adding to the potboiler build-up, much of the early bloodshed is restrained. BRIEF SUMMARY The parents, very slow to imagine that their own children could be sadistic killers, Three families meet up at a country estate to celebrate the winter holidays together. time and time again get lured into their playful but deadly snares. Shankland also Everything starts out idyllic, but as the day wanes the rambunctious playfulness of manages to avoid another classic fumbling point: the Scooby-Doo exposition. One the kids takes on a sinister edge, and soon the freshly fallen snow is soaked in blood. can infer the origin of the illness that is affecting the children, but thankfully it is not fully articulated. This keeps the focus on the forever mounting tension, all the way FULL Description to the bloody end. Since the chaos is generally confined to a single remote estate, If you were to poll 1000 adults on what scares them the most, high on (if not topping) we also don’t know how far sweeping this malady has spread… but why have the every list would be demonic children. Classics such as THE OMEN, VILLAGE OF police and ambulance not arrived on the scene? THE DAMNED, DEVIL TIMES FIVE and IT'S ALIVE paved the foundation upon which the horrifying knuckle-biter The Children is built. In a lean 84 minutes, director Tom Shankland has crafted a one of the one of the creepiest edge-of-your-seat horror thrillers in recent memory. You may never fully Three families meet up at a country estate to celebrate the winter holidays trust your own children again. (Tim League) together. Everything starts out idyllic: snowmen, sledding and hot-out-of-the-oven Christmas turkey. Almost imperceptibly, however, tensions gradually build and the Plays with tranquility starts to fray at the edges. Robbie (Jeremy Sheffield) brought copies of his herbal-medicine business prospectus to inappropriately seek family investors. porque hay cosas que nunca Jonah (Stephen Campbell Moore) bonds with his teenage niece, but his flirtations 2008, Spain, dir. Lucas Figueroa , 12 min walk the razor’s edge between the cool uncle and the creepy incestuous pedophile. Let this be a lesson to all you lousy, no-good adults: NEVER mess with kids. The audience takes a fly-on-the-wall perspective for the mounting uneasiness. You watch the darkness slowly building in the children: quick icy stares, malevolent glances and a newfound interest in cutlery, but are powerless to warn the oblivious adults. The rambunctious playfulness of the kids takes on a sinister edge, and soon the freshly fallen snow is soaked in blood.

The Achilles heel of a youth-heavy cast is always the acting. Tom Shankland expertly dodges this pitfall and directs the large cast of children to deliver note-perfect performances. There’s actually very little dialogue; instead he relies on menacing laughter, facial expressions (or lack thereof) and judicious editing to amplify the

30 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TCitlelive Barker's Dread Date,Sep 26 TIME9:30 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Anthony DiBlasi, United States, 108 min., Language: English Sep 29 11:55 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY next level. What happens next is a wickedly spiraling sadistic freakout that pounds Graduate students are making a thesis film called DREAD, videotaping fellow out the thrills all the way to the end credits. DREAD is considered by many Clive students talking about their innermost fears. The experiment turns into a nightmare Barker fans to be one of the best stories in his Books of Blood series, and first time when one of the team decides it will be therapeutic for the subjects to truly face director DiBlasi really nails every nuance of the story. (Tim League) those fears. Participants will be asked to reveal their innermost terrors on camera.

FULL Description “This started as a spec script by Anthony DiBlasi who came in as an intern to Seraphim (Barker's horror film production label) six years ago. We try our best to advance people to where they want to go and Anthony is, to me, the definitive success story. Here’s a guy who, six years on from joining the company, has written and directed his first movie. And he’s done a fucking brilliant job.” - Clive Barker, from his interview.

Stephen (Jackson Rathbone from TWILIGHT), Quaid (Shaun Evans) and Cheryl (Hanne Steen), graduate students at Boston College, are "seeking to interview men and women for an academic study on fear. Participants will be asked to reveal their innermost terrors on camera." Most of their subjects are mundane, some are fabricating stories to hone their drama department chops but a few of their subjects suffer from the genuine article, deep-seated psyche-scarring fears. Joshua (Jonathan Readwin) suffered from temporary hearing loss as a child and is deathly afraid of loud noises and the thought of losing his senses again. Abby (Laura Donnelly) has a massive birthmark that covers half of her face and body and lives with a constant fear of humiliation. Even our team behind the camera gets into the mix; Cheryl tells a deeply personal tale of sexual abuse and why she can no longer abide the smell, let alone the taste, of meat. She is not the only one on the team, however, with deep dark secrets rattling around in her subconscious. Quaid, naturally combative to begin with, becomes violently possessive of the project and wants to take it to the

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 31 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlCrazEy Racer Date,Sep 28 TIME7:00 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Hao Ning, , 108 min., Language: Chinese SepDate, 29 6:45TIME PM Location

actors. I know that I am only catching one out of every four , as the comedy clearly is steeped in clever wordplay and double-meaning. Even still, the script BRIEF SUMMARY bursts with laugh-out-loud moments and steers clear of the shameless mugging of Singing and dancing Chinese Supermen, bumbling police investigators, even more many Hong Kong . bumbling apprentice criminals, double and triple-cross assassination attempts, muay thai gymnastics, triad gangster shootouts, explosions and car chases all Not since watching my first Stephen Chow film have I been more excited about collide to form a deliriously intoxicating celluloid cocktail. a new talent coming out of China, and this time it’s not even coming out of the production powerhouse of Hong Kong. That’s right, Ning Hao is making his FULL Description movies in mainland China, and he is giving Hong Kong a serious run for the Two minutes into CRAZY RACER, Geng Hao (Huang Bo, CRAZY STONE) wins the money. CRAZY RACER is seriously one of the most entertaining, funniest madcap silver medal in the national cycling championships, earns a product endorsement adventures I have seen in a long time. (Tim League) contract from an energy drink manufacturer and is on top of the world. Two minutes later, when he finds that the energy drink he endorses has caused him to fail a post- Plays with race urine test, he is stripped of his title, banned from professional racing for life, loses his endorsement contract and his coach dies from a heart attack. Lots of plot Curiosa Conquista del Ampere for four minutes, and the pace doesn’t slow until the CLOSING credits to roll. All 2008, , dir. Ramon Orozco Statenberg , 10 min he wants now is to extort enough money from the unscrupulous businessman who caused his demise to pay for a proper funeral for his coach. His quest turns into Not even death can keep an electric plant worker from fulfilling his an obsession that leads him into a seemingly inextricable web of lies, deception, obligations to the people. murder, crime and intrigue. Every step forward for our seemingly cursed hero has an accompanying 10 steps back.

It’s hard to describe the intricate tendrils of this story as each subplot sprouts new branches and continually intertwine, drawing in more and more outlandish oddball characters who all come together for the final knuckle-biting finale. Singing and dancing Chinese Supermen, bumbling police investigators, even more bumbling apprentice criminals, double and triple-cross assassination attempts, muay thai gymnastics, triad gangster shootouts, explosions and car chases all collide to form a deliriously intoxicating celluloid cocktail. Aside from the over-the-top action and excitement, the film is grounded in superb performances by the cast of comedic

32 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TCitleropsey Date,Sep 26 TIME4:45 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman, United States, 84 min., Language: English Sep 28 2:00 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY of Willowbrook, which was famously exposed by Geraldo Rivera as New York CROPSEY is a documentary about a real-life murder case in Staten Island, New City's dumping ground for the mentally ill. The weed-covered Willowbrook York. A disturbed transient named Andre Rand was convicted of murdering two campus was once rumored to be the stomping grounds for transient child-abusing kids, but did he actually commit the crimes? Cropsey digs deep into the case, and cultists led by Andre Rand. Now, teenagers enticed by rumors of satanic sacrifices in the process, exposes the weird, secret underbelly of Staten Island. visit Willowbrook at night for scary thrills. The film also details the unsolved disappearances of dozens of kids all over Staten Island, and many people believe FULL Description that Andre Rand was somehow involved. CROPSEY asks a lot of questions, and the CROPSEY is a creepy documentary that explores how fact and fiction intersect answers (or lack of thereof) are very disturbing. (Rodney Perkins) in a real-life murder case in Staten Island, New York. Like many kids that grew up in Staten Island, directors Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio were told the story of Cropsey, a lunatic child-killer that escaped from the Willowbrook Mental Institution. Cropsey was treated as just another urban myth until Jennifer Schweiger, a young girl with Down's syndrome, disappeared from her Staten Island home in 1987. After Jennifer's disappearance, three more kids -- all of whom suffered from a mental or physical disability -- also turned up missing. Jennifer's corpse was eventually found near the site of the abandoned Willowbrook campus. Andre Rand, a disturbed transient who worked at Willowbrook until it was shut down, was quickly identified as the main suspect. The evidence against Rand was circumstantial at best, but he was convicted and locked away. Twenty-two years after his initial conviction, Rand was convicted of the murder of one of the three remaining missing kids despite the fact that her body was never found.

CROPSEY is built around Zeman and Brancaccio's detailed investigation of the Rand case. The film presents interviews with family and friends of the victims, police officers who investigated the case, Rand's associates, and people who claimed to have been witnesses or potential victims to his crimes. The filmmakers also weave the Andre Rand case into the weird, secret underbelly of Staten Island. Through newsreels and new footage, the filmmakers examine the history

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 33 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlDirtyE Mind Date,Sep 27 TIME6:45 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Pieter Van Hees, Belgium, 103 min., Language: Dutch OctDate, 1 4:00TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY A head injury resulting from a disastrous film stunt gone wrong transforms shy, That all changes when Cisse is sidelined by a minor injury and convinces Diego to socially inept Diego into the confident, womanizing daredevil Tony T. Although his take his place on a challenging stunt that lands him in the hospital. Upon regaining new personality captivates family and coworkers, Tony is unable to impress Jaana, consciousness, Diego announces that he feels “sexy” and is changing his name to an attractive and ambitious young neurosurgeon who wants him to undergo an Tony T, “like TNT…Boom!” Diagnosed with a personality-altering frontal lobe experimental treatment that will restore him to his original self. disorder, Diego/Tony refuses to listen when his doctors tell him he needs treatment, preferring instead to aggressively flirt his way through his consultation with Jaana, FULL Description (Kristine Van Pellicom) the beautiful medical assistant assigned to his case. The second feature in an announced trilogy from Belgian director Pieter Van Hees, this darkly comic outing about an introverted loser-cum-ladies man represents a Released from the hospital pending a period of observation, Diego/Tony becomes departure from the atmospheric horror of last year’s LEFT BANK. While themes the person he always wanted to be: charismatic, uninhibited and successful. He of psychological upheaval and uninhibited sexuality resonate through both films, quickly surpasses his brother’s position as top stuntman and sexual conquistador Van Hees’ latest production is more likely to leave audiences grinning in perverse on the television set, all the while attempting to seduce Jaana as she evaluates satisfaction, rather than grimacing with dread. his behavior in order to reach a conclusive diagnosis. The film shifts gears as the audience is drawn into Tony’s exhilarating new life as a professional risk-taker. The film’s prologue opens on a university lecture hall wherein neurology professor While we’re treated to a pleasurable cacophony of sex, explosions, and car crashes, David Vandewoestijne (Peter Van den Begin) discusses the physiology underlying the true delight is Helsen’s remarkable, dichotomous performance. Watching him human behavior and emotion, remarking upon the existential that something inhabit these two characters is a seduction in itself. as apparently profound as human happiness or misery can be reduced to the tiniest of electrical impulses in the brain. Unfortunately, as Tony’s uninhibited behavior escalates, his decisions become increasingly destructive, and he begins to agonize over whether or not he should This monologue preps us for the entrance of sweetly pathetic Diego, (- undergo treatment to restore his original personality. He simultaneously revels in turned-actor Wim Helsen) a special effects technician working for a small-time and reviles the person he has become, and Jaana is the only person he can turn to television production company with his egotistical stuntman brother Cisse (Robbie when his newfound happiness begins to crumble. (Carrie Matherly) Cleiren). A whipping boy for life’s little injustices, Diego can’t talk to girls, gets no respect from his peers or his family, and loses arguments with garbage collectors.

34 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TDitleistrict 13: Ultimatum Date,Sep 27 TIME11:59PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Patrick Alessandrin, France, 101 min., Language: French Oct 1 4:15 PM

is so good that he has been hired to choreograph fight films in Hong Kong and BRIEF SUMMARY his performance as Damien is loaded with raw energy and charisma, his flying With the wealthy and powerful once again looking to eliminate District 13 – and fists and feet dazzling to watch on screen. If the first B13 provided a taste of what turn a tidy profit while doing so – it is up to supercop Damien (Cyril Rafelli) and Raffaelli was capable of, this second provides a full course meal. Fill out the cast vigilante Leto (David Belle) to save the district and the residents, a task they can with charismatic characters heading the competing gangs – BLACK's MC Jean only complete with the help of five rival gang leaders. Gab'1 plays a key role – and DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM proves that sometimes you really can go back again. (Todd Brown) FULL Description District 13 is in trouble. The gangs are restless, promised changes have not come to pass, poverty and crime are as rampant as ever. And, just in case things weren't Plays with difficult and complex enough in the anarchic district, it appears as though it has a new enemy, a powerful and well-financed enemy determined to bring the wrath Mint in Box of the establishment down upon the people and willing to kill to do so. In the face 2009, United States, dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts , 7 min of lawlessness and rising violence there can be only one response: by-the-book supercop Damien and free roaming – free running, I should say – vigilante Leto During a date, a man's obsessive dedication to is revealed, must once again join forces to bring peace to District 13. sending him on a neurotic meltdown.

When Pierre Morel's DISTRICT B13 burst on to the scene in 2004, prescient timing and clever marketing allowed the film to tap into the bubbling awareness of a new extreme sport, parkour. By casting parkour's co-creator David Belle as Leto and then building the film around his unique skills the film delivered something people had never before seen on screen, a dazzling combination of speed, strength, grace and fearlessness. Largely on Belle's back the film became a huge international hit and so producer did what smart producers always do in cases like these: he took his original formula, shifted the focus slightly and made a sequel.

