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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: GODHEAD (2026)

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DIRECTED BY: 

FEATURING: Al Warren, Sarah Coffey, Kimball Farley, Luke Speakman

PLOT: Fraternal twins enter a Catholic church and demand the priest shoot one of them so that the Holy Spirit may be set free.

Still from Godhead (2026)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Rapaport again slides an odd one across our desk, as his sophomore effort kicks off Funny Games-style before converting into fully blown mystical madness.

COMMENTS: What is the Holy Ghost? One would think that the metaphysical world is sufficiently inscrutable without theorizing about an entity that lacks substance in a realm that is already beyond the perceivable. A more-vaporous vapor, it travels without constraints in a realm already lacking any constraints mortals might conceive. Though utterly incorporeal, this Ghost can apparently still be trapped in a vessel—a human vessel no less. And although its selfhood cannot be fathomed, even we lowly, three-dimensional meat-and-bone creatures are aware that no one, nothing, wants to be trapped.

This musing is amongst the prerequisite considerations when approaching Mark H. Rapaport’s sophomore feature, Godhead. Creepy twins, named Firstborn (Sarah Coffey, slipping around the screen with serpentine malevolence) and Secondborn (Kimball Farley, trapped in his own spastic discomfiture), seem all too familiar with the “primary” third of the Godhead. The Creator; the twins claim It speaks to them. A small town priest (a mild and exhausted Al Warren) knows the triune Son, and also has an earthly son (Luke Speakman), a boy found as an infant found in a shopping basket on his doorstep and now stowed away in the back rooms of the church. A night-long journey through menace, hope, despair, and impossibility develops between these four characters.

Godhead has a delightful, temporally ambiguous style. Low tech, the story often plays like a classical Hollywood morality tale (and that title font, oh yes). Cinematographer William Babock is on board once more, whipping up stark church imagery to contrast with the occasionally-seen “other” world from whence came the uncanny siblings. There is an odd sense of humor sprinkled about. While the priest is berated by Firstborn, Secondborn earnestly helps him with a dust pan as the priest fretfully sweeps the church. A delightful scene with the boy-in-the-backroom features a static-glowing television; the director slips in an exchange which encapsulates anticipated reactions to his movie: “I’m not sure what this is.” “I do not like it.”

Rapaport and his tight cast alternate between punches of shock (gunplay in the sanctum is frowned upon, I can assure you), feints of deceit (a pair of hearse-bound conversations tip this film into hard-R-rating), and a third act which darts seamlessly, and often, between the mundane and the divine. The climax ratchets from one kind of weird into another. I did not expect Rapaport to be so gracious to his own creations. But that is within the dimension of possibility when you are a filmmaker: you are your own movie’s Godhead.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“[T]he film’s commitment to its own strangeness will also be the dividing line… plenty of films chase weirdness without understanding how to shape it. Rapaport does.” — Chris Jones, Overly Honest Reviews (festival screening)

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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DANCE FREAK (2025)

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RecommendedWeirdest!

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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CAPSULE: HOUSE OF DREAMS (1963)

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“The house stood alone,
a mere ghost in the midst of the modern, uncaring world.
Within her skeletal fibers secrets remained secluded forever.
The only one who might have revealed them
was now lying in a world where neither time nor flesh existed.”

– quote from Lee Hansen’s novel in House of Dreams

DIRECTED BY: Robert Berry

FEATURING: Pauline Elliott, Robert Berry, Charlene Bradley, Lance Bird

PLOT: An author writing about a haunted house begins having eerily prophetic nightmares.

COMMENTS: A low-budget horror film made by college students, House of Dreams is, understandably, an amateur effort. It’s also rather impressive for what it manages to accomplish with limited resources and a novice crew. It contains way too many uninteresting scenes of marital bickering, broken up by far too few dream sequences. Reverse the proportion of dream to reality and it would be a satisfyingly weird little chiller along the lines of Carnival of Souls (to which it’s often compared). House of Dreams doesn’t quite succeed in sustaining a spooky atmosphere but, in its best moments, it conjures surreal dreamscapes worthy of ‘s Blood of a Poet.

Lee Hansen (Berry) suffers from writer’s block. As he struggles to complete his latest novel, he begins experiencing disturbing dreams. If that wasn’t bad enough, his wife Elaine, a recovering alcoholic wrestling with her own demons, accuses him of neglecting her. She wants to take a vacation to rekindle their romance but he insists on finishing his book first. What seems like a responsible adult decision backfires on him as the subject of Lee’s book, the “old Winninger place,” takes over his unconscious mind.

Filmed on location in an actual rural Indiana “haunted” house owned by the director’s mother, House of Dreams makes good use of a genuinely creepy setting. Each of Lee’s nightmares begins with him driving to the dilapidated house and slowly approaching it from the front walkway. He reluctantly enters the front door which, of course, opens on its own to welcome him. What happens next varies from dream to dream but, amid the usual ghostly tropes, some startlingly original images appear, each nightmare concluding with a frightening final scene.

Creative use of interior architecture and unusual camera angles add to the mood of unease. With a few simple props and generous use of chiaroscuro lighting, Berry and his cinematographer show how less can be more when it comes to crafting suspenseful horror. The minimalist soundtrack, an original score, also takes a less-is-more approach.1 Occasional metronomic tappings add tension to the scenes of everyday life, and menacing electronic organ strains accompany the dream sequences. A scene in which Elaine suddenly appears in Lee’s study, wearing a ghostly white dress, feels all the more unsettling for taking place in complete silence.

As tragedies begin to befall Lee’s family members, he realizes his dreams foreshadow things to come. Unfortunately, the family drama element of the plot isn’t very compelling. The student actors aren’t quite up to the task, and unnecessarily long conversations are a major weakness in the script. Pauline Elliot isn’t bad as Lee’s wife,  and Berry does his best in the lead (a role intended for a professional actor who ended up declining the part). As director, actor, writer, and editor, Berry demonstrates a solid grounding in the fundamentals of storytelling. Footage of the Winninger place, including shots of the dramatic staircase and the overgrown well, periodically intercuts the domestic moments, illustrating the house’s growing hold over Lee and his relatives. White roses, briefly glimpsed in the opening act, recur throughout, a symbol whose full significance isn’t revealed until the very end.

Eventually, Lee decides to investigate the Winninger house in real life—or is he already trapped inside the nightmare? His penultimate foray plays out like all the other dream sequences. Lee drives to the house, he hesitates on the walkway, and the front door hangs open, taunting him to enter. Will Lee escape the house’s strange power or has he already become its final victim? Fans of low-budget ’60s horror will find House of Dreams worth a visit.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an arduous regional horror, shot for peanuts in Decker, Indiana by a group of film students in 1963. Like the long-lost sibling of Herk Harvey’s altogether more interesting Carnival of Souls (1962) this throws any established notions of narrative and logic to the wind but, unlike Harvey’s enduring diamond in the rough, fails to engage the hapless audience.”–Kevin Lyons, The EOFFTV Review 

1An alternate score written in 2019 received Berry’s approval, and the latest Blu-ray release from Vinegar Syndrome/Bleeding Skull includes both.

House of Dreams [Blu-ray]

House of Dreams [Blu-ray]

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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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