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SITGES FILM FESTIVAL 2026 RECAP

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As a lifelong fan of horror, I’d been longing to attend the Sitges Film Festival for a few years, but  for one reason or another I never had the chance. At last, with my best friend in tow, this year I jumped at the opportunity to experience the 59th edition of the festival and secured seats for five screenings. While the festival started on October 8 and ended on October 18, I spent the long weekend of October 9-12 there, coinciding with Spanish regional and national festivities.

Sitges itself is a quaint coastal town with peaceful white streets that, in line with the film festival, were decorated with skeletons or monsters. Main streets were crowded with both locals and foreigners, and posters along the street announced the festival. This year, the main focus was the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Carrie, alongside the recent rise of religious horror. A festive atmosphere hung over these streets, and T-shirts reflected a love of horror and fantasy cinema.

My friend and I stayed in a  hotel close to the three main venues premiering movies: Auditori Melià, Casino Prado Suburense, and L’Escorxador. Melià is the largest venue, L’Escorxador the smallest—it’s a former slaughterhouse, which feels appropriate for the festival. These venues are only a 10-minute walk away from each other, and you can enjoy nice views of the beach and sea on your way to Auditori Melià, and stop at stands selling merchandise, meeting points for fans, or just have a drink. There’s a street food area on a hill where food trucks sell expensive—albeit somewhat healthy—fast food, both salty and sweet.

Having familiarized ourselves with the area, we went to our first movie at Auditori Melià at 11pm: Joshua Giuliano’s River, starring Jany Levy and Jessica Rothe. Naturally, such iconic names and an intriguing premise—three siblings grieving over their dad’s death are stalked by a faceless killer on a river—had us hyped up in advance. Unfortunately, this first film was the greatest disappointment of our festival experience, but at least it made us hopeful that the next four movies would be an improvement! The problem lies not in the acting, which is great, as one would expect from the cast, but in the many plot holes and unexplored links. Scenes honoring previous classics can be easily detected, but River struggles to get its own story right in this mix of references, leaving viewers with many questions as to what the movie was about. It felt like it was trying to communicate something about trauma and the passing down of harmful Continue reading SITGES FILM FESTIVAL 2026 RECAP →

Capsules

CAPSULE: EARWIG (2021)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Paul Hilton, Romane Hemelaers, Romola Garai

PLOT: A servant looks after a girl without teeth, who wears dentures made of ice.

Still from Earwig (2021)

COMMENTS: The fanciful dental system utilized by young Mia is elaborately efficient. She wears a headpiece with a metal brace affixed with two glass reservoirs. As the ice teeth melt, the reservoirs collect the moisture. This liquid is then poured into molds to create a new set of teeth, which replace the set awaiting her in the freezer in a regular cycle. Why ice should be a suitable material with which to make prosthetic teeth is a question worth asking of Earwig. Both ice and glass are solidified liquids that can be molded into strong, hard surfaces which retain an aspect of delicacy and fragility. And glass, when broken, to paraphrase Jean Ray is like the best of stories—it can cut you like a knife.

Middle-aged Albert assiduously attends to the girl’s dentures as Mia’s lone butler/servant/caretaker. The two reside in dusty, sparsely furnished rooms in a massive old apartment building where the routine of replacing the dentures shapes their days. When not patiently sitting through her dental procedures, Mia amuses herself by making her own toys out of scraps of newspaper, watching a painting of a grand chateau for curious changes in the composition, and observing the flow of sunlight through ruby-red cocktail glasses.

Mia seems like an easy charge, despite the dental care, but Albert always wears a strained expression, as though suffering a perpetual headache. But though one might guess he’s eagerly awaiting the day when his duties will come to an end, he appears genuinely disturbed when his “master” phones to tell him it’s time to prepare the girl for the outside world.

Earwig crafts a story of enigmatic destinies in an unspecified post-war time period, in an unidentified European city. The actors speak English, although there’s hardly any dialogue; the first twenty-four minutes of the film occur in silence. Characters drift through their memories, dreams and nightmares in barely populated fog-choked landscapes. The interiors appear encased in amber, glowing dimly with yellowish lights. Where most directors would punctuate the slow passage of time with monotonous clock-ticking, Earwig features a score of resonances, like the fulsome tones from a glass harmonica. The entire world seems brittle to the point of breaking, and all it takes is the appearance of vaguely sinister strangers with undefined ulterior motives to upset the balance.

Mia’s dentures suggest an apt metaphor for the film itself, which parcels out its secrets to the gradual rhythm of melting ice, without ever explaining anything. Images of the old chateau and shafts of light shining through glassware illuminate forgotten memories which may also be figments of the imagination. Just how the film’s lost souls, (possibly) deceased spouses, and (maybe) missing children are connected remains hazy and shrouded in mystery.