While the original DISTRICT B13 was very much Belle's coming out party this second installment casts its eye largely on his partner, French martial artist Cyril Raffaelli. Though you may not think of France as a hotbed for , Raffaelli

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 35 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlDoghEouse Date,Sep 25 TIME11:59 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Jake West, United Kingdom, 89 min., Language: English SepDate, 30 9:30TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY kicks off a stag trip to a remote English village that's rumored to be overflowing Kicked out of the house and recently served with divorce papers, Vince (Stephen with women. They come to find it is, but that's not a good thing when a mysterious Graham, SNATCH) is at a low point in his life. In an effort to rally their best mate's disease has swept through this little town turning every female in its wake into spirits, his crew rents a charter bus for a country retreat of heavy drinking and flesh-hungry and murderous cannibals. womanizing. The only problem is that the women in their idyllic country hideaway have been infested with the zombie plague, eaten every man in town and are now Once our heroes are in this town, the shit hits the fan the pace doesn't let up…and hungry for seconds. neither does the gore. The make-up gags are great, each cannibal woman with her own personality…be it the LARP-ish woman with a broadsword or the hairstylist FULL Description double-fisting sharp scissors, we get to recognize these evil women. And if you're EVIL ALIENS director Jake West finally gets a budget and creates DOGHOUSE, a anything like me you're going to feel really bad for finding some of them pretty clever twist on the typical "travelers run into a seemingly abandoned town and then hot despite their zombie-like appearance…or maybe because of it. Or maybe I'm the blood comes" horror tale. The film is certainly about travelers and contains a just weird. shit-ton of blood, but it also balances well between horror and comedy, a precarious tight-wire act that has only been successfully accomplished by a dozen or so films West wraps up comedy, horror, and gore into a fun package and has cast it in the history of the genre. with great British character actors resulting in a very rare beast…A horror comedy that manages to actually be funny while dumping bucket after bloody bucket of Basically the set up is this: A group of long-time mates gather together as one of their chunky entrails on our hapless lads. (Eric Vespe) number, Vince (SNATCH's Stephen Graham), is headed into a nasty divorce. Post school life has been rough on them all as we see in an opening montage that shows Plays with us the horrific relationships they've all seem to have gotten in to. Those unmarried are pathetic, but those that are in committed relationships are far worse off. elder sign 2009, , dir. Joseph Nanni, 2 min So the battle of the sexes begins. Nobody is pure and innocent. The women are all controlling superficial witches and all the guys are either sleaze-balls or lacking any Are you troubled by the impending type of backbone. wrath of ancient demonic gods? Of course. We all are. Here's what you Graham is the closest to an innocent, especially when compared to his chauvinist can DO about it. buddy Neil (played by SEVERENCE's Danny Dyer) and it's his misfortune that

36 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TDoitlewn Terrace Date,Sep 27 TIME6:30 PM Location DescriptionWorld Premiere, 2009, dir. Ben Wheately, United Kingdom, 89 min., Language: English Sep 30 9:15 PM

on SPACED, THE OFFICE (original), and EXTRAS. Based on the pedigree of the talent, one might expect DOWN TERRACE to be a straight-up comedy. DOWN TERRACE BRIEF SUMMARY is very funny, but the film taps into a dark vein of humor that can only come from DOWN TERRACE is a darkly comedic drama from Britain that follows the daily observing a group of dysfunctional gangsters as they plan to kill each other. Wheatley travails of a dysfunctional family of crooks trying to keep their business from falling uses a cinema vérité camera style, which, when combined with the film's naturalistic apart. performances, creates the feel of eavesdropping on multiple crimes in progress.

FULL Description Adding to the overall vérité feeling of the film, fictional father and son Bill and Karl In 2007, the people behind the venerable Mondo Macabro DVD label released their are played by real-life father and son Bob and Rob Hill, and Karl's pregnant girlfriend first production: a Pakistani gore film called HELL'S GROUND. Now, is played by his actual wife. (Rodney Perkins) Mondo Macabro Movies has made a 180 degree turn with DOWN TERRACE, a darkly comedic drama from Britain about the daily travails of a family of crooks Plays with trying to keep their criminal enterprise from falling apart. next floor DOWN TERRACE opens with Bill (Bob Hill) and his son Karl (Rob Hill) leaving a 2009, Canada, dir. , 12 min courthouse after a stint in jail. As soon as they get out, the pair try to figure out who ratted them out to the police. It's not exactly clear why Bill and Karl were locked A delicious feast of exotic meaty organs is placed before the most elite up, but their habitual drug intake and shady dealings indicate that they are up to no upper class gastrophiles, and they tear into it for a shocking multi- course, multi-floor meal. good. Karl's wife (Julia Deakin) seems nice enough, but she is intricately involved in the skullduggery that got her husband and son locked up. Various suspicious characters enter the scenario, including hated family friend Garvey (Tony Way), a hit man named Pringle (Michael Smiley) who carries his toddler to jobs, Karl's pregnant girlfriend (Kerry Peacock), and a brutal oaf named Eric (David Schaal). Everyone suspects each other of being a snitch, and the paranoia blossoms into a deadly web of plots and schemes.

DOWN TERRACE is the directorial debut of Ben Wheately, who along with Rob Hill, wrote the film's script. Wheatley is known as a comedic writer for British television shows like Armando iannuci's TIME TRUMPET. Some of the cast, which features a mix of professionals and non-professionals, will be familiar to many through appearances

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 37 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlDureEss Date,Sep 27 TIME4:40 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Jordan Barker, United States, 78 min., Language: English SepDate, 30 4:00TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY A cold-blooded killer has singled out a mild-mannered, recently widowed man and is forcing him, under threat of harm to his young daughter, to participate in his gruesome activities. The indecisive father sinks deeper and more helplessly into the clutches of the ruthless killer - a man most definitely on a mission.

FULL Description Each year, as a member of the programming team for Fantastic Fest, I go to the film markets in Berlin and Cannes, where I spend weeks of full days going from theater to theater looking for prospective festival gold. In addition to this, we watch submissions from all corners of the globe, day in and day out. In the course of this rigorous selection process I watch dozens—many dozens—of thrillers. Many of them are well made, well acted, well paced…and utterly the same. There is very little thrill in thrillers when you see as many as I do and you realize that it is very rare to find something fresh in the genre.

The premise of the unexpectedly elegant suspense-ride DURESS is that a cold- blooded killer has singled out a mild-mannered, recently widowed father and is forcing him, under threat of harm to his young daughter, to participate in gruesome activities that are clearly a way of life for our villain. Tension builds slowly as we watch as the father fails to act or take a stand. I was swept along on an unrelenting tide of frustration as the indecisive widow sinks him deeper and more helplessly into the clutches of the ruthless killer - a man most definitely on a mission. Typically this type of frustration does not turn out well - I leave the theater condemning the laziness of a script which condemns a character to stupidity and poor decision- making with no reason except to further the plot. DURESS, however, cleverly avoids these traps and pays off the ever-increasing tension with a distinctly unexpected finale. (Karrie League)

38 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TFireballitle Date,Sep 30 TIME2009 Location11:45 PM DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Thanakorn Pongsuwan, Thailand, 94 min., Language: Thai Oct 1 2009 7:00 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY Director Pongsuwan is quickly establishing himself in the upper level of Thai Freshly released from prison, Tai must go underground and infiltrate the shady genre directors. His sense of character is spot on, he has a sharp eye and he draws world of Fireball to take revenge on the gang that put his brother into a coma. shockingly good performances from his cast of largely unknown stuntmen, all of And what is Fireball? No holds barred, to-the-death, full contact combat basketball. whom could act circles around a certain other Thai mega-star. More importantly, Bring your lead pipe, 'cause you know the other guy is going to. however, Pongsuwan knows exactly what kind of film he is making here and he dives in to his chosen world with such gusto and dedication that the required FULL Description suspension of disbelief becomes effortless. Every fireball match is a full on, no holds From time to time a film comes along that is simply far, far better than it has any barred contest of bare knuckle brutality where everything goes. Hugely entertaining right to be -- a film that somehow rises above a ludicrous premise to become and surprisingly well made, Fireball is a pure, unrepentant b-film that takes its something far more than the sum of its parts. In 2009 that film is Thai combat- premise and pushes it as far as it can possibly go. Game on. (Todd Brown) basketball film FIREBALL. Combat basketball? You bet. FIREBALL revolves around an underground to-the-death variant of basketball, a game played with the first team to score or, should a team fail to score, the team with the last man standing declared the winner. It’s preposterous, yes, but firm direction and a sharp eye from helmer Thanakorn Pongsuwan (Opapatika), a surprisingly strong script that treats its characters with respect and a winning cast that give said characters a believable edge make Fireball a winning guilty pleasure.

Freshly released from prison thanks to funds spread liberally in the right places by his identical twin brother Tan, Tai returns home to discover that all is not well. Tan is hospitalized and in a coma, the result of serious head wounds suffered in mysterious circumstances. He was clearly involved in something illegal to generate the funds for Tai’s release but nobody knows exactly what he was doing, the only clue that he had been coming home badly bruised from playing basketball in the weeks before Tai's homecoming. Determined to find the truth and exact revenge Tai goes to the courts where his brother played, assuming Tan’s identity to learn what he can…

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 39 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titltitleFirsEt Squad Date,Sep 24 TIME2009 Location4:30 PM DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Yoshiharu Ashino, Russia, 73 min., Language: Russian Date, TIME Location

BRIEF SUMMARY Loosely based on characters from a hugely popular series of Soviet-era propaganda Loosely based on characters from a hugely popular series of Soviet-era propaganda comics, FIRST SQUAD is a totally unique fusion of history and fiction. The battle comics, FIRST SQUAD is a totally unique fusion of history and fiction. The first sequences and secret societies are factual – both the Ahnenerbe and the Russian 6th ever Russian produced feature, the Russian creators of FIRST SQUAD have Division are known to have existed and been active in this period – with a layer of worked closely with hugely acclaimed Japanese animation house Studio 4C to pure speculation and fantasy added to the mix. Using moc-documentary inserts to create something truly unique. heighten the experience the goal is not just to entertain but to create a believable of the Russian-German campaigns of World War Two. FULL Description "You need the dead to fight the dead." The first ever Russian produced anime feature, the Russian creators of First Squad have worked closely with hugely acclaimed Japanese animation house It is 1942 and the war has stalled along the Eastern Front. Desperate to advance Studio 4C (, , Tekkon Kinkreet), to create Hitler's forces turn to the Ahnenerbe, the secret occult division of the SS, to raise something truly unique. (Todd Brown) the spirits of their dead ancestors to fight on their behalf. Should they succeed it will be an all out slaughter, for how can the Russian army possibly stand against the forces of the undead?

Fortunately the Russians are not without occult resources of their own, their 6th Division conducting their own experiments with the afterlife, their one great hope the gifted teenage psychic Nadya, who they must send into the underworld to recruit the spirits of her dead companions – the departed souls of the FIRST SQUAD – to stand against the Nazi threat.

40 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TFiitlesh Story Date,Sep 26 TIME11:00 AM Location DescriptionTexas Premiere, 2009, dir. Yoshihiro Nakamura, Japan, 112 min., Language: Japanese Sep 30 6:15 PM

Brief Summary Before the Sex Pistols, there was Gekirin, a Japanese punk band struggling to Plays with carve out a space for their music apart from the easy listening, soft rock ballads dominating the airwaves in 1975. Although they failed to achieve recognition for hirsute their pioneering sound, the group managed to release one single that later sparked 2007, Canada, dir. A.J. Bond , 14 min a cult following among a small set of collectors. While all manner of urban myths circulated over the years as to the meaning of the song “Fish Story,” no one could A brilliant young scientist is beside himself when he realizes that time ever have guessed the fantastic destiny the recording would someday fulfill. travel isn't only possible…but he already mastered it.

Full Description Gekirin’s story is the anchor at the center of director Yoshihiro Nakamura’s decades- spanning, brain-teasing, apocalyptic, alternative universe, in which seemingly disparate narratives are woven together to form a portrait of the extraordinary from the raw material of each character’s tiny trials and triumphs.

The film opens on a deserted Tokyo neighborhood in the year 2012. Disaster is about to strike the earth in the form of a comet that scientists predict will cause the extinction of the human race. Three strangers, who’ve met by chance at the only place in the city still holding regular business hours – a record store - debate whether or not it’s possible to avert the world’s impending end. The optimistic naïf among them drops the first of Nakamura’s kitschy absurdist winks to the audience when he begins to wail about Project Armageddon, the failed American attempt to plant nuclear weapons on the comet. A pop-savvy intertextual journey ensues as we are transported from the future to the past and back and forth again, oh-so-close and yet still not quite able to see where the twists in this whopper of tall tale are going to land. When the dust finally settles, viewers will no doubt find that FISH STORY’s most satisfying achievement is its playful defiance of even the sharpest movie-goer’s intuition. Eat your heart out, M. Night. (Carrie Matherly)

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screenings titltitleHardE Revenge Milly: bloody battle Date,Sep 25 TIME3:45 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. Takanori Tsujimoto, Japan, 45 min., Language: Japanese SepDate, 28 11:35TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY Tsujimoto), perhaps the most aggressively proud and strong homosexual lead in In a near-future post-apocalyptic bombed-out shell of Japan, lawless gangs roam the history of exploitation cinema. Spouting lines like “if you were not my brother, I the outskirts of the city, raping and pillaging with impunity. Milly, left for dead would show you the ecstacy of ,” Kazuki chews up every inch scene by a particularly vicious gang, literally picks up the (her) pieces, bonds them with and is a perfect counterbalance to Milly’s stoicism. (Tim League) some truly inventive bio-weaponry and takes bloody revenge, one lowlife at a time.

FULL Description Milly (Miki Mizuno, CARVED) and her husband and child are driving out of the city in the family sedan without a care in the world. Without warning, the Jack Brothers, a wild-eyed maniacal gang of thugs, rape her, kill her husband and ignite her baby before her eyes for no other reason than cheap thrills. Milly, broken and left for dead, literally picks up the (her) pieces, bonds them with some truly inventive bio-weaponry and starts to take bloody revenge one lowlife at a time. She has mastered the martial arts, including the use of a particularly lethal retractable samurai sword, gun-chucks and a 12-gauge implanted femur canon.

