All posts by Giles Edwards

Film major & would-be writer. 6'3". @gilesforyou (TwT)
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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DANCE FREAK (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Robby Rackleff, Alan Resnick

FEATURING: Robby Rackleff, Megan Koester, Sheila Mears, Jamel Johnson

PLOT: Obie’s crummy life becomes dangerous when a mysterious freak appears in town to murder those caught up in his hypnotic moves.

Still from Dance Freak (2026)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: I’ll pitch this as “The Residents Present: Guy Maddin‘s Jekyll & Hide“, to give you an approximate idea what to expect.

COMMENTS: There are few sacks sadder than Obie. He is timid, depressed, seems to own only one sweatshirt, and cannot build a bird house to save his life, no matter how much coaching—both practical and existential—his teacher provides. To add to his woes, his go-getter girlfriend, Dorty, a young woman with a big heart, a big club, and mayoral aspirations, dumps him. And now, enter the Dance Freak: a humanoid entity whose motion and rhythm crushes the heads of anyone who dares gaze upon its wondrous moves.

Dance Freak is a masterful example of the possibilities encountered when creativity slams into the wall of zero resources. Obie’s town is a ghost town, populated by quietly angry people (or, in the case of the Salad Gang, loudly angry). Obviously animated birds attack and peck at the protagonist, and mist permeates the peripheries. Special effects crumble and melt into themselves and into each other, reflecting not only Obie’s fractured mind but also the “just add another layer” attitude that runs throughout the production. The Dance Freak itself is nothing more than co-director, co-screenwriter Robby Rackleff (who, incidentally, was wearing the Dance Freak’s khaki slacks on the film’s opening day); if you’re looking for something below Z-grade for your monster, you can’t do better than have one of the filmmakers just jamming his unchoreographed body onscreen to the unheard strains of a famous piece of pop film music.

The one professional actor (the directors words) is Sheila Mears, playing Dr. Dilly Gorgul. She earns her fee and then some as an evil scientist who exemplifies the excitement that draws someone to expanding knowledge in the first place: science is cool, especially mad science. Her giddiness is a refreshing novelty amidst the trip-wire tempers and hyper-caffeinated visuals. Most importantly, she still fits in with the milieu as a slightly plus-person alongside all the other heightened townsfolk, from father-issues Detective Gittit to Megaman, Obie’s manager who suffered from a filthy childhood that interfered with his one true love of drinking clear water fresh from the tap.

Rackleff and Resnick thread a tricky needle in this microbudget bit of madness: for the story of Dance Freak, there needs to be hyperbolic imagery and acting, but also enough relatability to keep the viewer invested. For the look of Dance Freak, there needs to be consistent “otherness” that doesn’t break the bank. And while not every movie needs to have a moral, Dance Freak opts for one, taking on itself the further task of showcasing the three possible paths we face when our life is in a rut: keep digging in, break something, or build something. We would do well to remember that there is a potential Dance Freak in all of us; will we dance for destruction—or creation?

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“100 minutes of pure irreverent nonsense in a gorgeous visual package that utilizes what appears to be old-school compositing, direct animation, and trippy transitions to augment some gnarly distortions, repurposed glue guns, and an out-of-body skin suit that’s as much a prison as it is a home… Would I watch it again? No. Should you watch it once? As long as you’re prepared to wonder whether you’ve had a stroke.”–Jared Mobarak, The Film Stage (Fantasia screening)

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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: HER PRIVATE HELL (2026)

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DIRECTED BY: Nicolas Winding Refn

FEATURING: Sophie Thatcher, , , Charles Melton, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva

PLOT: It’s Elle’s birthday, and her father is heading out of town, leaving her in the company of her BFF-turned-step-mother and a beautiful new “sister,” as a sinister fog heralds the arrival of The Leather Man.

Still from Her Private Hell (2026)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Refn doesn’t waste our time with nonsense like clarity. Space encounters with Candy Flux ray-guns, mega-crystal caverns, rent rib cages, and daddy issues laid on as thick as the ambient mist is all we need to get by in this surreal fairytale.

COMMENTS: It’s kind of a chamber drama, with a cast of six. Plus two. Plus some flashback goons. And it all takes place in the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel. Except, of course, those bits on a movie set. And that violent string in post-WWII occupied Japan. And, now that I think of it, that club consisting primarily of sharp shadows, strobing neon, and dozens and dozens of Romanesque statues. Oh, and that nebulous underworld with the jutting rods of serrated crystal, too. And Refn’s exploration of a lachrymose psyche would have been incomplete without the pair of seamstress-cum-manitous manipulating events, one of them maneuvering like an interpretive dancer.

Suffice to say, the story is one of remorse, grief, sibling rivalry, and just about everyone being very attractive and dressed in the highest of bleak-chic.

This last bit is true, at least for the trio-plus-two of the female protagonists. The fellows look more along the lines of middle-aged Harry Dean Stanton (Elle’s father, Johnny Thunders), young Harry Dean Stanton (Nico, adversary of said father), and violently clean-cut angel of vengeance in a US army uniform (Private “K,” also a father, who’s lost his daughter to a mythical murderer who manifests mainly with diamond-studded gloves and seems unbound by temporal limitations). Regardless, these half-dozen orphic oddities keep events moving forward, from the lobby to the suite to the sinister backrooms of 1940s Japan to the candy crystal caves.

