Capsules

2026 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: NOM NOM NOM, PART NOM NOM NOM

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Montréal 2026

An ace of diamonds signed by a cartoonist rests alongside its fifty-one unadorned companions.

7/30: Recluse

Henry Chaisson goes full tilt 1980s BBC spook story here, with his slow pacing matching the gloomy atmospherics. A sound engineer (a profession seemingly irrelevant to the goings-on) must return home to attend to her dying father, a famously troubled artist who suffers a nasty gasoline burn at the film’s beginning. The lead is, appropriately, a cipher, with costars carrying various degrees of mysterious weight (shouts-out to Fantasia regulars and ). If you can slip into the measured nature of the game, Recluse is a satisfying little spooker.

The Leader

Alternately funny, sinister, and unbelievable, The Leader chronicles the rise and devastating fall of Marshall Applewhite and his “Heaven’s Gate” cult. Members are harvested from the dejected and hopeless masses and molded into a helpless existence. positively shines in Michael Gallagher’s docudrama, but the real gem is Vera Farmiga as co-founder Bonnie Lu Nettles. Here down to earth seriousness gives weight to the experience, making Bonnie’s death in 1985 a preemptive death knell. Well-crafted and very unsettling.

Never After Dark

After the serious let-down of The Mouths, Dave Boyle’s J-Horror restored my faith in the phenomenon. There’s the expected blue-cold darkness, and a ghostly fellow with slashed mouth hunting for something at certain hours of the day, but there’s also warmth and fun. Airi is a ghost hunter with a sidekick in the form of her deceased older sister (appearing in mirrors as a young girl, having died many years prior) and a disinclination toward live people (her semi-flirtations with a new client’s skeptic son are delightfully awkward). Her rig to visit the other realm is a doozy, involving a zoetrope, a candle, and a receptacle to burn a lock of hair, and the mid-century Continue reading 2026 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: NOM NOM NOM, PART NOM NOM NOM →

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ANTIPORNO (2016)

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The fifth installment of the Pete’s Perverted Pix series.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Mariko Tsutsui,

PLOT: A pair of actresses enact a sadomasochistic relationship within a film but switch roles when the cameras are off.

Still from Antiporno (2016)

 

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The manic, scene-devouring energy of the motor-mouthed lead actress is at least enough to place this deconstruction of pink films and media celebrity culture out of the ordinary, but then we slide down a hyper-surreal rabbit hole between the actresses in character and the actresses out of character, and their dreams, hallucinations, flashbacks, re-shoots of scenes, and existential reality riddles.

COMMENTS: Animal lovers beware: when our main character, Kyoko (Tomite) first opens her eyes in the morning, it’s to the sight of a large lizard kept in a glass bottle, clearly now imprisoned in there after having grown too big to crawl out, entirely dependent on outside forces to keep it alive. If you’re thinking this “bird in a gilded cage” metaphor might apply to our protagonist: ding, you are correct. Kyoko is a celebrity porn star and “artist” in Japan, kept in a brightly-colored but sparsely furnished apartment, where her existence as a performative sex object under the stress of Japanese idol culture has driven her well past barking mad. Not only does she dance and caper while hallucinating her dead sister playing the piano, she screams, throws tantrums, barfs, skips like a schoolgirl, and prances like a ballerina—mostly while stark naked. Kyoko is soon visited by her personal servant, Noriko (Tsutsui), and Kyoko shifts into alpha-bitch mode. She is cruel and humiliating to Noriko, and her abuse takes on an increasingly fetishistic nature. Kyoko humiliates Noriko, forces her to crawl and bark like a dog, forces oral sex on her, and sticks in a good belt whipping. When fashion model photographer One Hundred (Fujiko) and her posse show up, they only join in Noriko’s torment.

Just when Noriko is getting gang-raped, a director yells “Cut!” Ha, gotcha! This was just a scene these actresses were filming, and though they keep the same names, their personalities switch. Noriko is now an insufferably egotistic and unhinged diva, and Kyoko is a nervous understudy who trembles and grovels submissively. Yes, it’s one of those kinda movies. As subsequent scenes are filmed, the two lead actresses’  personalities each ramp up the sadism when it’s their turn on top, in a vicious game of humiliation tag. In between, we get treated to a snarling satire of the porn/film industry, as even the director treats Kyoko like a slave and the whole film crew pressures Kyoko to submit. I should add, all this is taking place in a few stylized sets given to bold primary colors and pop-art props, making for candy-sweet viewing.

If you think this movie is out of rug-pulls now that we have that movie-within-a-movie bit revealed, you’re mistaken. We slide back

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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THREE… EXTREMES (2004)

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DIRECTED BY: ,,

FEATURING: , , , Im Won-hee, Kyôko Hasegawa,

PLOT: A woman resorts to extreme measures to regain her youth, an intruder torments a film director and his wife, a young girl is haunted by a traumatic past.

Still from Three... Extremes (2004)

COMMENTS:  Three… Extremes started as a franchise of pan-Asian horror anthologies with 2002’s Three. A collection of short films from Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Kim Jee-woon, and , Three offered a panorama of horror from China, South Korea and Thailand. It never reached the popularity of its sequel, however, remaining obscure while the second and final installment, widely known as Three… Extremes, attained a cult status, largely thanks to a selection of contributors that included a couple of major names in  contemporary  cinema.

Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan offers the first dish, Dumplings. It is perhaps the most infamous of the trilogy, and Chan quickly adapted it into a feature film. The plot revolves around a rich middle-aged woman attempting to regain her youth ( and her husband’s love)  by eating special dumplings that promise to rejuvenate her skin, provided by an unconventional chef. Ethical issues come to the forefront as the stuffing’s origin is revealed. Our heroine’s disgust and second thoughts give easily their way to self-destructive obsession, however. “Dumplings” is a Faustian morality play about the price of narcissism. Like Elizabeth Báthory, the countess who bathed in the blood of virgin women to remain young, our protagonist engages in grotesque acts for selfish reasons. An industrial soundscape enhances the sense of something ominous and disturbing lurking in the background.

After the appetizer, South Korean visionary Park-Chan Wook  presents “Cut.” His story focuses on a successful film director and his wife on the night that an intruder captures them and proceeds with a series of mental and physical tortures. There is no moral justification here; this is no Saw. Instead, the explanation given is brutally honest, making the events following even more shocking. This is a revenge tale, albeit one with elements of social commentary. If you love contemporary socially-conscious genre cinema from South Korea, like Bong Joon Ho‘s Oscar-nominated Parasite (2019), this will be right up your alley (as long as you have a strong stomach for gore). At the same time, the narrative plays masterfully with the nature of reality, blurring the lines between the authentic and the staged, culminating in a series of over-the-top twists and reveals.

The third piece, by far the most haunting, comes from Japan. Takashi Miike’s “Box” is a surreal psychosexual narrative following a young woman ridden by guilt and repressed lust. It alternates between present and past; Miike depicts the former in a cold color palette expressing grief, while warmer tones in the present hint at catastrophic passions. The flashbacks have a carnivalesque aesthetic that, along with the taboo subject matter, recalls ‘s Strange Circus (2005). The hints of supernatural horror and the morbid symbolic imagery are guaranteed to make you shudder.

More often than not, compilation films are uneven. That’s not the case here. A strong thematic link creates coherence, as each tale is a deeply meditative take on human envy. This is thoughtful horror with a psychological aspect, essential viewing for fans of the genre.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…Miike’s ‘Box’ is the best of the bunch – a disturbing, dreamlike tale of a woman novelist haunted by dreams of her twin sister who died long ago…  The film may well live up to its title: it is perhaps too extreme for some viewers, perhaps even in bad taste at times, but you have to give all the episodes credit for being bizarre and effective.”–Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique

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Three / Three... Extremes [Limited Edition] [Blu-ray]

Three / Three… Extremes [Limited Edition] [Blu-ray]

  • Two anthology films, six ghostly tales of terror, acclaimed directors from Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand and Japan. The ultimate omnibus of horror.

List Price : 39.95 $

Offer: 27.55 $

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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: BUDDY (2026)

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Buddy is available for rental or purchase on VOD.

DIRECTED BY: Casper Kelly

FEATURING: Delaney Quinn, Cristin Milioti, Tristan Borders, Madison Skyy Polan, and the voice of Keegan-Michael Key

PLOT: A group of children’s-show friends attempt to escape from the increasingly homicidal titular unicorn.

Still from Buddy (2026)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Buddy’s lair is carved directly into the sheer walls of the uncanny valley, sure, but the denouement’s dreamy poignancy secures Kelly’s caper a place in our weird hearts.

COMMENTS: You may not know it, but Buddy wants to be your friend. And even though he’s just met you, he loves you very much. But unless you want to spend the remainder of your existence (or perhaps longer) cycling through an endless series of singing, dancing, frolicking bromides, do not extend your hand to this beastly television host. Watch out for your family, too, because once they’ve gone Buddy, there’s no going back.

Buddy will appeal to a number of audiences: horror fans seeking something candy-coated and full of carnage; adventurous viewers yearning for the sinister side of wacky; drug aficionados who have themselves tasted of the butterscotch psychotropic flower petal; and especially anthropologists studying television culture of the late second millennium. This film is a simulacrum of excesses that, in hindsight, feel almost barbaric.

I am not referring to the creepy gore found in Buddy, no. I speak of the bombardment of treacly songs and horrific performance foisted on the youth of yesteryear—and, regrettably, today as well. Strip away Buddy’s murderous rampages, and there’s still an ever-pulsating technicolor blob of repulsiveness. When we root for Freddy and her liberated buddies, we’re not just invested in their physical safety: we want them to escape to live a well-adjusted life, with all its surprises and misfortunes.

Casper Kelly leaps out of the fire and into the impossibly vibrant world of 1990s children’s programs with his latest film, and the product of his imagination both sears the eyes and slashes the mind, all while also capturing the heart. During Kelly’s introduction to his movie, he commented on his own children’s viewing of the various late-20th-century “children’s classics.” I can only hope and pray that those days are gone, that the memories fade, and that in years to come we can look upon Buddy as a totem of daytime horrors past.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…get’s [sic] more and more fun the weirder and weirder it gets… A deranged, go for broke experiment that makes the most of all of its bizarre ideas…”–Derrick Murray, Nerdbot (festival screening)

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