With the first of many, many dismemberments, we immediately notice the signature effects work of the new king of Japanese Gore, Yoshi Nishimura (, VAMPIRE GIRL VS. GIRL). In Nishimura's world, the Japanese must have nylon fiber cardiovascular systems. There's simply no other explanation for the geyser-like pressure of his ubiquitous arterial blood spray.

Picking up soon after the first installment, HARD REVENGE MILLY: BLOODY BATTLE finds our hero recruited by a young woman named Haru to take revenge on her behalf. Haru's boyfriend has been brutally murdered and nobody but Milly has the skills and the arsenal to take on the killers. This quest finds Milly toe to toe with close partners of the Jack Brothers who are equally anxious to exact their own revenge on Milly. My personal favorite delight in BLOODY BATTLE is Ikki (Kazuki

52 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com XXXguests in attendance guests in attendance xxxXXX XXX

screenings TtitleHoitleuse of the Devil Date,Sep 27 TIME9:30 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. , United States, 93 min., Language: English SepDate, 28 6:45TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY House of the Devil is an occult shocker that is not only set in the 1980s, but invokes horror films from that era. In Ti West's latest film, a simple babysitting job turns into a long night of terror for a college student.

FULL Description Ti West's House of the Devil is an occult shocker that is not only set in the 1980s, but invokes horror films from that era. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is ready Plays with to move out of her college dorm and away from her partying roommate. She finds the perfect apartment near school. The landlady (Dee Wallace) is willing to let her pathos have the place if she can come up with a month's rent by the following Monday. 2009, Italy, dir. Dennis Cabella, Marcello Ercole, Fabio Prati , 17 min With the help of her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig), Samantha lands a temporary babysitter job with Mr. and Mrs. Ulman (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov). Once The future isn't what it was cracked up to be, and this vision of Samantha arrives at the Ulmans' big creaky house in the middle of nowhere, she tomorrow may have you unplugging your Ipod and throwing your is told that the job is slightly different than the one that was advertised. Samantha cell phone out the window. takes the job anyway, but after the Ulmans leave for the evening, she comes to regret her decision to stay.

House of the Devil nails the time period, including the clothes, the feathered haircuts and the pop and rock tunes. It also embraces a style of film-making that was more often seen in the 1980s. Current horror films tend to get by with a lot of fast cuts, quick jolts, and loud music. In contrast, West dials back the speed and places an emphasis on suspense. House of the Devil follows a well-defined arch that unfolds at a deliberate pace over the length of its running time. The film uses wide shots, long takes, slow zooms and slow cutting to squeeze as much tension as possible from the scenario. By holding back for so long, the film's explosive third act has that much more impact. House of the Devil weaves together elements of old-school horror in a way that is both familiar and fresh. (Rodney Perkins)

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 53 XXXguests in attendance guests in attendance xxxXXX XXX

screenings titlThe EHuman Centipede Date,Sep 26 TIME11:59PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Tom Six, , 90 min., Language: English/German/Japanese SepDate, 30 11:55TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY aspects of the film are absolutely unconventional. The HUMAN CENTIPEDE Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), a leering, sepulchral surgeon from whose signals its orifice-splicing intent early on, and doesn't hide where it’s headed. Every specialty is separating Siamese twins, evolves his craft by sewing together living ounce of disgusting potential is squeezed out of the scenario through a mix of direct beings together at the "mucous-cutaneous zone" (guess) in order to create Siamese and implied approaches. HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) delivers triplets with a single digestive system. exactly what it promises, and then some. (Rodney Perkins)

FULL Description Tom Six's The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is an insane biological horror film that enthusiastically explores territory that few filmmakers dare to tread. In The Human Centipede, Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser) is a leering, sepulchral surgeon from Germany whose specialty is separating Siamese twins. Dr. Heiter decides to evolve his craft by sewing together living beings together at the "mucous-cutaneous zone" (guess) in order to create Siamese triplets with a single digestive system. After his experiment in creating a three-segment rottweiler ("a beautiful three-hound construction") fails, Dr. Heiter tries again, shifting his attention to humans. First, a trucker is stolen away while relieving himself on the side of the road, Next, two clueless party girls who come knocking on Dr. Heiter's door after getting lost in the German forest get pulled into the experiment. After erasing the trucker from the picture, the doctor finds another victim: a crazed Japanese man wandering around Germany. The doctor concludes the initial phase of his experiment by splicing together the two girls and the Japanese man. At this stage, the film really goes berserk as Dr. Heiter attempts to impose his personal brand of order and discipline on an increasingly out-of-control situation.

In some ways, HUMAN CENTIPEDE adheres to what audiences have come to expect from horror movies. The lunatic doctor playing God is a long-standing horror , and the plot seems to deliberately play with a number of genre conventions. However, as might be obvious from the subject matter, most other

54 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings Journey to Saturn Date,Sep 24 TIME11:59 PM Location NorthTitle American Premiere, 2008, dir. Craig Frank, Kresten Vestbjerg Anderson, Thorbjørn Christoffersen, Denmark, 90Description min., Language: Danish Sep 27 11:59 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY prove that Journey to Saturn is not your average Danes-in-space movie, and Denmark sends a team of astronauts to Saturn and start an intergalactic war in the beyond all that, it’s also a wonderfully goofy of films and '50s process in this rude and crude CG-animated comedy from the directors of TERKEL sci-fi (imagine an R-rated episode of Futurama in Danish and you’ll get an idea IN TROUBLE. of what we’re talking about) with that is as unsophisticated as it’s subject matter and is all the better for it. Definitely do not take the kids to FULL Description this one, but order a lot of beer and have a real good time on your Journey to Ever since TOY STORY graced the screen in 1995, the miracle of computer animation Saturn at Fantastic Fest! (Matt Kiernan) has given audiences around the world numerous sights to behold, but none as beautiful, graceful and majestic as the one to be found in Kresten Vestbjerg Andersen, Plays with Thorbjørn Christoffersen and Craig Frank’s Journey to Saturn: film history’s first-ever floating piss bubble. Granted, you may think that since you’ve seen Adventure Now numerous floating piss bubbles in your everyday life that such a thing would not 2009, United States, dir. Seth Worley , 7 min impress in a CGI animated epic, but trust us when we say that you’ve never seen a Two men run from an unseen force and end up in a massive field of piss bubble looking quite as regal as the one in Journey to Saturn. It truly is a land mines. Survival is nearly impossible… sight to behold.

If Journey to Saturn were merely about floating piss bubbles then we’d still play it in a heartbeat, but it’s also a clever and hilarious of both science fiction and contemporary Danish society, which, as we all know, is one giant sitting target just waiting to get what’s coming to it. Like Terkel in Trouble, the equally hilarious 2004 film made by the same directors,J ourney to Saturn is rude and crude and out to offend as many people as possible, but Saturn’s sociopolitical edge, skewering every part of Danish society it can possibly get its hands on, gives this goofy gross-out cartoon much more of an edge than the piss bubble would lead you to believe. Anyone who saw our Danish sidebar at Fantastic Fest 2008 will note that the Danes are an unusually self-reflective society, but you wouldn’t expect that a CG-animated film with alien rectal probes, tons of space vomit and the aforementioned piss bubble would be as smart as it is funny. This only goes to

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 55 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlK-20:E THE FIEND WITH 20 FACES Date,Sep 26 TIME12:45 PM Location DescriptionAustin Premiere, 2008, dir. Shimako Sato, Japan, 137 min., Language: Japanese SepDate, 30 3:15TIME PM Location

A big budget, high energy, -oriented take on the American masked- crimefighter genre, K-20 starts off with a character from the works of legendary BRIEF SUMMARY author Edogawa Rampo and turns it in to large scale populist entertainment. The fearsome Fiend With 20 Faces – a master of disguise and thief without peer Takeshi Kaneshiro makes for a dashing hero, one reliant on natural acrobatic skills – is terrorizing the wealthy of Teito, striking at will and taking whatever strikes and an array of clever gadgets rather than on any supernatural abilities to best his his fancy. But the police net is tightening and to escape the fiend frames a young foes, his intelligence at least as important as his strength. The tone is light, the action acrobat to take the fall, leaving the young man no choice but to take on the Fiend's brisk, the retro-futurist look matched by an approach to comedy and romance identity and challenge the villain directly. that owes more to the 1940s in which it is set than to the age and technology that makes that setting possible. In a time when American hero movies are becoming FULL Description increasingly grim and bleak, K-20 serves as a candy-coated remedy. (Todd Brown) Tokyo is under attack! Not by the military; no, peace treaties signed with the US and UK have assured it of peace for the foreseeable future. And no, not from Plays with giant monsters, either. This just isn't that sort of movie. No, Tokyo is besieged by a fearsome master criminal, the unstoppable thief known only as The Fiend With virtual dating Twenty Faces. Under normal circumstances the poor lower classes would happily 2009, Belgium, dir. Katia Olivier , 16 min side with someone who preyed upon the oppressive rich but when the dastardly Fiend frames one of their own, one small community rises up to train the wrongfully Fed up with the dating scene, a young woman purchases a robotic accused until he can become a worthy adversary for the Fiend, worthy enough to mate and discovers that technology may not be the answer. succeed in bringing the master criminal down to clear his own name.

Set in an alternate past in which World War II never happened, Tokyo has been renamed Teito, and technology followed the path of Tesla rather than Edison and Japan clung to a slightly modernized form of the classical caste system, K-20 stars Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers) as Heikichi Endo, a talented but overlooked acrobat framed for the crimes committed by the Fiend. Forced to live a life on the run from the law, Heikichi is left with no choice but to channel his skills towards justice rather than entertainment. To catch the Fiend, he must effectively become the Fiend himself…

56 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings Ttheitle Kaifeck Murder Date,Sep 29 TIME9:00 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. Esther Gronenborn, Germany, 86 min., Language: Germany Oct 1 1:20 PM

Equal parts supernatural and murder mystery, The Kaifeck Murder is a pitch perfect fusion of the two , a slow-building masterpiece of atmosphere BRIEF SUMMARY and dread. Anchored by stellar performances from Furmann and female lead Marc appears to be having a breakdown, the stern man now plagued by visions and Alexandra Maria Lara (Downfall, Control), director Esther Gronenborn prone to walking in his sleep, a situation that set in when he arrived in the village crafts one impeccable piece of work, pitching the film to perfectly match Marc's of Kaifeck with his young son. But could there be truth to Marc's visions? And is mental state as he slowly loses control and -- doubting his own grip on reality- - history about to repeat? slides into paranoia. Represented internationally by the same company that brought Let the Right One In to the masses, The Kaifeck Murder succeeds for all FULL Description the same reasons. This is beautifully crafted, emotionally compelling stuff. Quite A stern and driven man, Marc (Benno Furmann, Jerichow) has chosen to use his simply one of the best films of the year. (Todd Brown) latest photography assignment as a way of getting to know Tyll - the son he barely sees since divorcing his mother. But despite Marc's best intentions, things aren't Plays with going so well. He has no clue how to relate to the boy, snapping at him when Tyll touches his expensive equipment, while the boy simply slides deeper and deeper breed into boredom. The trip is on the verge of becoming an unmitigated disaster until the 2008, United States, dir. Antonio Trashorras Serrano , 21 min pair stumble across the remote village of Kaifeck, a township celebrating an obscure A woman's distrust of men manifests in a fear of her son's possible after-Christmas rite in which the residents dress up as monsters to scare away the supernatural leanings. local demons. Kaifeck seems a godsend to the pair. It is exactly the sort of thing Marc is meant to be photographing and Tyll finally has a break from the monotony of the road. And the guest house where they stay is hosted by a beautiful young woman who is clearly interested in Marc. Could things get any better? Well, yes, frankly but it would be hard for them to get much worse. Marc is soon plagued by visions of a family brutally murdered in their own home -- a farmstead just outside of town -- a generation previously. He wakes in the morning more exhausted than when he went to sleep, covered in mud and fully clothed. The interesting rock that Tyll finds turns out to be a fragment of human skull. And the hostility of the locals is slowly but undeniably growing towards this intruder in their midst. What happened here? What is Marc's connection to it? And could it all be happening again?

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 57 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlKamEogawa Horumo Date,Sep 25 TIME12:50 PM Location DescriptionTexas Premiere, 2009, dir. Katsuhide Motoki, Japan, 113 min., Language: Japanese OctDate, 1 10:00TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY Go into this movie cold. Have no expectations. Don’t watch the second spoileriffic A group of freshmen at Kyoto University join the Azure Dragon, a perfectly trailer. Don’t ask questions or do Wikipedia searches on KAMOGAWA HORUMÔ. ordinary social group, nothing unusual about it. But when the club meetings runs As former Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams would say, “just sit back late into the evening, the beer starts flowing and the trousers start to come off, and enjoy it.” I present to you all a tasty Japanese confection drizzled in bat-shit something distinctly out-of-the-ordinary happens. crazy syrup. Yum. (Tim League)

FULL Description All images © 2009 Kamogawa HORUMO Film Partners. I was first drawn to KAMOGAWA HORUMÔ by the presence of Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, one of my favorite character actors from Japan. He most recently stole the show as the horror-obsessed love-smitten nerd from FINE TOTALLY FINE. He’s Plays with got something of a “funny looking guy” charm about him that makes me instantly warm towards his characters. The story opens at Kyoto University. Terminus The freshman class is getting their bearings, making friends and deciding on extra 2008, Canada, dir. Trevor Cawood , 8 min curricular activities. Yoshiyoshi is a recruiter for the “Order of the Azure Dragons” Everyone has problems. Some people's problems just happen to be club, a seemingly innocuous university social club, “a regular group, the kind you enormous dancing concrete robots. might find absolutely anywhere.” Our small group of protagonists decide to join up - the beer at the parties is plentiful, there are cute girls, and the seniors seem like pleasant patriotic stand-up guys.

My description ends here.

I really don’t want to talk about what happens after the forty-two minute mark, immediately after all the senior Azure Dragons strip down buck-naked and begin to dance. Suffice it to say that I personally programmed this film because it delivers the weird out-of-left-field insanity that can only come from Japan. You are just going to have to trust me and watch this sucker unfold.