This disjointed recollection of the characters and events is, upon consideration, probably more true to a narrative through line than I credit. Her Private Hell is very much about Elle: she is the first character we see, aside from the truly bizarre cityscape with towers, lights, a massive Ozymandiosian bust, and fog, fog, fog, which is a character in its own right. The hotel (named, I believe, “Fog Tower” or something like that) is a grim-glittery wonderment, as if gave ‘s Megalopolis a good once over. The props for the movie within the movie look like the best low budget doo-dads a groovy ’60s space epic could ask for. And while Elle’s birthday cake looks delicious, I’m not sure how we’re supposed to feel about her former BFF hand-feeding it to the anniversary girl before breaking into dog-speak.

At an early point in the movie, a choice presents itself: ponder deeply about symbolism and implications for clinical understanding of this grisly vision, or turn your brain off and allow scattered mental impulses to soar and bounce amongst the cavalcade of sickly grandeur summoned by this witch’s brew. I opted for the latter, and I believe Refn would approve. As he explained during his introduction, the point of a film is to enjoy it, with all the sex, violence, sickness, and humor that may have been tossed in the cauldron.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a bizarre new fantasia moodscape, a midnight movie of fear and dreamy disquiet…resists interpretation, like so many of Refn’s recent films, but executes a slow dervish swirl of hypnotic strangeness.”–Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (Cannes screening)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DOGRA MAGRA (1988)

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ドグラ・マグラ

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DIRECTED BY: Toshio Matsumoto

FEATURING: Yôji Matsuda, Shijaku Katsura, , Eri Misawa

PLOT: Waking in a sparse cell, a young man tries to piece together the reason for his confinement, assisted—and thwarted—by adversarial psychologists.

Still from Dogra Magra (1988)

 

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: From the get-go, the viewer is in for disorientation and dismay, spiked with foetal philosophizing and sinister slides.

COMMENTS: Conspiracy, by its nature, is insidious—lurking in the background until the moment of impact. Consider the conspiracies of history: events from over a millennia ago, aging and festering, awaiting their catalyst. The conspiracies of society can blossom into a nefarious constellation of constraints and crucibles. And perhaps most perfidious of all, there is the conspiracy of the mind, wherein the dark elements of the subconscious band together to wreak havoc on waking life.

So imagine all these conspiracies themselves colluding, and you can glimpse the terrible fate of Ichirô Kure (Yôji Matsuda). He awakens to a blurry yellow light, rising from the floor in troubled wonder, unable to remember his name, his past, or even his face. Enter an older gentleman, going by the name Professor Wakabayashi, who shares with the young man a tale set 1100 years prior. This dark narrative of a mad artist who wishes to capture decomposition, a fixation beginning with the corpse of his murdered bride, is related by one Professor Masaki, hissing out from a phonographic record from beyond the grave.

Or is Masaki actually dead? Director Toshio Matsumoto depicts his protagonist’s madness with seamless aplomb, but that by no means makes things any clearer. Poisoned flashbacks shudder coherency, as do imagined encounters that appear all too real. Kure is a brilliant student, or was, who had begun groundbreaking research of the mind—we observe him lecturing to a gallery peopled by asylum inmates, with none other than Professor Masaki joining the growing chaos chanting an “Ahodara Sutra” (or “Fool’s Prayer”) as he traipses merrily through the classroom. Or maybe Kure is just lecturing to himself in his cell. As with the cryptic prenatal visions, little is clear aside from these facts: Kure’s mother was killed; Kure’s fiancée was killed; and the two professors observing the fellow gravely overstepped their ethical bounds.

Intriguingly for a film engrossed by narrative slight-of-hand and the malleability of memory, the truth can be found in the film within-the-film. Professor Masaki records the wards of his care, all undergoing a “freedom” regiment akin to the inmates chronicled in Poe’s “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.” A chance encounter with a janitor leads to a projector in an abandoned storage room, its information triggering a cyclonic hallucination. The elements swirl and bombard the pitiable Ichirô Kure, as the three agents of conspiracy crash down together on his consciousness.

He awakens to a blurry yellow light.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…[A] puzzling work that blends reality with fantasy. I expected a horror movie of sorts. While that classification does kind of work, labelling it as such doesn’t do the film any favors. This is one of those movies that defies genre classification.” — Bret Oswald, Irish Film Critic

Dogra Magra

Dogra Magra

  • A man wakes in an asylum with no memory. Dr Wakabayashi helps him to recall his past in which he killed his bride on their wedding day

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366 UNDERGROUND: MATADOR BOLERO (2026)

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Weirdest!

DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Rosado

FEATURING: Yves Tumor, , Jack Irv, Stephee Bonifacio

PLOT: A high-profile murder at a nightclub triggers various factions into action, including a computer intelligence from the depths of space.

