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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: METAL MESSIAH (1978)

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DIRECTED BY: Tibor Takács

FEATURING: Richard Ward Allen, David Jensen, Liane Hogan, John Paul Young

PLOT: A mysterious metal man on a mission of peace and understanding is co-opted by a cynical music promoter.

Still from Metal Messiah (1978)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Largely incoherent, Metal Messiah is both energetic and meandering. Couple this with the outré performances and this 1978 relic stands as an example of movies that are beyond the realm of standard criticism.

COMMENTS: “Most people around here think I’m insane. I suppose there’s some truth in that. On the other hand, I wish they could see themselves under the same light.”

Seventy-six minutes, some dozen or so chapter headings, several text panels of introduction, and narration that, were it any more prevalent, might just transform Metal Messiah into a radio play: and that’s just the framework for what is perhaps cinema’s greatest reach > grasp ratio ever. Anycity, Earth is where we’re at, being confided in by the impressively garrulous detective (?), Philip Chandler. Upstairs in the hotel we catch some exposition on the room’s television: super-promoter and all around nefariously accented big time operator, Max, exhibits proof (?), courtesy of a blurry snapshot held up for the camera for approximately a second and a half, of a new danger to the world. Down in the streets, trying to spread the word of love to disillusioned rock ‘n’ roll youth, is an alien (?): nameless, perhaps, but truly the Metal Messiah.

This trio are what we’ve got. (Alongside cult leader/evil scientist Violet, with a surgical facility and a bag of Mick Jagger’s blood.). Where we’ve got it is across junkyards, dive bars, endless rainy streets, and a mystical desert wherein the Metal Messiah meets his doom to synthesizer strains. There is a lot of shouting, many observations from Chandler stating exactly what is occurring onscreen (presumably in case we’re looking away at the time), and a performance from John Paul Young as the enigmatic “Max,” whose single-shot monologue should be standard audition material for any performer wanting to qualify for the Big Time.

There are times during the Fantasia Festival when I am apprehensive after a screening. Having attended this event for this long, I’ve (happily) made many Fantasia buddies. And indeed, I cannot hold it against them when they ask the very sensible question, “What did you think?” In regards to Metal Messiah, that turned out to be more difficult a question than expected, and frankly I’m still not certain.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… it’s not without some strange fascination…. It can be deeply infuriating at times and it will test the patience of anyone hoping for a more traditional storyline, a cohesive musical vision or even a sense of why the protagonist really is.” — Kevin Lyons, The EOFFTV Review

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FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DANCE FREAK (2025)

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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)

Channel 366

CHANNEL 366: THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS (2023-2026)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Voices of Lizzie Freeman, Alex Rochon, Michael Kovach

PLOT: A young woman arrives in a strange alternate reality.

Still from The Amazing Digital Circus

COMMENTS: Glitch Productions was founded in 2017 in Sydney, Australia, as an independent studio specializing in animated web series. “The Amazing Digital Circus,” its latest effort, is the show that stands out the most from the crowd, at least at first glance, thanks to its zany art style. But there are many layers hidden underneath the visuals.

The plot revolves around an alternate digital reality, where trapped souls live in cartoon bodies under the surveillance of a giant mouth with eyes named Caine. None of them remembers their real name, and they are given new ones as soon they appear in this place. The newest arrival, a clown-like woman Caine names Pomni, is the story’s main focus. Her point of view is our entry point to get to know this strange realm and the people that inhabit it.

Every once in a while Caine gives a nonsensical quest to the trapped souls, like facing bandits in a fantasy kingdom or working in a fast food restaurant, as a distraction so that they can forget that there is no escape from their digital hell. More often than not, these quests prove excruciating, playing out like a parody of tropes of reality TV shows or video games. There is a mystery-box aspect to the world, too, with possible existentialist undertones as our characters can’t stop attempting to escape. Imagine TV shows like “Lost,” “From,” or “The Prisoner” combined with Looney Tunes animation and you get a sense of the style.

The best comparison for this show in its entirety would be “Dispatches From Elsewhere” (2020); the way “Digital Circus” develops The Matrix‘s ideas while simultaneously putting an emphasis on character development recalls “Dispatches” in cartoon form. In fact, character development is the most important part of this adventure, what makes it relatable and meaningful in the end, as our heroine and her newfound friends find meaning in their connections and companionship by caring for each other—with some exceptions.

While it may seem at first that every character fits an archetype, they gradually reveal more depth. Through the tasks Caine gives them and their intimate private interactions, their personalities and worldviews come to the forefront—as well as their deepest fears, insecurities, and secrets. They may not remember their names from their previous life, but they recall events that happened to them and retain their sense of self; for the time being, at least, because in this world there is the threat that they will eventually be consumed by despair and become “abstracted,” transforming into an amorphous mass —the digital equivalent of dying.

In the end “Digital Circus” is a distorted mirror of real world anxieties, especially those of young adults in their 20s. The series is not afraid to tackle dark issues regarding interpersonal relationships and family dysfunctions. The dreamcore-inspired aesthetic and sci-fi twists are just the surface. Underneath that are real human tales waiting to be shared.