58 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TKitleenny Begins Date,Sep 27 TIME11:00 AM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Carl Astrand and Mats Lindberg, , 88 min., Language: Swedish Sep 30 9:00 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY and Miranda in an ultimate quest for power! A Swedish sci-fi comedy about a moronic Galaxy Hero in training (Kenny Starfighter) and his quest to avoid becoming a hairdresser in the family business. The prequel for the 1997 Swedish mini-series, Kenny Starfighter, KENNY BEGINS is Kenny has the charm and attitude of in Dumb and Dumber, the a ridiculously silly science-fiction comedy that will have you confused and giggling mullet of MacGyver, and nonsensical catchphrases that you’ll be repeating for days! for the entire film. Kenny, played by Swedish actor Johan Rheborg, has the charm A Swedish Spaceballs for the ages, this is not to be missed for anyone who loves and attitude of Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber, the mullet of MacGyver, and fun! nonsensical catchphrases that will have you screaming “Ischlo Pischlo!” or “Wollie Bollie!” without any regard to what it means. A Swedish Spaceballs for the ages, FULL Description KENNY BEGINS is definitely not to be missed for any fan of science-fiction, cheesy Kenny Starfighter: Galaxy Hero! Well, Galaxy Hero in training…for years…and superhero movies, or really, humor in general. ISCHLO PISCHLO! (Caitlin Stevens) years…Kenny could easily be described as the worst student to ever enter the halls of the Hero Academy. In a desperate attempt to escape the family business (a family Plays with of hairdressers, all with flowing, natural mullets), Kenny embarks on a high-speed chase through a black hole. It spits him out near Earth where he crash lands into the marisa home of Pontus, a 15-year-old Swedish boy who, coincidentally, had just found a 2009, Spain, dir. , 4 min mysterious, glowing crystal that gave him super-strength, perfect eyesight, and the end to his days of being bullied. While Pontus tries to unsuccessfully woo Miranda, Deep mysteries open up in the world of an average woman. More the smartest, prettiest girl in school, Kenny enlists the help of the two teens to try to impossibilities from the mind of FF's favorite Spaniard! return to his home planet and finally graduate as a Galaxy Hero!

Unfortunately, there has to be a bad guy to Kenny’s charmingly stupid, good guy persona. That man is Rutger Oversmart! The smartest man in the universe (who also happens to own a franchise of frozen ice pops)! Oversmart has been searching for the crystal to take its power for himself to become the all-powerful ruler of the galaxy, but once he discovers that a young boy from Earth has absorbed all the powers, he is determined to take him down. By hiring a team of galactic assassins cleverly named Earth, Wind and Fire, Oversmart wrecks havoc on Kenny, Pontus

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 59 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlKrabatE Date,Sep 25 TIME3:30 PM Location DescriptionTexas Premiere, 2008, dir. Marco Kreuzpaintner, Germany, 120 min., Language: German SepDate, 27 1:45TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY Krabat is the sort of film that reminds us that children’s stories do not necessarily What price is attached to power? This is the lesson that Krabat must learn while need to be safe, easy or pretty. It throws us back to an age that recognized fantasy apprenticed to a grim Lord training a select group of other orphans in the dark arts can be dark and ominous as easily - perhaps even more easily - than beautiful of black magic. But magic leaves no room for love and a beautiful village girl has and good. It comes from a world where morals are secondary to survival and caught Krabat's eye… young people are stranded, simply left alone to muddle their own way through. Krabat is, in other words, all the dark impulses of the Grimm fairy tales sprung FULL Description to sumptuous life, a stark contrast to the Harry Potters of the world. (Todd Brown) It is the middle of the 1600’s and Europe has been decimated by the twin horrors of the Thirty Years War and the arrival of the plague. Krabat, a fourteen-year-old orphan, scratches out a squalid life with a pair of younger, weaker companions. Life Plays with is grim, verging on hopeless with a better than average chance that Krabat will not live out the harsh winter. But change comes from an unexpected source: his dreams. Rite Over and over again Krabat dreams of ravens, eleven of them, calling him to join 2009, United States, dir. Alicia Conway , 9 min them and become the twelfth. When the ravens deliver a specific location and the Blossoming to adulthood sure ain't no picnic. A dreamish, jarring promise of food that is all the word Krabat needs. He abandons his friends to the vision of growing up. cold, hungry night and sets off to save himself.

What he finds is the Mill. Lorded over by a cruel Master the apprentices here learn more than milling and Krabat is initiated into a secret brotherhood of sorcerers. After a life of hardship the black arts are enticingly powerful stuff. They learn spells for strength, to separate soul from body, to strike down enemies from a distance and – yes – to transform into ravens. The power is entrancing and Krabat throws himself into the work. But it is always clear all is not well in the Mill. There is an air of uneasiness to the place. Discipline is hard and violent. And, as the eldest apprentice cautions him, nothing comes without a price. Once that price becomes clear, Krabat is entrenched too deeply to be able to simply flee…

60 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance guests in attendance XXX XXX

screenings Titlehe Legend is Alive Date,Sep 25 TIME12:35 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Huynh Luu Luu, Vietnam, 95 min., Language: Vietnamese Sep 27 1:30 PM

Kwan Do, Kali knife fighting, Escrima and Jeet Kune Do, and he lets it all rip in The Legend is Alive. Even more amazing is how the stunted mental state of BRIEF SUMMARY his character translates through even in the punishing fight scenes. Subtle hand Dustin Nguyen (The Rebel) plays a mentally challenged martial arts expert who positions, facial gestures and posture are all a part of his martial arts character is hell-bent on breaking every dirtbag face, back and flower pot that stands in the acting technique. In the states, when a star takes on the role of a mentally disabled way of saving a young girl from the clutches of a human-trafficking gang. person, Oscars rain down from the sky. This must be one of those universal truths, because The Legend is Alive just took down five Golden Kites Awards (the FULL Description Vietnamese Oscar equivalent) including Best Actor (Dustin Nguyen), Best Director Back in 2006, we were very big fans of The Rebel. With a higher budget than (Luu Huynh), Best Cinematography, Best Score and Best Picture. (Tim League) we had seen previously with Vietnamese action films, a great cast (including 21 Jump Street veteran Dustin Nguyen), a great story and lush cinematography, we were all hoping that this would signal an emerging Asian action powerhouse. Flash Plays with forward a couple of years and that promise seems to be coming to fruition. Dustin Nguyen has his directorial debut Monk on Fire ready to begin production, the stars don't twinkle in and Rebel stars Johnny Nguyen and Veronica are set to roll on The Clash. Meanwhile, Nguyen is back in front of the camera as a mentally challenged young outer space man who might not have much book learning, but certainly excelled in his kung 2008, United Kingdom, dir. Peter Thwaites , 10 min fu stances. Exposed to agent orange when he was an infant, he stopped mentally Two children are trapped in an unknown world…will they be able to developing when he was ten years old, at which time he was kicked out of formal escape? school and underwent an eight year home-school education in one subject: kicking ass.

When his mother dies, he is all alone in the world and decides to return his mothers ashes to America, not fully grasping that he can’t just walk and take a bus there. Along the way he meets a kindly girl who is unwittingly riding towards a world of pain, torture and humiliation in the hands of a Saigon human trafficking gang. What follows for the next hour is Dustin Nguyen breaking every dirtbag face, back and flower pot that stands in the way of saving his one and only friend in the world.

Nguyen is a master of multiple martial arts styles including Muay Thai, Tae

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 61 XXXguests in attendance guests in attendance xxxXXX XXX

screenings titlTLoitleveE Exposure Date,Sep 27 TIME2:00 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. , Japan, 237 min., Language: Japanese SepDate, 28 1:45TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY and a testament to the healing power of love, so it's unquestionably ambitious in A devoutly religious young man masters the art of upskirt photography in an effort ways that most movies would never dream of. This is a wild and alive film, heartfelt to save his father's soul, and meets his true love in the process in this new four hour but also giddy insane and reckless; all over the map but also surprisingly restrained. long epic from Sion Sono, director of SUICIDE CLUB. It’s densely packed, but not jammed with so many ideas that it confuses or alienates its audience, and it’s so audacious in what it sets out to accomplish and how it does FULL Description it that by film’s end you’re convinced that you’ve seen a work of geek art of the Winner - FIPRESCI Prize; Caligari Film Award, 2009 Berlin Film Festival- highest order; trust me when we tell you that you are in no way wrong. Four hours Winner – Grand Jury Prize, 2009 New York Asian Film Festival or not, we need more movies like Love Exposure. (Matt Kiernan) Taking the time out to view a 4-hour movie certainly requires a real commitment beyond that of time, because it also requires you to psych yourself up, to prep for taking in four hours of story, characterization, themes and ideas that could prove an overload by film’s end. Heaven forbid that the film itself sucks, too, because on top of everything you’re going to feel like it’s been time wasted watching “that” other than wasting your time doing something else. But when films reach a truly epic length one often feels that it’s almost a safe bet, because, despite the time, if a filmmaker is going to spend four hours (or more, if possible) telling a story, then that story must truly be something special. That is unquestionably the case with Sion Sono’s Love Exposure, a picture that could quite possibly become the reigning film classic of 2009.

This is a picture with a hell of a lot going on, and a lot on both its heart and mind, that it packs in so damn much and does it with admirable heart and drive that you just want to set up your own distribution company just to make sure this puppy gets seen by as many people as possible.

What is particularly estimable about Love Exposure is how it very successfully jumps around genres for those four hours but never loses its focus. Love Exposure is equal parts silly comedy, violent revenge fantasy, meditation on religious beliefs

62 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance guests in attendance XXX XXX

screenings TtitleMitleacabre Date,Sep 24 TIME10:00 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. The Mo Brothers, Indonesia, 95 min., Language: Indonesian SepDate, 29 11:40TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY After embarking on a roadtrip, six friends stop to pick up a girl who has just been Though the premise feels as though it could veer into torture-porn territory, the robbed and return her to her home at the end of an isolated forest. Their act of Mo's play it much more like the 80's had never left us, each kill and jump and kindness ends up being repaid by a night of unspeakable horror and butchery. dismemberment designed much more to elicit squeals than squirms. And with a body count like this film boasts there are squeals o'plenty. (Todd Brown) FULL Description God bless the creators of Macabre. Really. Because divine intervention is the only way this blood drenched slasher will ever clear Indonesian censors to be seen by audiences in their home country. Enormously bloody, Macabre is a love letter from its creators—the ultra-talented Mo Brothers—to every they ever saw growing up and it hits a sweet spot between east and west seldom, if ever, explored.

A feature length expansion of the hugely acclaimed Dara, Macabre boasts a classic premise that quickly devolves into deranged violence. A group of friends traveling from a remote part of the country back to the big city stops to help a young woman who claims to have been assaulted and robbed, eventually agreeing to drive her back home because the horn-dog among their group sees the opportunity to get a little action. And, oh, there's definitely action waiting for them but not the sort anticipated…

You see, the whole thing is a set up. The girl was not robbed or harmed in any way. She's bait. A lure meant to bring unsuspecting travelers back to the rest of her family, a bizarre lot that has seemingly been alive for hundreds of years fueled by a bizarre mixture of the occult and cannibalism. The friends? They'll either be dinner or butchered and shipped to like-minded souls around the country. It makes no difference which.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 63 screenings TMitleandrill Date,Sep 27 TIME7:15 PM Location DescriptionWorld Premiere, 2009, dir. Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Chile, 90 min., Language: Spanish Sep 28 4:15 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY The dynamic duo of Chile, Marko Zaror and Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, are returning to Austin with the World Premiere of their new action thriller MANDRILL. Marko Zaror plays MANDRILL, a young hitman who will not relent until he has exacted bloody revenge on the man who killed his mother many years ago.

FULL Description Marko and Ernesto were at Fantastic Fest 2007 with KILTRO and MIRAGEMAN. MIRAGEMAN ended up capturing the audience award best feature and Marko ended up capturing the hearts of most of the female audience members in attendance. A natural born leading man, Marko is given a meaty, robust role as the secret agent Mandrill. As in MIRAGEMAN, he has ample opportunity to showcase his wire-free martial arts skills, but this time you will also get a glimpse of his lovemaking prowess as well as his none-too-shabby disco dancing techniques.

Tall, dark, handsome, and this time around, quite suave, Marko Zaror is a Hollywood action legend in the making. Check out the world-premiere screening of Mandrill at Fantastic Fest 2009 and you will be in the elite group who can say, "I knew him when…" (Tim League)

64 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TMitleerantau Date,Sep 24 TIME7:00 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Gareth Evans, Indonesia, 107 min., Language: Indonesian Oct 1 1:45 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY Indonesia’s first in roughly fifteen years and quite possibly the first to ever feature a serious treatment of local martial art silat.

FULL Description Life is simple for a young man in rural Sumatra - Yuda's days spent in the fields tending the crops, his evenings training in the traditional martial art of silat. But the time comes for Yuda – as it does for every young man in this part of the world – when he must leave his comfortable life and undergo merantau, a traditional rite of passage in which youth must fend for themselves in the big city with no supports from home. And so Yuda must pack his bag and head off to Jakarta.

And Jakarta could not be more different – or more difficult – than the life he has left behind. The home Yuda was to stay in has been demolished, forcing him to squat in a nearby construction site. There is no work to be found. And when a young boy tries to steal Yuda's wallet he is plunged into a violent world of human trafficking where his martial arts skills are tested in a rapidly escalating of violence.