Still from Matador Bolero (2026)

COMMENTS:  Matador Bolero looks good in that DIY, retro kind of way, at times feeling like a down-at-the-heel Koyaanisqatsi with a nebulous crime story tacked on. But I would like this filmmaker—and his team—to consider a project stripped of a plot, or at least stripped of explication. The murder of a beloved actress at the beginning isn’t nearly as important as the camerawork capturing the fascinating motion of the topless dancers and their viewers. Yves Tumor is better with ardent bed-dance performances than meekly relaying cryptic “information” to an overzealous detective (Kansas Bowling, whose physicality is not well served by dialogue in this film). And the young blonde pulling a magician’s handkerchief from a notch in the beach? I am on board with all of this—except for one thing,

To clarify, I’m a “style-over-substance” kind of guy. I revel in cinematic excess, be it sets or sound production or costuming, or what-have-you. But Matador Bolero is one of the few films where I actually became somewhat annoyed when substance cropped up. What is this narrative you’re trying to tell? Who are these recurring characters? Shoo, shoo. Rosado is in his element when he’s playing around in post-production to further dreamify his already dreamy shots and vignettes. Three scantily-clad young women in wolf masks pursue a fourth (non-masked) woman down a sinister corridor and tear her dress to ribbons while a purple-glowing super-intelligence orb thing pulsates conversationally? I don’t need a “Why” for that.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“So there’s our justification for the film’s the title, but are we still feeling confused? Almost certainly; Matador Bolero is confusing by design – if we accept that the film is much more about blending moods, impressions and visual styles than telling a story… a bold project but a strange prospect, pushing the boundaries in what feels like both experimental, but recognisable ways, and coming up with something off-kilter, but visually strong.” — Keri O’Shea, Warped Perspective (contemporaneous)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: KRAKATIT (1948)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Karel Höger, Florence Marly, Florence Marly, Eduard Linkers, František Smolík, Jiří Plachý

PLOT: Prokop, a chemistry genius, invents a deadly compound which attracts the attention of shady consortiums hell-bent on world domination.

Still from Krakatit (1948)

COMMENTS: Science aids life. We learn this at the start, as a doctor and his able nurse spare an unidentified man from a febrile, clenching death. This man, however, is a different kind of scientist than his saviors. He is Prokop, a genius in the field “destructive chemistry,” and tucked away in his burning mind is the secret to Krakatit, a deadly compound capable of ending the lives of millions. His fate is not only in the hands of the healers, but his own: as he writhes and dreams on the clinic cot, his life story and personal character are scorched in a crucible, tested by demons both psychological and supernatural.

Krakatit slots itself into an ill-defined position in a number of ways. Heavily influenced by German Expressionism, it was made on the heels of two nuclear explosions. It concerns the lives of calculating scientists and (differently) calculating politicos, but it also has romance, both simple and complicated. Krakatit is a deadly serious meditation on man’s capacity for annihilation of self and others—and yet it has one of the best wisecracking cads in the history of the silver screen. (Eduard Linkers’ Carson is cut from the same shady cloth as Claude Rains’ Renault.) The chemistry is ubiquitous; but upon the introduction of a minor character and then a major one, so too becomes religion—old and new. Keep an eye out for a carriage-driver and a suspiciously named aristocrat.

Director Otakar Vávra, along with the stellar performances and glorious noir-dream cinematography by Václav Hanuš, ably walks the many tightropes laid down in Karel Capek’s source novel. Krakatit maintains its moments of ambiguity long enough to pique the curiosity, but never teases the viewer with outright incomprehensibility. It is mostly a dream, but liberally interspersed with stretches of dreamier dreaming. I am reminded here of several odd elements that only make sense later: student Prokop in an infinite amphitheater amongst innumerable photorealistic cut-outs of his classmates, the looming mystery of the Krakatit canister—why doesn’t that explode? And just how did all these Wehrmacht hold-overs end up in post-war Czechoslavokia?

The films lands on an ill-defined plane, too. Vávra opts for a nebulous non-ending which still leaves the viewer optimistic that science must—nay, shall—be harnessed to aid all mankind to live better lives. Despite the the ever-looming dangers of annihilation.

Gregory J. Smalley adds:

I have no issues with Giles’ appraisal, other than his omission of the following section:

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The muddled memories of a guilt-ridden “destructive chemist” provide the perfect substrate for exploring nascent anxieties about the apocalyptic potential of 20th century weaponry, told through a dreamy mix of Expressionism, film noir, and hallucinatory interludes out of the surrealist playbook.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… builds tension and envelops its audience in an enigmatic shroud of mystery through the wonderfully bizarre and clever ways it perpetually disrupts the reality within the film… [this] deeply strange and unsettling sci-fi mystery about a world hellbent on self-destruction rings as true today as it surely did in the wake of World War II.”–Derek Smith, Slant [Blu-ray]

Krakatit [4k UHD + Blu-ray]

Krakatit [4k UHD + Blu-ray]

  • Czech director Otakar Vávra’s astonishing mix of Film Noir, Thriller and Atomic Bomb Sci-Fi

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