With its glacial pacing, obscure symbolism, and sudden bursts of irrational violence, Earwig may appeal to fans of , or ‘s Heart of Glass. Adapted from the book by Brian Catling, author of The Vorrh trilogy, and that may be all you need to know.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

” .. like the young girls in Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence (2004) and the young boys in her Évolution (2015), Mia is being prepared for a rite of passage which is presented in the irrational idioms of surrealism…. Earwig keeps its secrets which is precisely what will ensure that its enigmatic, oneiric visions burrow their way into the darker crevices of the viewer’s consciousness. “– Anton Bitel, Sight and Sound (contemproaneous)

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The Worlds Of Lucile Hadžihalilović

The Worlds Of Lucile Hadžihalilović

  • INNOCENCE, EVOLUTION, EARWIG, THE ICE TOWER & shorts. A 4-disc journey through one of France’s most singular contemporary filmmakers.

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Capsules

CAPSULE: DIGGER (2026)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , Riz Ahmed, , Sophie Wilde,

PLOT: A narcissistic billionaire struggles to control the narrative after his oil drilling operation causes a global catastrophe.

Still from Digger (2026)

COMMENTS: Digger is, nakedly, Tom Cruise’s bid to finally land that elusive Oscar. Give him a producer’s credit and an 8-figure budget. A script for an issue film, but not on a super-polarizing topic like transsexualism: instead, make it a comedy with a populist spin about the ultra-wealthy screwing the little guy. Pair him with a director with a reputation for shepherding highbrow concepts into accessible, Oscar-friendly cineplex experiences. Add a top-notch supporting cast willing to concede the limelight. Throw money at the screen, promising a Vista Vision spectacle like only real Hollywood can do it. Given these resources, Cruise certainly does his part: under what looks like pounds of makeup and a fat suit that makes him unrecognizable except for the occasional Cruisian glimmer in his eye, he blusters his way through the madness, hitting every mark.

And yet, for all of this liveliness, box office receipts and reviews have already dug Digger an early grave. Which may be appropriate for a ghoulish comedy featuring a dying planet, a dying President, and a dying cat.

One drawback is that the film isn’t that funny. Iñárritu has a knack for contrived absurdity, but not for the sort of rollicking comedy that feels unforced and organic. Consider a moment in a high-stakes war room meeting when a general makes an off-color sexist remark, and President Compson (a gaunt Goodman) admonishes him to watch his language because there are ladies present. After a beat where everyone looks around the room in confusion, Goodman chortles, unable to sustain a straight face. That line would have been a screamer in Dr. Strangelove‘s 1960s, but, although it gets a reflexive laugh here, you almost immediately realize it doesn’t reflect contemporary reality: today, there would have been a Susie Wiles in that meeting, or at the very least a Natalie Harp. 

Which leads into the other major criticism of the film: it crams obvious messages into the shape of jokes, rather than finding the humor in the story’s situations. Digger is preachy, almost as hectoring as its caricature of a tycoon. And few enjoy being lectured at, even when they agree with the lesson. The script’s “meta” twist acknowledges this weakness, and comes close to apologizing for it; but in doing so, risks becoming even more condescending, explaining to the audience how satire is supposed to work and how you should process it. The tack the twist takes, however, ultimately serves a narrative purpose that is specific and surprising enough to avoid that pitfall. Still, the overall feeling that the film is talking down to the viewer is hard to shake.

Based on the sometimes brutal notices, that smug tone annoyed many critics. But in truth, it hardly ruins the film, which remains brisk and unpredictable. Digger is still strong when it focuses on uncomfortable truths. The centerpiece is a 10-minute (one take!) Cruise monologue where he speaks before some sort of court composed of a jury of ashen European extras from a film. Having given up on deniability in the face of a tsunami of death and misery directly caused by his choices, Digger surrenders to the inevitable opprobrium and tries the tactic of truth as a Hail Mary. Yes, we wrecked the environment. But what did you expect us to do? Ignore your demands for heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, jet fuel for trips to Mallorca, and Doordashed Big Macs? Forego squeezing every short-term dollar of shareholder value? Not kick the can of catastrophe down the road? Did anyone ever actually believe there was any way we would not ruin the planet? The message is heavy-handed… but it’s not wrong.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…even when you bump against the Tom Cruise of it all, and there’s no denying the thrill of watching him apply his signature intensity to a role as strange as this one… Iñárritu… fares better when he trades slapstick for Hieronymous Bosch-like surrealism during the middle portion…”–David Ehrlich, Indiewire (contemporaneous)

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Capsules

CAPSULE: BOUCHRA (2024)

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Bouchra is available for purchase or rental on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY: Orian Yani Barki, Merriem Benani

FEATURING: Voices of Yto Barrada, Marriam Benani, Dounia Berrada

PLOT: A New York-based Moroccan coyote film director develops an autobiographical movie exploring her relationship with her mother.

Still from Bouchra (2024)

COMMENTS: Directors Barki and Benami built a reputation for cinematic weirdness with their previous collaboration, the 2020 short-film series “2 Lizards,” which was featured on ‘s surreal mixtape program “Off the Air.” Bouchra, the team’s animated feature film debut, centers on the titular heroine, a young Moroccan woman living and working as a film director in New York City. The narrative alternates between her present life and her past in Casablanca, blurring reality with reconstruction as Bouchra attempts, through her work, to process her relationship with her semi-estranged Moroccan mother. The tensions between them stem from taboos surrounding Bouchra’s sexual identity that went unaddressed and ignored for years. Through calls with her mother in the present day, and reconstructions/reminisces of a short lesbian affair in Casablanca, these issues gradually come to light. Plus, the characters are all anthropomorphic animals of various species.