Once a proud exporter of martial arts films, Indonesia has been entirely absent from the world action stage for more than fifteen years and has not produced a significant action star since Barry Prima was in his prime twenty five years ago. That streak comes to a spectacular end with Merantau and star . Uwais is a star in the making, a young man trained in silat since childhood who was driving a truck for a telecom company when discovered by director Gareth Evans. He proves a natural as an actor and a hugely charismatic fighter, performing all of his own fights and all of his own stunts himself, often in jaw-dropping fashion. To the best of our knowledge Merantau is the world's first silat film. It certainly will not be the last. (Todd Brown)

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 65 guests in attendance XXX

screenings titleMetropia Date,Sep 26 TIME6:45 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Tarik Saleh, Sweden, 80 min., Language: English SepDate, 28 6:30TIME PM Location

and—with Roger's help—Nina will bring it all down, Roger proving his worth to BRIEF SUMMARY her in the process. What if the global oil shortage were to force civilization underground? What if the subway system were expanded to connect all the major cities of Europe? What if the Set in a disturbingly familiar near-future, Tarik Saleh's Metropia blends the grey, voices in your head were real and The Powers That Be using transmitters hidden in surreal absurdity of vintage Kafka with cutting edge digital animation to create shampoo to monitor your every word and action? It's only paranoia if it's not true… something truly striking and unique. Saleh's vision of an oppressively consumerist future places him in the company of Orwell, Huxley and Bradbury, his technique FULL Description immediately establishing him as one of the most striking and unique voices in Roger is, to put it kindly, statistically average. He is boring. He is bland. He works in global animation. Cartoons ain't just for kids any more. (Todd Brown) a call center. His sex life is stagnant. The only thing at all notable about Roger is the borderline paranoia that drives him to flout the norms and ride his bicycle above ground through the largely deserted city rather than use the massive underground Plays with train system that now links all of Europe. That and the fact that he hears voices in his head. The voices would be remarkable, sure, if not for the fact that they are every attack of the robots from bit as boring as he is. nebula 5 And then he meets Nina. 2008, Spain, dir. Chema García Ibarra , 6 min Almost everybody is going to die very soon. Gorgeous. Alluring. Mysterious. Roger has loved Nina from the day she first appeared on his television screen telling him to buy shampoo. Shampoo he doesn't need because his head is shaved but shampoo which he buys anyway because she tells him to and he loves her. And then, one day, there she is standing next to him in real life. And what Nina tells Roger will change his life forever.

Soon Roger is drawn into a conspiracy the scale of which he could never have imagined. The voice in his head, it turns out, is real and belongs to a man who uses tiny transmitters embedded in Roger's unnecessary shampoo to tap into his senses and monitor his behavior to ensure he remains a hungry consumer of goods and services. Nina is the daughter of the business magnate behind the whole thing

66 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TMoitlerphine Date,Sep 26 TIME1:50 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Aleksey Balabanov, Russia, 110 min., Language: Russian Sep 28 1:30 PM

forced to contend simultaneously with the reality of impending national revolution and the extent of his own degeneration. BRIEF SUMMARY A vastly inexperienced rural doctor develops an unquenchable thirst for the A morbid spectacle of human frailties both physical and psychological, morphine in the hospital medicine supply room. Morphine is another dark MORPHINE’s narrative unfolds with an almost clinical detachment against a tale from Aleksey Balabanov, director of last year's Fantastic Fest critical sensation backdrop of quietly stunning visuals. Gruesome scenes featuring amputation, CARGO 200. child-birth and tracheotomies (procedures which Balabanov claims were actually performed on real patients using a licensed physician) stand in stark contrast to FULL Description bucolic images of the snow-blanketed Russian countryside and richly furnished Loosely based on the memoirs of the celebrated Russian novelist and one-time parlours lined with gleaming samovars and vodka decanters. Although Balabanov physician Mikhail Bulgakov, MORPHINE is a meticulously structured exploration himself insists that his latest outing stands apart from his other works, devotees of a young country doctor’s descent into addiction on the eve of the Bolshevik may enjoy hints of the nostalgic seen in 1998’s OF FREAKS AND MEN revolution. Shot on location in the pastoral landscapes of the Tvar Oblast region and resonance with the political themes of last year’s Fantastic Fest fave CARGO north of Moscow, the cinematography and production design of director Aleksey 200. (Carrie Matherly) Balabanov’s latest film are as alluring as the story is bleak. Plays with Despite his youth and inexperience, Dr. Mikhail Polyakov’s (Leonid Bichevin) arrival in the village of N. in the fall of 1917 is heralded with relief by the townspeople, who danse macabre have suffered through a difficult year without a physician. Inheriting a skeleton staff 2009, Canada, dir. PEDRO PIRES , 9 min of two nurses and a paramedic from his mysterious, absent predecessor, Polyakov For a period of time, while we believe it to be perfectly still, lifeless is quickly confronted with a litany of patients experiencing serious ailments. The flesh responds, stirs and contorts in a final macabre ballet. Are these one apparent blessing he discovers in his tour of the facilities – a well-stocked spasms merely pharmacy – soon proves to be quite the opposite. Within hours of his arrival, erratic motions Polyakov’s admirable efforts to save a man dying of diphtheria leave the doctor or do they echo himself in need of a vaccination and a fateful shot of morphine. Over the course the chaotic of the winter, stress, isolation and perhaps even boredom lead him into a tangle twists and of vice that includes regular drug abuse, dalliances with patients and a doomed turns of a past affair with the attractive nurse Anna (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) who later shares life? his addiction. His escalating acts of medical malfeasance and growing inability to conceal his habit finally lead Polyakov to seek treatment in Moscow, where he is

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 67 guests in attendance Director James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA)

screenings titleNinja Assassin Date,Sep 29 TIME6:30 PM Location DescriptionSneak Preview, 2009, dir. James McTeigue, United States, 99 min., Language: English Date, TIME Location

BRIEF SUMMARY Raizo is one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth.

FULL Description Raizo is one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them…and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge. In Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti has stumbled upon a money trail linking several political murders to an underground network of untraceable assassins from the Far East. Defying the orders of her superior, Ryan Maslow, Mika digs into top secret agency files to learn the truth behind the murders. Her investigation makes her a target, and the Ozunu Clan sends a team of killers, led by the lethal Takeshi, to silence her forever. Raizo saves Mika from her , but he knows that the Clan will not rest until they are both eliminated. Now, entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the streets of Europe, Raizo and Mika must trust one another if they hope to survive…and finally bring down the elusive Ozunu Clan.

68 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TPitlearanormal Activity Date,Sep 24 TIME11:59 PM Location DescriptionSneak Preview, 2009, dir. Oren Peli, United States, 99 min., Language: English

BRIEF SUMMARY Over the course of three weeks in September and October of 2006, a couple ran "PARANORMAL ACTIVITY managed to do something that almost no other nightly surveillance and captured indelible proof on of a paranormal haunted house movie in the past 25 years has managed to do: actually be scary." phenomenon. This footage has been edited into the feature film PARANORMAL - Bloody-Disgusting ACTIVITY. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is a terrifying supernatural thriller featuring shocking FULL Description footage of a demonic haunting. Katie and Micah were enjoying a happy, carefree "PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is one of the scariest movies of all-time. YOU WILL BE life. Their future looked promising until bizarre events began occurring at night. AFFECTED as it’s hard to ignore the imprint it leaves on your psyche. Nightmares Katie was no stranger to paranormal phenomena – she had been stalked by a are guaranteed." - - Bloody Disgusting malevolent entity since childhood, and she feared that it had followed her to their new home. They purchased a video camera to find out what was happening at "PARANORMAL ACTIVITY succeeds with flying colors. It’s a brutal, exhausting, night as they slept. and genuinely horrifying little ghost flick that really makes me rethink my stance on horror films altogether.." - Felix Vasquez, Film Threat Over the course of three weeks in September and October of 2006, they ran nightly surveillance and captured indelible proof on home video, which has been edited "it sufficiently freaked out those of us who watched [it]…. that I ended up asking into the feature film PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. a coworker to crash in my room for the night because I was afraid I wouldn' t be able to get to sleep alone. It's surprising how creepy and realistic the film is" - Kim Voynar, Cinematical

"Simply put, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is the most frightening of the year." - Dread Central

"Best in fest is PARANORMAL ACTIVITY…it's the scariest movie of the year." - Luke Thompson, LA Weekly

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 69 guests in attendance Director Dae-Min Park

screenings titlePrivate Eye Date,Sep 29 TIME1:10 PM Location DescriptionTexas Premiere, 2009, dir. Dae-Min Park, South Korea, 111 min., Language: Korean SepDate, 30 6:30TIME PM Location

the final curtain drops. And a cherry on top, there's even a Korean "Q" equivalent, ready to dispense just the right turn-of-the-century crime-fighting gadgetry for BRIEF SUMMARY every predicament. A medical student in 1910 Korea discovers a corpse in the woods and secretly takes it for dissection practice. When he discovers that the body is the son of the city's Dae Min Park's debut feature is a wildly entertaining whodunnit that can stand toe most powerful gangster he enlists the help of a shady private detective to find the to toe with Hercule Poirot or any day. Korean Audiences agree: killer before the murder is pinned on him. Private Eye was one of the top grossing domestic releases so far in Korea and rumor has it that my new favorite criminal investigation team will be pairing up FULL Description again for a sequel in the near future. Korean popcorn…I'm loving the taste of it! The year is 1910. Korean medical student Gwang Su (Ryu Deok-hwan, Our (Tim League) Town) stumbles upon a corpse in a deserted wood, and in a fit of seriously bad judgement, shuttles the body back to his living quarters to practice his dissection Plays with techniques. When the papers announce that the son of the city's most notorious gangster has gone missing and is feared dead, Gwang Su realizes that he has made the Nail a horrible mistake. The corpse in his basement, now decaying and somewhat 2008, Iceland, dir. Benedikt Erlingsson , 15 min mutilated from his practice sessions, is a virtual death sentence. If anyone finds it, clearly his bloodstained hands will be the ones shackled for the crime. He must find Kicking off your day with a head wound isn't always such a good idea. the real murderer before he takes the blame.

Enter Jin-ho (Jeon-Min Hwang, Black House), a small-time but very street-savvy private investigator. Lured by a hefty cash reward, Jin-ho reluctantly takes the case and a new fast-talking, odd-couple crime-fighting dynamic duo is born. Starting from a scant few clues, a small pack of white powder and a mysterious Japanese "karakuri" doll, our heros unearth a web of intrigue, crime and political corruption that takes them from back-alley opium dens to the center ring of a travelling big-top circus. Every location, lush with minute details, nails the Japanese occupation era of Seoul and sets the perfect backdrop for the mystery that unfolds. (No surprise as they were crafted by the same team who art-directed last year's Fantastic Fest audience award winner The Good, The Bad and The Weird.( Paths cross, plots thickens, political corruption deepens and the story keeps you guessing until

70 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX guests in attendance Director and Star Brendan Fletcher

screenings TRitleampage Date,Sep 27 TIME9:15 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Uwe Boll, Canada, 100 min., Language: English Sep 29 4:15 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY life depended on it." My personal highlight comes about 100 or so fatalities into the Fed up with his dead-end life, Bill constructs a full-body kevlar armor suit and epic bloodbath "rampage." Still in his full-body armor and feeling a bit parched, Bill rampages through the streets of his hometown killing everyone in sight, particularly stops for a refreshing soda and tuna sandwich only to find hundreds of depressed, the barista that failed to make him a proper macchiato. lifeless, death-ready flesh-targets all hunkered over seemingly acres of bingo tables. Boll stumbled upon the bingo parlor during the middle of shooting and wrote it FULL Description into the script, using the actual bingo-mad locals in the scene. First of all, let me clear up any confusion, despite what you may at first assume, Uwe Boll's Rampage is not an adaptation of the classic '80s video game where King The always outspoken Dr. Boll has made a lot of enemies in the film criticism Kong, Godzilla and a giant werewolf run amuck through an 8-bit Illinois destroying community, tossing out rants, insults and actual fisticuffs to his detractors. I for one helicopters, boats, taxis and basically anything in their path. Damn it though, that am here to say that with Rampage, Uwe deserves a fresh look. It's tons of fun, is Rampage really does have to be made! The next best Rampage premise, however, founded on a clever, tight script and delivers all the goods the concept promises. I'm has been adapted to the screen by the good doctor Boll. Fed up with the trials, enjoying Boll's recent departure from the world of videogame adaptations, but if he tribuations and pretentions of society, our antihero Bill constructs a full-body armor does go back, I hope it's for the other Rampage. (Tim League) suit and rampages through the streets of his hometown killing everyone in sight, particularly the barista that failed to make him a proper macchiato.

Employing hand-held camera techniques and a very free-form, loosely-scripted Altman-esque dialogue structure, Boll slowly builds up the layers of Bill's disgruntled, jaded world view. He stereotypically lives in his parents' basement, has a dead-end job at an auto/body repair shop and his sole friend is something of a self-absorbed, arrogant prick. His father, played by Matt Frewer (MAX HEADROOM!!!) is always on his case to find some direction in life; he gets no respect from his boss and the service quality of the local fast-food industry is enough to make a man go ballistic!

Don't let the deliberate pace of the first 45 minutes fool you. Bill has been secretly stockpiling automatic weapons, building remote control tactical explosives and fabricating an iron-man-esque kevlar killing suit. All the assholes in his life are going to pay big time, and that barista will have to make a perfect machiato "as if his

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 71 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titleREC 2 Date,Sep 24 TIME11:59 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, United States, 85 min., Language: English SepDate, 28 11:55TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY The mysterious, rampaging outbreak of [REC] wreaks bloody havoc on the citizens By using the flipped perspective of the camera-equipped troops, Balagueró and of . Plaza have designed a shocker meticulously calculated to set your nerves on edge. [REC] 2 is Aliens to Alien, a sequel that ramps up the action but does not defile FULL Description the spirit of its predecessor. Balagueró and Plaza have proved themselves exciting Warning! If you haven't seen the original [REC], run out and watch it now or suffer additions to the gory canon of Euro-horror masters, and they can't wait to drag the the spoilers that follow! Fantastic Fest audience into the darkness, screaming at the top of their lungs. (Colin Geddes, Toronto Int'l Film Festival) In 2007, directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza teamed up to unleash the genuinely harrowing [REC], a film that simply set out to scare the crap out of the Plays with audience, without any pretensions. The fan favorite quickly spawned the U.S. remake Quarantine, which only proved how innovative the original was. Maquetas 2009, Spain, dir. Carlos Vermut , 3 min [REC] is told through a reporter's camera as she accompanies firefighters on a A heart-wrenching exploration of the unfortunate people who stand routine call and ends up trapped with them in an apartment building infected with strong despite their tragedies. a ferocious virus. Sealed in and desperate, they trace the contagion to the attic, discovering abandoned research on demonic possession. Needless to say, [REC] didn't have a happy ending.

