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FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: F*CKTOYS (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Annapurna Sriram

FEATURING: Annapurna Sriram, Sadie Scott, Damian Young, François Arnaud, Brandon Flynn

PLOT: A sex worker learns she’s under a curse, and must come by one-thousand dollars for a sacrificial ritual to banish the black magic.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Sure, sure, it’s got leather-bondage cops, ritual sacrifice, a golden phallus, and so on. But what truly makes F*cktoys an odd duck is that its dirty NC-17 veneer encloses a warm-hearted romantic comedy adventure that shines through from underneath the sleaze.

COMMENTS: Outside the cinema, an individual in a hazmat suit haphazardly scrubbed any and all surfaces with a cleaning brush. The doors opened, and the house was packed by jolly rowdies from all different walks of life. (Some of them rather different indeed.) Much scurrying to and fro, as Fantasia staff ushered key people to key places. A hush, and a roar, and the presenter intoned the title “F*cktoys!” (without the asterisk.) Enter Annapurna Sriram, beaming with excitement. Few could deny her her joy, for she was about to exhibit her film to a Fantasia audience—an audience that couldn’t have been a better fit for F*cktoys if it had been lab-grown for the purpose.

Our hero’s journey begins, ends, and never departs from the mystical alternate 1990s reality of “Trashtown.” There is plenty of trash, scattering the roadways, littering overgrown industrial facilities, and filling the sordid interiors. The plucky heroine, known only as AP, receives shocking news from a shockingly fabulous fortune teller: she must somehow gather a wad of cash (and a baby goat) to rid herself of ill fortune. With her good friend Danni in tow (unexpectedly, as AP was fairly sure this buddy had snuffed it), she rides, hustles, and endures many trials on her path to deliverance.

That path is strewn with odd sex, odd venues, and oddballs. Danni takes a gig catering to sexuo-philosophical celebrity James Francone (not to be confused with a similarly named individual), shutting him up about his water-coloring through use of a lubed fist. AP’s client-friend Robert apologizes for culminating so quickly (but then, “I’m, like, 90% gay”). A robbery (hah) goes awry, the screw turns, and AP is forced to cater to a mysterious gentleman known as “The Mechanic”: a true sweetheart, and loving to the core—apart from his penchant for sexual mutilation.

This all unfurls to the beat of a bouncy quest-comedy, with AP haplessly—but cheerily—sliding from one fun or strange or dangerous set piece to the next. Special note should be made of Sadie Scott’s performance as the best friend, Danni. Gender-ambiguous, rough-and-tumble, their energy and zeal makes them reminiscent of Toyah Willcox’s “Mad” character from Derek Jarman‘s Jubilee. Danni’s tragic fate is equaled in intensity only by their love of AP (and of donuts).

As befits a journey on a moped, F*cktoys is a bit of a bumpy ride. Most of its parts work, however—the extended Robert-ex-machina scene alone is worth the price of admission—and overall, the pieces fit together with cheerful clunk and whirl. It was made lovingly for our kinds of people,  kinds of people: joyful perverts, joyful outcasts, and joyful subversives. So if you want to smooth the corners of some square in your life, trick them into a F*cktoys screening and watch as they uncomfortably squirm their prudishness away.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The story of a Southern sex worker’s bizarre adventures trying to reverse a curse remains witty and watchable for its entire running time, juggling an abundance of strange characters and story threads en route to a surreal and unexpectedly heartfelt ending.”–Murtada Elfadl, Variety (contemporaneous)

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FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE DEVIL’S BRIDE (1974)

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Velnio nuotaka

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DIRECTED BY: Arunas Zebriunas

FEATURING: Gediminas Girdvainis, Vasyl Symchych, Regina Varnaite, Vaiva Mainelyte, Regimantas Adomaitis

PLOT: Cast down from Heaven, minor demon Pinchiukas tricks an Earthly miller into signing away his daughter.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Featuring a bumbling God, a prancy little devil, and non-stop rock and roll and orchestra, this Cold War relic bubbles over with breezy “what the Hell?” charm.

COMMENTS: I don’t always watch devil-summoned naiads pursue a hunky suitor, but when I do, I prefer them on horseback. At a slightly too-long seventy-five minutes, The Devil’s Bride catches the eye and raises the eyebrow from the start, commencing its cavalcade of song and dance with a gilded frame bounding the Lord and a host of singing cherubim. God dozes on and off, with the angels discovering the temptations of feasting, drinking, and smooching during their brief moments without supervision. Cue the music transition from the classic big blast hymnal choir. At one point, God’s thronal bell loses its clapper, and chaos ensues for just too long while he attempts to fix it. By the time he rings it to restore order, several of the Heavenly host are ripe for a fall: lady angels losing grace in go-go dance outfits, fellow angels done up in full 19th-century foppery. And we meet our anti-hero, Pinchiukas, fallen into a pond, depressed and ready to begin scheming.