“The Amazing Digital Circus” streams exclusively on Netflix; it was a big enough hit that the final episode was briefly released to theaters in 2026.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…combines some surreal CGI animation with some sharply funny dialogue and characters that quickly become more than just the avatars they’re assigned in the digital RPG they’re stuck in.”–Joel Keller, Decider

Apocryphally Weird

69*. FLAMING EARS (1992)

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“In the year 2700, the year of the toads, ‘Asche’ was a burnt-out city.
Too big for its souls who banded together in dark basements.
It was an unrestrained wild animal,
ready to pee in Death’s face at any time.
And its residents were equal to it in every way.
Highly unlikely for a pure heart to survive.”–Flaming Ears introductory narration

DIRECTED BY: Ursula Pürrer, A. Hans Scheirl, Dietmar Schipek

FEATURING: Susanna Heilmayr, Ursula Pürrer, A. Hans Scheirl

PLOT: The lives of a comic book artist, a serial arsonist, and an extraterrestrial converge when Volley burns down the comix press. The artist, Spy, goes in search of vengeance, only to be beaten up by the bouncers at the club where Volley performs; Nun, Volley’s alien girlfriend, then finds Spy lying unconscious in the gutter and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Volley develops the hots for her chauffeur, and a young girl graffitis the city with the image of a flower vase.

Still from Flaming Ears (1992)

BACKGROUND:

  • Scheirl and Pürrer became lovers in the 1980s and started making “lesbian punk home movies” in Pürrer’s Vienna apartment with a Super 8 camera and homemade props. They would later form the band Sta-Prestto make their own film soundtracks.
  • The Catholic symbolism in the film reflects the predominant conservatism of Viennese society at the time, in contrast to its very small punk scene of musicians and artists.
  • The soundtrack features the music of local punk bands, sometimes even capturing live performances. None of the music was formally licensed.
  • When Scheirl and Pürrer’s films toured women’s and feminist film festivals in the 1990s, the S&M content often proved controversial and sometimes led to walkouts.
  • The then-contemporary popularity of Fluxus theater led some viewers to assume Flaming Ears‘ outrageous style was a deliberate mockery of their performance art. This was not the intention of the filmmakers, who were simply expressing their punk aesthetic.
  • A. Hans Shceirl (Nun), also credited as Angela Hans Scheirl, is a transgender man who transitioned with testosterone in 1996. He later directed the infamous Dandy Dust (1998) and became a painter and professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: There’s a lot of eye-catching and provocative imagery throughout Flaming Ears, with a plethora of unusual proclivities on display. But one of its most mysterious moments occurs when the otherwise unknown Blood suddenly shows up out of the blue to grant Spy’s rotting corpse the kiss of life. It’s confusing, oddly touching yet revolting, and emblematic of Flaming Ears‘ fairy tale combination of enchantment and grotesquerie. It’s also a major pivot point in the splintered narrative.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Erotic arson; the healing power of alien saliva

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: What isn’t weird about this movie? The two items listed above are only the very weirdest elements. There’s also furniture humping (with lighter fluid used as lube), an immortal alien whose severed limbs come back to life, and an oddly suggestive conversation about gardening cacti. With a rough and ready DIY aesthetic, Flaming Ears is art-house done No Wave-style. At any moment the live action can be interrupted by a stop-motion animated sequence, a prop, or a painting. In one memorable scene a cardboard cutout, with a cartoonish line-drawn face, replaces one of the actors. The dialogue is obscurely poetic and the futuristic setting thinly sketched, leaving the viewer on their own to figure out what exactly is going on, like an alien crash-landed on an unknown planet.

Flaming Ears re-release trailer

COMMENTS: Usually, films that take place in a future dystopia explain the reasons behind societal collapse, but Flaming Ears ignores Continue reading 69*. FLAMING EARS (1992) →

366 Underground, Interviews

366 UNDERGROUND: MATADOR BOLERO (2026)

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DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Rosado

FEATURING: Yves Tumor, , Jack Irv, Stephee Bonifacio

PLOT: A high-profile murder at a nightclub triggers various factions into action, including a computer intelligence from the depths of space.

Still from Matador Bolero (2026)

COMMENTS:  Matador Bolero looks good in that DIY, retro kind of way, at times feeling like a down-at-the-heel Koyaanisqatsi with a nebulous crime story tacked on. But I would like this filmmaker—and his team—to consider a project stripped of a plot, or at least stripped of explication. The murder of a beloved actress at the beginning isn’t nearly as important as the camerawork capturing the fascinating motion of the topless dancers and their viewers. Yves Tumor is better with ardent bed-dance performances than meekly relaying cryptic “information” to an overzealous detective (Kansas Bowling, whose physicality is not well served by dialogue in this film). And the young blonde pulling a magician’s handkerchief from a notch in the beach? I am on board with all of this—except for one thing,

To clarify, I’m a “style-over-substance” kind of guy. I revel in cinematic excess, be it sets or sound production or costuming, or what-have-you. But Matador Bolero is one of the few films where I actually became somewhat annoyed when substance cropped up. What is this narrative you’re trying to tell? Who are these recurring characters? Shoo, shoo. Rosado is in his element when he’s playing around in post-production to further dreamify his already dreamy shots and vignettes. Three scantily-clad young women in wolf masks pursue a fourth (non-masked) woman down a sinister corridor and tear her dress to ribbons while a purple-glowing super-intelligence orb thing pulsates conversationally? I don’t need a “Why” for that.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“So there’s our justification for the film’s the title, but are we still feeling confused? Almost certainly; Matador Bolero is confusing by design – if we accept that the film is much more about blending moods, impressions and visual styles than telling a story… a bold project but a strange prospect, pushing the boundaries in what feels like both experimental, but recognisable ways, and coming up with something off-kilter, but visually strong.” — Keri O’Shea, Warped Perspective (contemporaneous)