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Montréal 2023
The other day, I gave a fellow a cigarette, the favour returned with a compliment on my “overalls.” They’re called suspenders, people, and they hold up trousers. At least I can take comfort that later in the week I was offered a black-market bow tie.
7/27: The Becomers
This Easy-Going Sci/Fi Escapist Genre (“EGSFEGG,” as I suspect I may need this acronym further down the line) piece is appropriately narrated by Russ Mael, and is among the few earth invasion films I’ve seen whose story is told from the point of view of the alien. Zach Clark’s aliens have fled their home world, and have relocated on Earth. Sure, the bodies that the aliens “become” are disposed of via nasty disintegration liquids, but the imitators are endearing, and they mean well. Influenced by most of the alien movies from cinema’s golden age of that kind of thing, The Becomers is delightfully performed (the traveling “lead,” in particular, is impressively transferred through four or more actors), with humor both clever and silly (loved the cult who snuck into the action), and visual treats.
7/28: Hundreds of Beavers (A Personal Experience)
Mike Cheslik & Co. have achieved a glorious devolution with Hundreds of Beavers. Their feature film debut was at least a talkie, but now all dialogue has been stripped away to make room for the raw and masterful idiocy of the premise. We’ve covered this before, so I will just add here: they added a heckuva fun live-bit during the screening, and were just as delightful for the Q & A.
7/29: Empire V
It was impossible for me to watch this without bearing in mind the current war in Ukraine, and what deplorable scum Russia is governed by. That said, Victor Ginzburg’s film is banned in his homeland, which is probably to his credit. Empire V concerns vampires as a global (but Russo-centric) cabal of Earth’s true overlords, being parasitic vessels for some neat-o cosmic bat entity. Their modus operandi is very much like the Russian mafioso-style government: always punch down, always fight dirty, never Continue reading 2023 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: “MEGA-MEMORANDA”, PART TWO
“Horror” isn’t really my preferred genre—I either find it too pointless, or too scary (!). “Anthology” also isn’t my preferred film format — I typically want one movie to carry itself. Combining the two, however, works out well: it allows for a taste of a director’s work without committing the viewer to overkill. Mick Garris, supervising a clutch of Horror luminaries, has put together a string of varyingly good vignettes. “The Thing in the Woods” (dir. by Alejandro Brugues) tells the tale of a handful of twenty-somethings making incredibly bad, incrediblier rapid-fire decisions as if they can’t get to their gruesome fates fast enough. “Mirari” (dir. by [the Legendary] 
If any of our readers are fans of the zombie/undead/shuffling corpse-people genre, they should check out Dominique Rocher’s directorial debut. Our hero, Sam (Anders Danielsen Lie), passes out in the back room of his ex-girlfriend’s apartment after an awkward encounter at a party. Upon