Some of my confusion about the plot flow stems certainly from a regrettable lack of knowledge about Lithuanian folklore. (Some, too, doubtless from the punch-drunk mental state I was in after very little sleep the preceding night.) Are gay angels a recognized aspect of Soviet Lithuanian Catholic doctrine? Who is that incessantly aria-ing blonde on the boat who immediately falls for the homely miller? How is it the local swain so swiftly seduces—and is seduced by—the daughter? (Was it his manly-but-romantic chomping of a daisy flower head that clinched the deal)? What is up with that elaborate gold-carved window frame on the mill exterior? How about those disembodied black-elbow-gloved hands at the devil’s beck and call? And why is a devil, but not an angel or God, bound so scrupulously by legal contract verbiage?

This final question is one I have for supernatural folktales more broadly. Suffice to say, the questions raised are as superfluous as any answers that might be furnished by a more illuminated viewer.

Despite stalling out on occasion, and despite the repetitiveness of every one of the songs, The Devil’s Bride is a romp that borders on the madcap, particularly thanks to leading man Gediminas Girdvainis as the little devil. It was pleasant to observe that, confused though I was about the occult mechanics, the portrayal of “evil” was ultimately sympathetic. Ne’er shall I forget his pomp and ridiculousness on the day of his wedding, with fancy chapeau, hunting-red jacket, and his sheer, skin-tight white leggings. Comely daughters and swains the world over, beware the appeal of the devil in tights.

The Devil’s Bride is restored and presented by Deaf Crocodile, available now in a limited edition Blu-ray, with a standard edition scheduled for a mid-September release.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a 78-minute audio-visual barrage of ideas, music, and chaotic storytelling that is not for the faint of heart… feels somehow both like an Eastern Bloc Babes in Toyland style fantasy and also as if Jodorowsky made a musical… I’ll be damned if I’ll ever forget it.”–J. Hurtado, Screen Anarchy (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: THE EMPIRE (2024)

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L’empire

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Anamaria Vartolomei, Brandon Vlieghe, Lyna Khoudri, Julien Manier, , Camille Cottin

PLOT: Rival races of aliens, the Ones and the Zeroes, possess humans in a small French town.

Still from The Empire (2024)

COMMENTS: The Empire is an epic pitched in a very odd and minor key, and we expect nothing less from Bruno Dumont. It’s best described as a deadpan satire where alien factions battle for the fate of earth, but spend more time scouting, strategizing, swimming, and sleeping around than fighting each other. Why aliens chose a sunny and sleepy fishing town in northern France for the site of Armageddon is anyone’s guess—and maybe an essential part of the joke.

Much of what plot there is seems arbitrary and almost beside-the-point; in fact, it’s not entirely clear what the point is. The aliens possess villagers at random. The evil Zeroes have a prophetic Antichrist-like baby of destiny, but the good guy Ones don’t have much of a coherent plan to deal with it. They decapitate someone, maybe as a warning? An abduction resolves in an easily thwarted anticlimax. Mostly, the two teams cast sideways looks at each other when they pass in town, and take time out to confer with their respective leaders: La Reine for the Ones, who hovers in a cathedral spaceship complete with stained glass windows, and Belzébuth for the Zeroes, orbiting Earth in a craft that looks more like the palace of Versailles. The Empire‘s most fabulous character, Belzébuth dresses in a puffy white suit with a black bow tie, and is something like a cross between Evil from Time Bandits and a depraved Pee Wee Herman. Fans of Lil’ Quinquin‘s Captain Van der Weyden and Lieutenant Carpentier will be frustrated; the comic gendarmes put in a couple appearances, and Dumont teases that we may follow their investigation into the decapitation, but they actually play no role in the plot. (I’m a bit concerned about ‘s health—Van der Weyden barely mumbles one line here.)

The Empire is loosely a parody of science fiction epics—Jane and Rudy even wield (slightly modified) lightsabers—but it’s far from Spaceballs 2. If there’s a satirical target here, it’s the simplistic Manicheanism of humanity (and humanity’s blockbuster movies) . Despite their grand pretensions, the great cosmic struggle between the Ones and Zeroes is constantly subsumed into the minutiae of daily provincial life. Carnal attraction crosses battle lines. And the final showdown between the forces of good and evil is cheekily subverted, to say the least—as if both sides had been wasting their time all along.

The premise has a mildly amusing level of base absurdity, but the film is virtually free of laugh-out-loud moments. Fabrice Luchini’s clownish prince of evil amuses as he watches black blobs twerking, and a scene or two with Carpentier supplies possible chuckles. Still, the movie is well-shot and scored, the architecturally-minded spaceships are unique, and there are points of visual interest (and I’m not just referring to Vartolomei and Khoudri, who both have nude scenes and who are both stunning). It’s tempting to dub this The Empire Strikes Out. But although the mock-epic is a bit underwhelming, if considered as another thread in the tapestry of the expanding paranormal North of France Dumontverse, it’s scenic enough to make it worth a visit for the director’s fans.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a bizarre yet movingly humane satire that exposes the philosophical deficiencies of the movie genre that dominates global film culture… In Dumont’s eccentric way, The Empire forces the sci-fi genre to represent Western culture’s deepest mysteries. It’s like a Classic Comics version of a Robert Bresson movie with Spaceballs thrown in — a manifesto opposing the most corrupt and childish film genre.”–Armond White, National Review (contemporaneous)

The Empire [Blu-ray]

The Empire [Blu-ray]
  • The Empire
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CAPSULE: FRIENDSHIP (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Andrew DeYoung

FEATURING: Tim Robinson, , Kate Mara

PLOT: A middle-class family man develops a bro-crush on his new neighbor; after a series of faux pas drive a wedge between them, he undertakes increasingly desperate measures to get his friend back.