While infectious demonic possession was itself a disturbing premise, the live- television aesthetic of [REC] gave it a level of realism that translated into palpable fear – it was not just a film to be seen, but to be experienced.

Now the duo returns with [REC] 2, which leaps right back into the action as a medical officer and a SWAT team outfitted with video cameras are sent into the sealed-off apartment to control the situation.

72 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings The Revenant Sep 26 11:59 PM Regional Premiere, 2009, dir. Kerry Prior, United States, 118 min., Language: English Oct 1 6:45 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY THE REVENANT is a hilarious, gorey undead flick that absolutely kills!

FULL Description The simple logline would be: Bart dies in Iraq, but then he knocks on his best friend Joey's door having joined those that we know as the Undead. And that would sound like a lame movie. It would seem to indicate that it was a buddy comedy about being Undead. There are those aspects to THE REVENANT, but it is more about figuring out what you are and how you would survive if you "came back". If you discovered you needed human blood to keep from rotting. If you discovered Plays with that bullets and conventional weaponry no longer affected you. If…well there's a lot to discover - and at each stage of discovery, Kerry Prior's movie sucks you Buddy N' Andy further and further in. 2009, United States, dir. Shaun Peterson , 9 min A zany blood-spattered butcher and his roommate the talking steak This is a film in the great tradition of films like NEAR DARK and INNOCENT have wild times. Special appearance by Dave Foley! BLOOD - where they take the premise of being a supernatural being, but apply it to a situation that we know. But there's nobody around to teach these guys the rules. They have to discover what is going on, and sometimes they are severely behind the learning curve.

Once they decide to start killing live humans for Bart's preservation…things really start kicking in high gear and folks…it gets gory, funny, gross and out-fucking- rageous!!! Every 10 minutes this film begins getting cooler than the prior 10, all the way till the end. This is exactly the sort of small bit of awesome that makes me excited about Fantastic Fest. Do not miss it! (Harry Knowles)

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 73 guests in attendance XXX

screenings titlSalvageE Date,Sep 29 TIME1:00 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Lawrence Gough, United Kingdom, 96 min., Language: English OctDate, 1 9:30TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY On Christmas eve in a sleepy Liverpudlian suburb, terror strikes without warning. Paramilitary forces start gunning down the residents, but it's unclear whether they are hunting the citizens or protecting them, and if protecting…from what?

FULL Description "Salvage is not just a cracking thriller. It's one of the most intelligent films about fear I have ever seen." - James Christopher, Chief Film Critic, The London Times

In suburban Liverpool, a nice cul-de-sac in a safe neighborhood where the worst Plays with problems are infidelity, ugly divorces and subsequent familial dysfunction, residents are suddenly shocked by the appearance of black-clad SWAT soldiers big day of fishing wielding heavy artillery. They have surrounded the house of an immigrant family. 2009, United States, dir. Tim Cawley , 9 min The father, a quiet and friendly physician, emerges from the house brandishing a Two old pals spend the morning together on the ocean, one of them knife. To the horror of all, the soldiers gun him down, then herd all the witnesses aware that their friendship is about to end. Hard. into their homes with dire warnings to stay inside. So begins a night of violence, terror and paranoia. It’s unclear if it’s the soldiers themselves who are the threat, or if they are actually protecting the citizenry from something far, far worse.

Making the most of the small budget with sets confined to just a few rooms and a small cast, writer/director Lawrence Gough uses his limitations to good effect, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia and uncertainty where fear and death are potentially lurking behind every familiar corner. The danger is merely glimpsed, hinted at rather than seen, increasing the sense of paranoia and tension. The cast does a wonderful job with the characters, each of which is nicely fleshed out. It’s wonderful to see a low budget film that really nails all aspects of the production, showing that it’s possible to deliver a smart film in which there are alternative paths to genuine scares than giant explosions and CGI effects. (Karrie League)

74 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TSmaitlesh Cut Date,Sep 25 TIME11:59 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. Lee Demarbre, Canada, 90 min., Language: English

In a recent interview with Twitch, Demarbre said, “Herschell Gordon Lewis has BRIEF SUMMARY been my hero since high school. I really wanted to just shoot SMASH CUT exactly When his latest film is panned for its sub-par effects work, veteran how Herschell would shoot SMASH CUT. It's a tribute to his unique vision.” And filmmaker Able Whitman (David Hess, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, HOUSE ON that it is. Demarbre has effectively updated Lewis' , THE EDGE OF THE PARK) is struck with inspiration: the most realistic gore effects moving it from the art world into the rough-and-tumble indie filmmaking universe! will come from actual dismemberment and corpses! Features appearances not only from HG himself, but also staple Lewis vet Ray Sager (WIZARD OF GORE, BLAST-OFF GIRLS, GORE GORE GIRLS, JUST FOR THE FULL Description HELL OF IT), not to mention HILLS HAVE EYES' legendary Michael Berryman as What do you get when the director of JESUS CHRIST VAMPIRE HUNTER teams up an impish studio executive. (Mitch Davis, Fantasia Film Festival) with Sasha Grey, David Hess and Michael Berryman to shoot a wacked-out tribute to '60s splatter pioneer HG Lewis? You get SMASH CUT, baby! Yes, Lee Demarbre, Canada's contemporary King of the B's, has just completed his biggest film to date. Plays with

Notorious grindhouse heavy David Hess ( LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, HITCH the tivo HIKE, HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK) stars as notorious grindhouse 2008, United States, dir. , 9 min filmmaker Able Whitman. Whitman's seen better days and times are tough for A man's Tivo takes over his life, and ends everyone else's. a struggling indie moviemaker. Audiences are jaded, financiers are taking fewer risks than ever and filmmaking itself has never been more costly, even on the most bargain-basement level of shooting. When the few fans that remain criticize his latest production for its sub-par effects work, Able loses it. And in that moment, inspiration strikes. Not only is the real thing more affordable than any prosthetic make-up effects could ever be, it's also bound to look better onscreen! With a wealth of film critics, actors and studio execs to choose from, Able sets out to ensure that his next production will be plastered with body parts of all shapes and sizes. Meanwhile his new star (iconic porn auteur Sasha Grey, currently in the mainstream spotlight as the lead in Steven Soderbergh's THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE) seems to be a good deal more than meets the eye…

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 75 screenings Stingray Sam Sep 28 9:25 PM Regional Premiere, 2009, dir. Cory McAbee, United States, 61 min., Language: English Sep 30 7:00 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY world. Each episode comes complete with a song (courtesy of McAbee’s own band, In order to earn back their freedom, two cowboy space-convicts must accept a American Astronaut), a cliffhanger and a sponsor advert, reminding us of the early dangerous mission to save an innocent young girl from a self-obsessed ruler in days of film-going where the price of admission got you a little bit of everything. this one-of-a-kind science fiction serial musical comedy from the director of The Ironically, McAbee designed Stingray as a series of tiny episodes in attempt to American Astronaut. conform to our ever-changing times where more and more media is being mass consumed on small screens. Luckily, it is still beautiful enough to warrant the FULL Description exciting theatrical experience that awaits you. (Michael Lerman) In a bar on Mars (no, a different Mars), an unsuspecting gentle outlaw who goes by the name of Stingray Sam has turned to a life of lounge singing as he hides out from the law during the decline of the interplanetary economy. Much to his surprise, he Plays with is suddenly greeted -- in a barroom brawl -- by his old friend The Quasar Kid, who has come in the hopes of reuniting with Stingray for one final mission that will wipe their records clean. Their task: To rescue a carpenter’s unsuspecting daughter from 2008, Spain, dir. , 10 min the clutches of an evil bureaucrat named Fredward, a ruler from a curious planet The long suppressed, recently unearthed newsreel that blows the lid where men procreate with each other to create children with compound names. off the space monkey disease outbreak! Pretty soon, the duo is back on the road in an enthralling adventure, jam packed with hilariously self-aware comedy involving miniature robot suits, olive chugging and plenty of dancing.

In 2001, director Corey McAbee pleasantly surprised the independent genre community with his innovative, comedic musical space-western The American Astronaut. After an eight-year hiatus, he now returns with this long-awaited six-part episodic series. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing The American Astronaut, you know that McAbee’s style is one of a kind, flawlessly blending a series of familiar genres to create rare hybrid that floods the classic film lover with nostalgia. Similar to Astronaut in genre, Stingray turns to an even more effective use of low budget filmmaking as McAbee mixes gorgeous cinematography with color collage art to create a unique and fascinating

76 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com screenings Sweet Karma Sep 25 7:15 PM US Premiere, 2009, dir. Andrew Thomas Hunt, Canada, 85 min., Language: English Sep 30 1:15 PM

vigilante justice is a dominating factor in any kind of revenge picture, from those of Michael Winner to Walter Hill—but a woman’s revenge picture is a special BRIEF SUMMARY thing. Women are vengeful creatures of a different nature. Nods to seminal rape When her sister disappears without a trace - the apparent victim in a Russian revenge films MS. 45 (1981) and THEY CALL HER ONE EYE (1974) are abundant, ring in Toronto - a shy, beautiful, mute woman sets off on a bloody, but what makes SWEET KARMA unique is that Karma remains sympathetic by intercontinental trail of revenge. not disassociating from her actions—she doesn’t have a turning point where she buys into her own vampish alter-ego and ceases to be innocent. As such, SWEET FULL Description KARMA not only marks a distinctive contribution to the rape-revenge canon, but Karma Balint is a shy, mute Russian woman whose sister Anna left for Canada with signals a proud new wave of Canadian independent cult cinema. (Kier-la Janisse) bright hopes of making some money for the two of them. But after being whisked away by the Russian recruiter of Canada-bound “housemaids,” Anna never sent the money, she never wrote back—she just disappeared. When Karma discovers Plays with that Anna’s body has been found in the woods on the outskirts of Toronto, the apparent victim of a Russian mafia hit, she sets off on a bloody, intercontinental in chambers trail of revenge that sees her face off—armed with only two hands, a calculating 2008, Norway, dir. Aleksander Leines Nordaas , 10 min brain and a hefty dose of willpower—with some of the sleaziest elements of In a filthy, dingy hospital room, a woman awakens without a memory. Toronto’s organized criminal underground. Inspired by the stories of real human The other residents attempt to help her, when not being dragged away trafficking rings that were infiltrated and shut down in Toronto between 2004 into the darkness. and 2008, director/co-writer Andrew Hunt and his writing partner James Fler wanted to create a character who would both give voice to the silent victims of the non-consensual sex trade and stand as their relentless avenger. Model and first-time actress Shera Bechard is a revelation as the reluctant vigilante, and her role called for an intense regimen of acting and pole-dancing lessons, martial arts training, and dexterity with a variety of weapons. The resulting fight scenes are nasty and desperate, far removed from the slickness of detached Hollywood action choreography—but packing a decidedly bigger punch. In contrast to rape-revenge films whose exploitive elements overshadow the psychological, SWEET KARMA takes back the genre as a woman’s domain—LIPSTICK(1976), HANDGUN (1983), THE LADIES CLUB (1986), POSITIVE I.D. (1987), DIRTY WEEKEND (1993), DEFENCELESS: A BLOOD SYMPHONY (2004). The sense of moral assertion and

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 77 guests in attendance XXX

screenings Terribly Happy Sep 24 7:15 PM Regional Premiere, 2009, dir. Henrik Ruben Genz, Denmark, 90 min., Language: Danish Sep 28 10:00 PM

fear, guilt and loneliness. After an especially wrenching marital intervention, Hansen faces off with Jorgen in a mano-a-mano that would make a caveman proud. BRIEF SUMMARY The two pound dozens of beers and whiskeys in the town bar in front of a jury of Based on a true story, TERRIBLY HAPPY follows a young cop who is the townspeople to prove which man is "right." exiled to a provincial Jutland town after suffering a nervous collapse. The town and its "code" soon prove to be much more complex and challenging - not to mention Some have compared TERRIBLY HAPPY to the Coen Brothers' films, and certainly much more deadly - than the big city beat. anyone who appreciates the Coens' dark, off-center black humor and atmospheric depiction of milieu will enjoy TERRIBLY HAPPY. But this is a unique film with its FULL Description own novelistic inner sense of logic and timing. It's not a horror film exactly. Nor is As soon as the Policeman Robert Hansen (Jakob Cedergren) hits the cobblestone it a mystery. It's a story about a few people in a fucked-up little town. And it will streets, his authority is questioned by nearly everyone. The town's longstanding make you feel and think (and laugh) with the best of them. way of life, which includes frequent use of the outlying bogs to keep its dark secrets, seems to be stuck in a quasi-medieval time. The citizens are openly contemptuous This highly acclaimed film, directed by Henrik Ruben Genz, has won a slewof of him, especially Jorgen (Kim Bodnia), a drunken brute who beats his wife. When awards including the Bodil (Denmark's highest film honor). Adam Yauch's the wife appeals to Hansen for help, he finds himself trapped in a bog of obligation, Oscilloscope Films has picked it up for American distribution. (Lars Nilsen)

78 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com screenings titleTokyo Onlypic 2008 Date,Sep 25 TIME1:05 PM Location DescriptionNorth American Premiere, 2009, dir. Various, United States, 137 min., Language: English SepDate, 26 11:20TIME AM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY A truly bizarre spoof on the Olympics that only the Japanese could concoct Here at Fantastic Fest HQ, we are going to take the first step by recruiting athletes featuring events such as Mother Tossing, the 1000 Character Texting competition, to perform in the first ever North American Samurai Call Championships. It’s really and the Samurai Call. hard to describe the rules, there aren’t any as such, but screaming the word Samurai with gusto and flair definitely comes into play. Watch the video clip from TOKYO FULL Description ONLYPIC on the Fantastic Fest website for a sample of American champion Samurai A truly bizarre spoof on the Olympics that only the Japanese could concoct. TOKYO Caller David Joe and hopefully you will be inspired to sign up for the competition ONLYPIC 2008 sprints out of the gate with a surreal opening ceremony featuring on September 25. We’ll be featuring up to 10 Samurai Call competitors at the end of robot battles, motorized sushi floats and a ginormous golden Buddha head whose the “Meet the Japanese” party on Friday night at the Highball. (Tim League) laser vision destroys vast swaths of audience members. Bizarro Japanese comedian and long-time Monkey Bash regular Egashira 2:50 also pops into the opening ceremony with a signature convulsing dance number. Egashira 2:50 was named "the most annoying comedian in Japan" 2002-2008 and has been arrested in several countries for repeatedly dropping his pants.