Like Endless Cookie (2025), Bouchra stands out due to the dissonance between its stylized animation and its grounded themes. The aesthetic—furry-inspired anthropomorphic animals in a neon-soaked, almost cyberpunk-like urban environment—can be off-putting at first. But this isn’t sci-fi or high fantasy. Naturalistic dialogue, overlapping and full of awkward stuttering, hints at something closer to reality. This is, essentially, a tale of familial ties, sexual orientation, and the way traditional societies consciously exile whatever disrupts the status quo. It is an empathetic tale, eager to show compassion and understand easily-disturbed norms. The furry aesthetic reveals the queerness of the bodies, their hairy, androgynous nature. This is especially apparent in two short, tasteful yet erotically-charged intimate segments. The dark color palette of New York contrasts with the warmer tones of Casablanca. Often, the uncanny, detailed digital character animations are juxtaposed against real background photographs of Morocco, for a documentary-like feel.

In the end, this movie can be viewed not only as American independent cinema, but also as Moroccan Diasporic Cinema. And since Moroccan cinema isn’t that common, this work can be recommended to fans of world cinema adventures.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Bouchra is filled with… small incidental details that dominate one’s attention, puncturing the otherwise fairly banal sheen of the piece as a whole and revealing a distinctive, weirdly effective work struggling valiantly against its miniscule [sic] budget.”–Grant Watson, Fiction Machine (festival screening)

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HYSTERIA (1997)

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DIRECTED BY: Rene Daalder

FEATURING: Patrick McGoohan, Amanda Plummer, Michael Maloney, Emmanuelle Vaugier

PLOT: Clinical psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Fry delivers an especially troubled patient to the only place he believes can help, the remote Langston Clinic, where he discovers that the cure for mental illness may be worse than the ailment.Still from Hysteria (1997)

COMMENTS: “Welcome to the last good old-fashioned madhouse!” exclaims Dr. Harvey Langston, and he does not deceive. They just don’t make mad scientists like they used to, and Hysteria is a throwback to that wonderful time, both historically and cinematically, when society just threw all its lunatics into one big Gothic mansion and trusted to let God sort it out. The fun is in seeing just how nuts people are going to get, and once you’ve made the decision to cast Patrick McGoohan as your mad scientist and Amanda Plummer as his majordomo, you’re setting the crazy bar pretty high.

A prologue hints at a sinister explanation for what’s going on at the Langston Clinic (and is quickly forgotten), but soon after Fry’s arrival, the real secret is revealed: Dr. Langston has pioneered the use of neurotransmitters to establish a mental link among everyone at the clinic, patients and doctors alike, turning the whole place into a kind of hive mind. The result is that the afflictions of these patients are shared among the group, meaning anyone could suddenly lapse into Tourette’s or begin stuttering or suddenly rip open their blouse. Hysteria‘s great innovation is not that everyone in the asylum is crazy, but that the crazy is collective. This spirit informs the film’s wildest scene, in which a sexual encounter is appreciated far more widely than one might expect.

Despite moments like this, or a surprisingly moving scene in which a victim of paralysis attempts to crowdsource the ability to dance, Hysteria isn’t weird so much as it is ambitious. Presenting itself as a traditional horror flick in which a lone man must do battle with the forces of insanity, it eventually reveals itself to be a lunatic-themed metaphor for “it takes a village.” It’s arguable that everyone we meet is at least a little bit wacko, especially our hero Dr. Fry, esteemed clinical psychiatrist and clear voice of reason in a world gone mad. Of course, the only reason he is driving his troubled patient to a mysterious clinic in the woods is because he’s blown up his spot in the big city, raging out at a policy that favors drugs over hugs and fiercely determined to rescue this woman for whom he secretly harbors a crush. We buy in because of Michael Maloney’s passionate demeanor and plummy English accent, but the movie wants you to know you’re backing the wrong horse.

Hysteria is best enjoyed as a fun bit of misdirection masquerading as a traditional horror. The effort is aided its strong cast, including McGoohan playing both paternal and happily demented, and Plummer as the true mastermind, earning pathos through her full commitment. (Special shout-out to Vaugier, who successfully accomplishes the two tasks set before her: to play convincingly crazy and to look beautiful when called upon to take off all her clothes.) It’s far from groundbreaking, but moves in enough unexpected directions to reward the casual viewer: a good old-fashioned madhouse.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Hysteria is a film that can’t quite find the right balance between the bizarre and the intriguing… it can seem as if Daalder is including weird things for the sake of weirdness, like some kind of David Lynch wannabe... It’s admirably ambitious, but the bulk of the film ignores Daalder’s more intriguing ideas and comes off either too conventional or too aggressively weird.” – Tyler Foster, DVD Talk (Blu-Ray release)

(This movie was nominated for review by jamesoliva76. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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Hysteria

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