Still from FRIENDSHIP (2024)

COMMENTS: Tim Robinson’s comedy speaks to that part of the brain that worries about the men’s room faucet malfunctioning and splashing your pants so it looks like you wet yourself right before you have to deliver a speech in an important business meeting, so you draw attention to it and try to make light of the situation, only to have the joke bomb as you stand there in a silent room in wet slacks. In a way, he’s the perfect guy to take on the trending topic of “male loneliness.”  But then again, if you are interested in a cathartic take on this troubling phenomenon, Tim Robinson is precisely the wrong guy to look to.

Robinson’s Craig seems relatively normal at first, if a bit boring and nerdy, but grows increasingly deranged as the pic progresses. The object of his Platonic affections is a grown-up “cool guy”; new neighbor Austin, a TV weatherman who plays guitar in a rock band on the weekends, knows a secret entrance to City Hall that runs through the sewers, and sports a great head of hair and a mean mustache. Before meeting Austin while dropping off a misdelivered package, Craig seems content to work his corporate gig designing ultra-addictive apps and to stay home in the evenings reading the paper. But there are hints of discontent: his wife, a cancer survivor, confesses to their support group that she hasn’t had an orgasm in months, and she’s constantly ditching Craig to hang out with her ex. (Craig is also disconcerted that his teenage son still kisses mom on the mouth). Craig initially doesn’t think he needs Austin in his life, but he’s almost immediately smitten after hanging out a few times. But when Austin tries to incorporate him into his wider circle of friends, Craig screws things up, and then his behavior grows increasingly deranged as he becomes obsessed with winning his friend back: breaking and entering, literally abandoning his wife, toad-licking. You know, guy stuff.

Friendship sits in a liminal space between mainstream comedy and an absurdist comedy. There is enough structure to ground audiences, but it gets shaggier as it goes along . It’s biggest asset is its unpredictability, but that is also its biggest failure. Craig doesn’t seem real, or like a comic exaggeration of a real person: he’s too biopolar, pathetic and mopey one minute, manic the next as he lashes out in misdirected anger at a big client after being upstaged at a pitch meeting. That inconsistency gives the project the feeling of a bunch of sketches strung together—sketches that might have worked better as isolated bits on Robinson’s Netflix show. Robinson’s persona seems like it would be perfect for a supporting role as the quirky best friend of a film’s protagonist, but he makes for an uncomfortable anti-heroic central presence—which I suppose is the point.

Friendship ultimately has little to say about male friendship; read literally, the movie suggests that men are better off without male friends. Although Craig’s downfall begins with humiliating gaffes—e.g. walking into a patio window—he gradually becomes the victim of his own pride. He becomes less goofy and more narcissistic—he’s not so much upset at missing out on Austin’s companionship as he is offended at being rejected. Rather than being a lament on the pitfalls of male friendship, Friendship becomes more of a character study of a selfish, shallow jerk whose family suffers while he obsessively pursues a pal as the status symbol he thinks he needs to add to his pile of job, wife, son, and house. At first, Craig screws up his chances by missing the proper social cues, but he increasingly turns to perverse self-sabotage. He goes through a lot of pain and disgrace, but ultimately deserves it all. And this is a less interesting direction than what the premise originally promised. When a despairing Craig anxiously decides to take a psychedelic trip, he’s promised an awe-inspiring death and rebirth, but the actual experience is rather a letdown. That’s not quite a metaphor, it’s just a laugh—and that’s the best way to take Friendship. It’s an odd comedy coming from a skewed perspective, but not a particularly incisive or game-changing one. But the laughter in the theater proves that the right audience will want to hang out with it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…he truly odd thing about ‘Friendship’ is that while we may think, at first, that we’re watching a comedy about a sad-sack geek who’s drawn out of his shell, the film always makes sure that Craig, as inhabited by Robinson, is a notch weirder and more off-putting than we expect… the movie, after a while, starts to feel like it’s for Tim Robinson cultists only. Robinson’s brand of middle-class psycho surrealism works perfectly in bite-size sketch-comedy doses. Stretched out to feature length, a character like Craig simply stops making sense.”–Owen Gleiberman, Variety (contemporaneous)

Friendship [Blu-ray]

Friendship [Blu-ray]
  • Paul Rudd
  • Tim Robinson
  • Andrew DeYoung
  • 2025
  • A24
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