In 2006 animator Richiro Mashima's SKI JUMPING PAIRS: ROAD TO TORINO 2006 gave just a sample of the absurdity that lays in store for you with TOKYO ONLYPIC 2008. Bringing in an group of his filmaking and animating buddies to riff on the them of absurdist sporting events, Mashima and the ONLYPIC team has crafted such events as Mother Tossing, a Brancer competition (the obscure sport of kicking one's shoe off while swinging on a swingset), the 1000 Character Texting competition, and the Samurai Call, this battle of the nations would destroy the ratings of the actual Olympics were it ever to come to pass. Ironically, the creators are actually trying to rally support for just such a competition.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 79 XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

screenings titlA ToEwn Called Panic Date,Sep 25 TIME2005 Location10:00 PM DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar, Belgium, 75 min., Language: French Date,Sep 27 TIME2005 Location11:45 AM

BRIEF SUMMARY Will Horse find true love? Will Steven fix his tractor? What will it take to stop the Series creators Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar are surely two of the most manic underwater pond dwellers from stealing the walls of Cowboy, Indian and Horse’s animators of our times, completely and utterly in touch with their inner children. house? Yes, boys and girls, it’s the feature version of A TOWN CALLED PANIC, the No joke is too silly, no gag too bizarre for this pair. They've reined in their stream of demented cult Belgian animation sensation. And, yes, it is truly a sight to behold - a consciousness urges slightly for the feature – Panic started life as a series of five very odd sight that will confuse some while leaving others on the floor gasping for minute shorts for Belgian television – but just barely, oddity heaped upon oddity as breath from laughing so hard. though the two were engaged in a non-stop game of one-upmanship throughout the entire production cycle. Juvenile and absurd are perfectly good descriptors when FULL Description talking about Panic, though only if accompanied by ‘brilliant’ and ‘hysterical’. It’s To try and summarize something as manic as Panic is a chump’s game, it can’t time for the cult to cross the ocean. (Todd Brown) really be done, but here’s what you need to know. Primitively animated in using clay models of the plastic cowboy, indian and farmyard plastic toys we all had as kids, Panic revolves around house-mates Cowboy, Indian and Horse as they go about their daily lives. Which in this case means dealing with the aftermath of an attempted birthday present gone wrong that results in fifty million bricks piled on the roof of the trio’s house, which then collapses under the weight of the bricks, which opens up a portal to a secret underwater civilization that covets the trio’s building skills and simply - and repeatedly - steals their home. There’s also a giant snowball throwing penguin-robot, parachuting cows, equine romance, parachuting cows and more, more, more. And also parachuting cows.

80 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings TToitley Story 1 & 2 3D Double Feature Date,Sep 26 TIME2:15 PM Location DescriptionSneak Preview, 2009, dir. John Lasseter, United States, 81 min., Language: English

BRIEF SUMMARY A sneak preview of the newly restored TOY STORY 1 and 2 in 3D

FULL Description Fantastic Fest is hosting a special sneak preview of the newly restored TOY STORY 1 and 2 in 3D on Saturday, September 26. This same double feature will be hitting screens for a limited run in October, but Fantastic Fest badge holders and select members of AICN's Saturday Morning Kids Club will be able to attend this special early sneak-preview event. Check back to the Fantastic Fest website for details. You should also mark your calendars, because Buzz and Woody will be back in a brand new adventure, TOY STORY 3, on June 18, 2010. The screening of TOY STORY 1 and 2 3D is courtesy of Disney.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 81 guests in attendance XXX guests in attendance Director Michael Dougherty

screenings titleTrick 'r Treat Date,Sep 25 TIME9:45 PM Location DescriptionSneak Preview, 2009, dir. Michael Dougherty, United States, 100 min., Language: English Date, TIME Location

BRIEF SUMMARY With a cast including TRUE BLOOD's Anna Paquin, X-MEN 2's BRIAN COX It is said that is the night when the dead rise to walk among us and and SPIDER-MAN's Dylan Baker - you end up with some pretty great character other unspeakable things roam free. The rituals of All Hallows Eve were devised performances. Fetishistically Halloween, it is all captured by Glen MacPherson's to protect us from their evil mischief, and one small town is about to be taught a loving camera. You'll also be delighted to learn that Director Dougherty decided to terrifying lesson that some traditions are best not forgotten. choose physical effects work over tricksy CGI.

FULL Description TRICK R' TREAT had its debut as the final film of BUTT-NUMB-A-THON 9, where Michael Dougherty's TRICK R TREAT is a loving comic book fiction of the Michael spent a full 24 hours with that audience just taking in the geeky fun. CREEPSHOW, TALES FROM THE CRYPT and TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE Dougherty is also a veteran of BNAT 10, in which he did not have a film, but merely variety. The additional flair is that all the stories of this cinematic anthology touch wanted to experience those blissful 24 hours again. Michael will be here for the one another. They all take place in the same town on Halloween night. And on screening so be sure to treat him as you would any hardcore movie geek. Lastly, Halloween, you must observe the rules of Halloween. They may seem silly, but you may find yourself desiring something sweet during this screening, so peruse they are rules for a reason - and when characters cross those rules... They may have the sweet side of the menu, you won't regret it! (Harry Knowles) to deal with those ancient spirits that give Halloween its delicious spine-tingle.

82 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance Director Kim Nguyen

screenings Titleruffe Date,Sep 27 TIME7:00 PM LocationFEAST DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2008, dir. Kim Nguyen, Canada, 75 min., Language: French Sep 30 1:45 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY against the immediately familiar to create a totally unique experience, a world Charles is the undisputed champion of Montreal’s truffle miners, a man with an anchored by the quietly grounded performances of Roy Dupuis and Celine Bonnier incredibly sensitive nose. And that nose makes him valuable, especially to the – also a couple in real life – as their surroundings spin increasingly out of control. sinister pair of furriers plotting to seize control of the local truffle industry with the From backyard mushroom mines to the brilliantly lo-fi mind-control fur creatures to help of their furry, mind-controlling creatures. gangs of brainwashed door to door salesmen spreading through the neighborhood with full sized, vintage refrigerators strapped to their backs, Truffe is a true FULL Description visual delight. (Todd Brown) Ah, global warming, you devious bastard. Rising temperatures have had unexpected consequences in Kim Nguyen's Truffe – prime among them the Although Truffe has played several festivals, Fantastic Fest will be debuting the directors sudden emergence of Montreal as the Black Truffle capital of the world, the tasty cut version of the film. Also, executive chefs John Bullington and Trish Eichelberger will be little morsels sprouting by the thousands deep below the surface. All that needs to preparing a five course truffle feast to accompany the film. The feast will be an upcharge for be done is to go and get them. It's instant wealth for all, particularly for Charles - badgeholders and will also be available to the general public. played by Roy Dupuis - the greatest truffle hunter of them all, a man blessed with such a sensitive nose that he pulls up truffles by the bagload from the small truffle mine beneath his apartment. But what with the laws of supply and demand the wealth is only short lived, the sudden flood of truffles causing the bottom to drop out of prices and leaving the miners to scramble for their supper. The miner’s life is a hard one, even when their quarry is soft. Plays with And life gets harder for the little guy, for the noble independent miner, with the arrival of a strange local fur shop intent on buying up the truffle mines; with big Cold and Dry plans for globalization and mass canning. The furriers send out sinister, fuzzy, 2008, Norway, dir. Kristoffer Joner, remote controlled little creations to control the minds and souls of Montreal's hard 12 min working men. Surely there is more here than meets the eye… At the National Institute of Preservation, A hidden gem from right in our own back yard, Nguyen’s Truffe calls to mind all problems in the world are resolved. Swiftly, and with little pain involved. the Delicatessen era of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, creating a deliriously off-kilter world for his cast of characters to play in. Nguyen butts images of the deeply absurd up

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 83 guests in attendance XXX

screenings titleUnder the Mountain Date,Sep 26 TIME4:15PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Jonathan King, New Zealand, 91 min., Language: English SepDate, 29 4:00TIME PM Location

BRIEF SUMMARY A pair of twins are sent to live with their aunt and uncle after their mother dies in a Each Fantastic Fest, there is one movie that I just refuse to miss. Last year's title was car accident. They deal with their grief in different ways, interrupting the closeness LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, which ended up being the festival favorite and is widely between them. But they're going to need that bond very badly when they begin to considered the best vampire tale in decades (eat it, Pattinson). This year, there's no sense danger coming from the decrepit old house across the lake… film I'm more excited to see in the theater than UNDER THE MOUNTAIN. So take a break from exploding intestines and bared genitals, shed off your adult-world FULL Description skepticism and join us for a few rounds of actual movie magic. (Zack Carlson) Jonathan King, director of the 2006 comedy gore-fest BLACK SHEEP, has struck out in an entirely new direction with the intelligent, surprisingly kid-friendly adventure thriller UNDER THE MOUNTAIN. This is a proud new entry in the annals of memorable "tween" fantasy - films you see when young and continue to love even as an adult - that actually deliver smart and scary thrills with no skimping on cinematography, character development or special effects. Think ESCAPE FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN (the original!) meets THE GOONIES. It's been a good long while since those movies were released, and today's kids are due for some tough, fearless family filmmaking, which King delivers in spades.

Theo and Rachel are twins with a strong -- almost telepathic -- bond. When their mother dies in a car accident their father sends them away to Auckland to live with relatives in a beautiful new home on a gorgeous lake in a fabulous city ringed by seven magnificent volcanoes. But their view is marred by a creepy looking house across the water, and their new lives even more disturbed by the inhabitants of that house - a weird and reclusive family who take an unhealthy interest in their new neighbors. To add to the strain, the twins have different ways of dealing with their grief, which is weakening the link between them. And when the otherworldly Wilberforce family comes a-knocking, they need their closeness more than either of them realizes.

84 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance Director Yoshi Nishimura

screenings TVampireitle Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl Date,Sep 25 TIME9:30 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. Yoshi Nishimura, Japan, 84 min., Language: Japanese Sep 29 9:30 PM

BRIEF SUMMARY Nishimura has assembled his usual gang of low budget visionaries for this 2008 Fantastic Fest Next Wave winner Yoshi Nishimura is back again in 2009 with movie: (VERSUS, YOROI: SAMURAI ZOMBIE) does the action a wildly over-the-top spin on the Japanese high school . In Nishimura's choreography and Tsuyoshi Kazuno contributes visual effects. Eihi Shiina world however, the dueling females are as you would guess from the title, a vampire (AUDITION) plays Monami’s mother in a show-stopping flashback sequence, and girl and a Frankenstein girl, and like in TOKYO GORE POLICE, the arteries are (the director of the JU-ON films) plays a chain-smoking Chinese once again spraying madly. professor who lectures his students on the importance of the Hollywood remake of his movies. There’re also a gaggle of ganguro girls: Japanese schoolgirls who FULL Description worship African-American culture to the point of offensiveness—dying their After welcoming the New Flesh in TOKYO GORE POLICE, special effects genius skin black, carrying spears and chanting “Yes we can!” at the drop of a hat. Emo and director goes for something decidedly more schoolgirls compete in self-mutilation competitions, and the entire film is a big wet with VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL, which he co-directs with raspberry blown at the typical high school love story. Destined to become the best Naoyuki Tomomatsu of STACY, ZOMBIE SELF DEFENSE FORCE and EAT THE kind of cult classic, you need to come on down, buy a ticket, sit very quietly and let SCHOOLGIRL fame. Based on a manga by Shungiku Uchida, this moving drama it touch you in a freaky way. —NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL tells a tale of two schoolgirls who pine for the same young lad. Young Mizushima is a handsome fellow with floppy locks who cuts a dashing figure in his school Plays with uniform. On Valentine’s Day, new student Monami gives him a box of chocolates that represent life, which is often said to resemble them in many ways. But Monami dr. mori's teleshopping isn’t just a new student, she is also a vampire, and the chocolates contain her blood, 2008, Greece, dir. Spiros Jacovides , 6 min which causes Mizushima to trip balls when he eats them. It is at that moment, when Finally, the product that YOU have been waiting for. Die now, pay later! Mizushima is freaking out most mightily, that Monami opens her heart: she wants the two of them to live together forever as vampires. Romantic!

But Mizushima already has a girlfriend! Keiko! And she’s pissed! Fortunately she’s got a mad-scientist dad, with a secret laboratory on school property, and he turns his daughter into a Franken-Keiko monster made of bits and pieces chopped from the cooling corpses of her classmates. As we all know, this kind of vampire vs. Frankenstein conflict can only be solved by fighting, beating, stabbing, chewing, clawing and a showdown high atop Tokyo Tower.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 85 guests in attendance XXX

screenings titleVan Diemen's Land Date,Sep 24 TIME4:10 PM Location DescriptionUS Premiere, 2009, dir. Jonathan Auf Der Heide, Australia, 104 min., Language: English SepDate, 27 11:15TIME AM Location

experience of the original eight prisoners. Auf Der Heide took his cast and crew to Tasmania where filming took place in the heat, rain, and snow. These efforts BRIEF SUMMARY comes across on screen as the film captures the grit, the grime, and the desperation When their guard is killed en route to prison in 19th-century Tasmania, eight that most certainly colored the original events. The dialog adds another layer of prisoners escape through the dense rain forest. Their poorly-conceived escape texture to the film as the actors speak in a thick brew of accented English and plans crumble, food runs out and the gang of prisoners engages in power struggles, Gaelic, reflecting the prisoner's origins from disparate points across the British psychological games and cannibalism in order to survive. Based on the true-life Empire. Van Diemen's Land is one of the great cinematic discoveries of 2009. story of Australian prisoner Alexander Pearce. (Rodney Perkins)

FULL Description Jonathan Auf Der Heide's Van Diemen's Land is a harsh yet gorgeous rendering of a true-life tale of cannibalism in nineteenth-century Australia. In 1822, an Irishman named Alexander Pearce was convicted of stealing six pairs of shoes. Pearce was sentenced to seven years in a remote portion of Australia called Van Diemen's Land, or as it would later be called, Tasmania. After various attempts to escape, he was sent to the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station on Sarah Island, which was known as the toughest of the Australian prison colonies. Pearce escaped from Macquarie Harbour, but this time he was accompanied by seven other prisoners. The gang of escapees originally planned to take a boat but instead they ran off into the unexplored expanse of mountains and rainforests. Pearce was the only one to survive the journey. As he later recounted, the trek devolved into a desperate fight for survival with the escapees waiting for each other to die off or to be killed. Using Pearce's recollections of the experience as a framing device, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND details the prisoners' brutal journey. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND is a feature- length expansion of Auf Der Heide's short film entitled HELL'S GATE, the name of which is a reference to the mouth of Macquarie Harbour. Comparisons to Werner Herzog are apt as VAN DIEMEN'S LAND shares thematic and visual relationships with works such as AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD. Here, the prisoners struggle against each other and against the harsh landscape that slowly and steadily breaks them down. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND goes to extraordinary lengths to replicate the

86 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com guests in attendance XXX

screenings titleYatterman Date,Sep 26 TIME6:30 PM Location DescriptionRegional Premiere, 2009, dir. , Japan, 111 min., Language: Japanese Date, TIME Location

BRIEF SUMMARY A reimagining of the long-running Anime TV show, Miike’s YATTERMAN is a massive This flick is kid-friendly but a Miike movie through and through. By embracing dayglo blast that hits your rain like a bullet train and kickstarts your pleasure centers. the repetitive nature of the original show, Miike’s telling us that it’s the things we do over and over again that keep us immature and stop us from growing up, but FULL Description they’re also our protection against a tough old world. And in a world that feels like A massive dayglo blast that hits your brain like a bullet train and kickstarts your it’s rapidly spinning down the toilet, it’s nice to have an adult come in the room and pleasure centers, YATTERMAN is far smarter than it has any right to be and it pops tell us, hey, don’t worry, no matter what we do, everything’s going to be just fine. the pip all over your pipple. The original Yatterman was a goofy ’70s television (Subway Cinema) anime considered slightly risque and trashy for the times. Every week, toy-shop owner Gan and his cute assistant Ai battled the evil Doronbo gang, led by femme fatale Doronjo and her assistants—pig-nosed muscleman Tonzra and rat-faced genius Boyacky—for pieces of the mystical skull stone, and every week the Doronbo gang failed (usually due to incompetence). Then there was a mushroom cloud, Gan and Ai did their Yatterman dance and the gang regrouped the following week to do it all over again.

Takashi Miike takes these basic elements and injects a heaping helping of self- awareness, and some razor-sharp CGI that’s far better looking than anything Hollywood is putting out these days. Watching YATTERMAN is like getting Candyland poured in your eyes. Attack sushi, the Funny Bunny Club, Titty Missiles, two mecha getting hot for each other and humping in the middle of a battle, a pile of all the schoolgirls in Japan—YATTERMAN offers up something shiny, new and nutty in every frame. Miike’s idea-cup is more than overflowing—in this flick it’s practically a geyser. The heart of the movie, however, is Doronjo, played by Kyoko Fukada, the sugar princess from KAMIKAZE GIRLS. She’s a preening, prancing, pretty-pony prima donna who just loves to be evil because, well, she’s a genius. What else is she going to do? But Fukada also brings adult shading to her cartoon character and maintains her essential humanity.

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 87 guests in attendance XXX

screenings TYitleesterday Date,Sep 26 TIME10:10 PM Location DescriptionTexas Premiere, 2009, dir. Rob Grant, Canada, 95 min., Language: English Sep 30 3:40 PM

of this film, including an old hand-cranked Russian rig. At one point, additional actors were needed as extras in a classroom scene, so the film's sound mixer took a BRIEF SUMMARY seat as a student behind a desk—and can clearly be seen dialling the audio of the When a strange flulike virus starts killing people and turning them into flesh- take during the shot! None of these things backfire against the film. Instead, they eating zombies, an unlikely group of guys band together, grab an SUV and head take on the validating personality of battle scars, proof that the project defeated for the woods to wait out the epidemic. Shot in 16mm on a micro-budget of $25,000, adversity to come tearing out of a very difficult place, not only surviving to tell YESTERDAY transcends its resources, filling every scene with great practical the tale, but doing so with spirit and flair. Because, in spite of its rough edges and effects, car crashes, ballistics and, most importantly, cracklingly sharp dramatic and inconsistencies, YESTERDAY is a very enjoyable film that's been getting solid play comedic performances by every single principal cast member. on the international festival circuit, even picking up the odd award along the way. It's a damn inspirational, do-it-at-all-costs debut from a pack of filmmakers we'll FULL Description doubtlessly be hearing more from. Smash a camera against a wall and raise your “YESTERDAY shows that the genre's core values—effective use of a small budget, glass to them. (Mitch Davis, Fantasia Film Festival) an intelligent look at humanity, and of course a bit of horror— are still taken seriously by some film makers out there” — Ben Austwick, QUIET EARTH Plays with

Yesterday was the last day that the world made any sense. Today, a good deal of tile m for murder humankind may very well be on the verge of extinction, as what was initially thought 2008, Sweden, dir. Magnus Holmgren, 8 min to be a new strain of flu virus has turned into something far, far worse. Something A seemingly innocent game of Scrabble holds a married couple's fate that kills, then resuscitates its victims as , cannibalistic carriers. As society in its grasp. falls first into panic, then into pieces, an unlikely group of people from across a suburban Canadian town band together in a last-ditch effort to see tomorrow, come bloody hell or even bloodier high water. A gritty with strong scripting chops, this is The Little Indie That Could—a doggedly determined beast that, in spite of being made on a production budget of an impossible $12,000, with an all-in final cost just shy of $25,000 (Canadian!), was nonetheless shot on 16mm film and features tons of crunchy, splatterific make-up effects, stunts, a car crash, the whole nine yards. And you can feel the fight in every frame—almost every take you see in the film was the first and only one shot. Performances range from terrific to awkward. The vintage cameras they worked with broke down multiple times. In fact, five different cameras were used—and broken—during the making

88 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com

screenings short fuse Sep 24 9:30 PM Severe Fantastic Fest Shorts! Sep 29 9:15 PM

DARA MAMA Dir. Timo Tjahjanto & Kimo Tjahjanto, Indonesia, 2009, 26 min dir. , Spain, 2008, 3 min AUDITION meets SAW in this slice of genre-blending perfection from Indone- Two sisters cower in their bedroom, fearing their mother's arrival. When she sia. Mother always said you are what you eat. finally returns home, there's no escape.

ELSE MY LOVE LIVES IN THE SEWER dir. Thibault Emin, France, 2009, 16 min dir. Manuel Arija De La Cuerda, Spain, 2009, 18 min A bizarre epidemic has people absorbed into their surroundings, and one Coded messages lead to forbidden love and lovers doomed never to meet. young couple fights to maintain their identities as the world blends around Striking, surprising, and deeply deviant: an experience not to be missed. them. ROAD TO MOLOCH EXCISION dir. Robert Glickert, USA, 2009, 17 min dir. Richard Bates Jr., USA, 2008, 18 min Three marines follow a wounded man to a cave that may be the home of evil An angry, awkward young woman's obsession with surgery brings some unex- incarnate. pected changes to the family. SHAPES FULL EMPLOYMENT dir. Alan Brennan, Ireland, 2008, 5 min dir. Thomas Oberlies & Matthias Vogel, Germany, 2008, 12 min Claire's old enough to know there's no monster in the bedroom, but when the The revolutionary new government program allows young people to assist the lights go out... elderly in carrying out their occupational responsibilities, no matter what the job is. SINKHOLE dir. Eric Scherbarth, USA, 2009, 13 min INSIDE A self-serving developer learns that money can't buy everything when he visits dir. Tracie Laymon, USA, 2009, 14 min an abandoned coalmine shrouded in darkness. What do you do when there's something growing inside of you? You get rid of it, of course. STRATES dir. Yohan Guignard, France-Belgium, 2009, 9 min A farmer discovers a very unexpected bounty buried in his soil.

90 Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com XXXguests in attendance xxxXXX

i am so proud of you dir. / USA / 2009 / 22 min

screenings titledrawn and quartered Date,Sep 25 TIME4:00 PM Location DescriptionFantastic Animated Shorts! Date,Oct 1 TIME4:30 PM Location

ALMA dir. Rodrigo Blaas, Spain, 2009, 5 min LILI dir. Riho Unt, Estonia, 2008, 13 min A young girl is intrigued by the contents of a mysterious toy shop. One dying soldier, a busted radio, a solitary woman and a dozen rats somehow tell the tale of love lost. THE BLACK DOG'S PROGRESS dir. Stephen Irwin , United Kingdom, 2008, 3 min LITTLE DRAGON dir. Bruno Collet, France, 2009, 8 min A series of flipbooks tell the sad story of the Black Dog. Low adventure explodes when Bruce Lee is reincarnated as an action figure of Bruce Lee. KADNE dir. Marc Riba & Anna Solanas, Spain, 2008, 5 min In a radiation zone, the remaining survivors overcome their failing frames to LUNEVILLE dir. Sebastien Petit, Belgium, 2008, 9 min put on one last big major performance. An otherworldly, old-timey, anti-reality fairytale of galactic discovery.

CONSOUL dir. Lasse Gjertsen, Norway, 2009, 12 min MELTDOWN dir. David Green, United States, 2009, 6 min Birth...work...sex...death: Nintendo-style!!! Triumph and tragedy in its most epic forms and taking place entirely in a refrigerator. CONTROLMASTER dir. Run Wrake, UK, 2008, 6 min Something terrible happens when a powerful device falls into the hands of PIGEON IMPOSSIBLE dir Lucas Martell, USA, 2009, 6 min scientist-turned-villain Doctor Moire. Who will rescue Halftone City from this A secret agent is thwarted by a pigeon's love for bagels in this masterful, gigantic cretin? Austin-produced adventure.

GIT GOB dir. Philip Eddols, Canada, 2009, 2 min TERRAFARMER dir. Will Adams, Scotland, 2008, 2 min It must be great to be stupid. Everything is surprising and new! It's hard enough to farm on Earthly soil, but interstellar agriculture is downright ridiculous. I AM SO PROUD OF YOU dir. Don Hertzfeldt, USA, 2009, 22 min THE TERRIBLE THING OF ALPHA-9 dir. Jake Armstrong, USA, 2009, 5 min Dark family secrets cast a shadow over Bill's recovery in this second chapter to Fearless Spacehunter vs. Hideous Extraterrestrial Creature...with a little some- Don Hertzfeldt's 'Everything will be OK'. . thing extra.

KABOOM dir. PES, USA, 2005, 1 min Are you ready for extreme, no-holds-barred warfare?!! No? Then try this!

Fantastic Fest , September 24 – October 1, 2009 www.fantasticfest.com 91 PRESEnTS “SO CUTTING-EDGE

YOU COULD BLEED.”– Ty Burr, Boston GloBe “A FEAST FOR THE EYES.” – reyhan harmanci, san FranCisCo ChroniCle

“THE MASTERS OF DREAD. THRILLInG, DISTURBInG and HAUnTInG. – Guillermo del Toro (direcTor of Pan’s laBrynth” and hellBoy)

“FOR DEVOTEES OF INNOVATIVE ANIMATION, THIS IS A MUST-SEE.” – mike d’anGelo, nerve

“A SOPHISTICATED SHOWCASE OF COnTEMPORARY AnIMATIOn. – stephen holden, ” ON DVD OCTOBER 27th Six of the world’s leading comic and graphic artists – Blutch, charles Burns, Marie caillou, richard McGuire, Pierre di sciullo and lorenzo Mattotti –each create a black and white journey straight into the realm of fright.. It’s a creepy, kinky, and always scary ride inside what makes our skin crawl and keeps us awake all night. The lights are off. The fear is real. Do you dare watch it alone?

© 2007 Prima Linea Productions La Parti Production Def2shoot Denis Friedman Productions. Distributed by

Antichrist Willem Dafoe • Charlotte Gainsbourg A Film by Lars Von Trier IN THEATERS 10.23.09 / ON DEMAND 10.28.09 “POWERFULLY MADE... “I DON’T THINK I BREATHED ITS DEPTHS ARE FRIGHTENING... FOR THE LAST HALF -- VON TRIER HAS REACHED ME OUT OF SHOCK, OUT OF STRESS, AND SHAKEN ME” OUT OF DISBELIEF.” – , Chicago sun-times – , the Boston Globe BECAUSE EXPECTATIONS SHOULD ALWAYS BE EXCEEDED.

Get used to getting more when you stay with us. With a spacious two-room suite, a complimentary cooked-to-order breakfast and an evening Manager’s Reception*, all you have to do is sit back and relax. Experience some of the ways Embassy Suites Hotels® puts extra thought into everything we do.

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Please Drink Responsibly. JEREMIAH WEED Flavored Vodka. Distilled from Grain. 35% Alc/Vol. ©2009 The Jeremiah Weed Distilling Company, Norwalk, CT.

18081 Jeremiah Weed AD.indd 1 8/24/09 12:38 PM “BRILLIANTLY CRAFTED… Raises The Bar On Tension, Suspense and Paranoia.” - Fears Magazine

“THOUGHT PROVOKING and UNIQUE.” - Cinematical

You cannot fight what isn’t there. You cannot kill what doesn’t live. In a land ravaged by war and ruled by superstition, who – or what – is the ultimate enemy?

© THE OBJECTIVE LLC 2008. 2009 IFC In Theaters LLC. Distributed by HitFix_FB_FantFest_Ad_03_OL.pdf 8/24/09 8:30:08 AM

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IN SELECT THEATRES ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30TH Catch it before it hits theatres on VOD starting October 1ST! E! Entertainment CMY Cycle 1 133 Line Screen

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