THE SOUL EATER
After a string of child disappearances, two investigators work different angles of the growing small-town chaos. Both with deep unresolved trauma, the gruesome scenes and unanswered questions take Fantasia 2024 audiences on a ride to hell.
Directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo craft an intricate mystery that intertwines folklore and crime. Screenwriters Annelyse Batrel and Ludovic Lefebvre skillfully adapt the French novel by Alexis Laipsker, keeping audiences off-kilter and second-guessing.
Performances from our two leads are stellar. Virginie Ledoyen gives Elisabeth deep personal darkness stemming from unimaginable loss. Paul Hamy makes Franck down to earth in an indescribably tangible way. Their chemistry is a fantastic mix of caution, stubbornness, and authentic partnership. They make a genuinely solid on-screen team.
True crime and horror fans will immediately feel pulled into the narrative. The film reveals a shocking final 30 minutes, boasting one of the most unhinged fight scenes I’ve ever seen, and delivering multiple appalling twists! THE SOUL EATER reminds us that we never know what goes on behind closed doors and that fear is the scariest monster. It will devour you whole.
THE SOUL EATER
Horror / Thriller
111 minutes | 2024 | France | French w/ English subtitles
Fantasia Premiere: Wednesday July 24, 2024 @ 9:20 PM: Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
Directed by: Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
Written by: Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre
Starring: Sandrine Bonnaire, Paul Hamy, Virginie Ledoyen
Cinematographer: Simon Roca
Editor: Baxter
Logline: When violent and gruesome deaths starts plaguing a small mountain village, an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces.
For all things Fantasia 2024, 
The attention to detail in world-building is delicious. The jewel-toned costumes and set dressings draw you in. Natural light, candles, and soft-bulbed corner lamps create an atmosphere that makes your heart race from the very beginning. 
Ashleigh Cummings and James Cosmo ground the narrative with emotionally wrought performances. Kit Harington proves yet again his ability to fill a frame with little more than a facial expression. Harington keeps the audience on their toes with fierce volatility. His chemistry with fellow cast members is alarming. 
Caoilinn Springall delivers an astonishing turn as young Willow. Her performance in Stop Motion turned heads. Her vulnerability and fierce curiosity keep you entranced every second. She is a star. 
Graphic novel animation serves as visually delightful childhood memories surrounding Lola’s backstory with the villain. The poster is undoubtedly an homage to Black Christmas, and the classic trope of a killer in a Santa suit plays, ala Silent Night Deadly Night, still rules.
Jeremy Moineau gives Lola an effortlessly badass persona but beautifully balances toughness with authentic vulnerability. Her monologue about the town’s history is perfection. 
ONE FOR THE ROAD
Based on a Stephen King story, Daniel Carsenty‘s short film ONE FOR THE ROAD is here to terrify LA Shorts International Film Festival audiences with its world premiere. 
A road trip through Canadian oil fields conjured up fantasies of secrets deep in the dirt for the Adams family, and inspired them to create HELL HOLE, an indie rock-n-roll monster movie set at a far-away fracking site. Known for their DIY ethos, John and Lulu Adams and Toby Poser, partnering with Shudder, have joined the team behind The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and FX legend Todd Masters to shoot their latest in Serbia with a local cast and crew. Absurd, mutinous, and transgressively comical, Hell Hole is old-school sci-fi horror, yet in typical family fashion, they subvert the genre with textures of biological and environmental horror in tandem with questions of gender and bodily autonomy. This will be the fourth time Fantasia World Premieres work from the gifted filmmaking family, following launches of 
After the success of 
Peter Vack (ASSHOLES) and Dasha Nekrasova (THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST) star as couple on the rocks during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic in American filmmaker Eugene Kotlyarenko (
It’s been 21 long years since Scooter McCrae (SHATTER DEAD) released a new feature, and he’s lost none of his smart, transgressive bite. Desperate for work, Derek (Damian Maffei, THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT) accepts a job at a shady tech start-up, working intimately with Susan (Yvonne Emilie Thälker in a powerful debut role), a bleeding-edge BDSM sex doll meant to receive and appreciate sexual punishment as an integral part of her evolving AI. Shot on Super 16, BLACK EYED SUSAN counterbalances its dark, vulgar core with a surprisingly tender vulnerability, creating a lo-fi science-fiction landscape infused with surprising fragility, as legendary Italian composer Fabio Frizzi (THE BEYOND, ZOMBIE) lends the picture a lush, atmospheric backdrop. Not for the faint of heart, BLACK EYED SUSAN delves into themes and questions that will only become more pertinent with the continued evolution of artificial intelligence. World Premiere.
A true DIY passion project from Estonian filmmaker Sander Maran, CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING is a zany, blood-soaked musical about lovers split up by a chainsaw-wielding killer. Over a decade in the making, Saran not only directed but wrote, scored, shot, and edited this colorful murder-fest that’s part gory horror movie and part ridiculous musical. The camerawork is inventive, the editing slapstick, and the tone truly absurdist. Most importantly, though, the songs are incredibly catchy, with Sander clearly deeply indebted to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s CANNIBAL! THE MUSICAL and Frank Oz’s LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Underground Section. International Premiere.
The stunning sophomore feature from award-winning director Carlota Pereda (
My favorite shorts collection of the year, this wildly eclectic and insanely talented group of female filmmakers aims to please, shock, and gag audiences. You never know what you’ll get with each passing year and I get giddy in anticipation. Fantasia 2024’s Born Of Woman lineup includes the following films:
THE BLEACHER
WILDFLOWER
DEAD TOOTH
Tribeca 2024 Shorts
Short | United States, France | 18 MINUTES | English, French | English subtitles
Legendary underground filmmaker Scooter McCrae (SHATTER DEAD, SIXTEEN TONGUES) returns after a 21-year absence from feature filmmaking with the bold, vulgar, and deeply thought-provoking BLACK EYED SUSAN. Simultaneously brutally challenging and deeply vulnerable, the latest from the New York-based provocateur appropriates bleeding-edge science fiction concepts to address the seemingly-endless lengths that men will go to satisfy their darkest impulses without questioning the consequences of their actions.
This haunting stop-motion animation speaks to the often barbaric side of medicine. Fear, misogyny, and the medical staff’s good complex are all in full view. While the story occurred in the 60s, its relevance does not wane. Writer-director Tiffany Kimmel does an excellent job capturing the terror of a child that undoubtedly attached itself to adulthood. The narration from Lucia Hadley Wheeler hits you square in the heart. The short was surprisingly personal for me. When I was 20, doctors at Saint Luke’s Roosevelt subjected me to a battery of invasive tests, unconvinced that I was a virgin. What I knew was appendicitis was treated as an STD. After 12 hrs and an emergency surgery later, my medical gaslighting experience still haunts me. Fantastic 2022 audiences will watch in awe of the artistry and storytelling style. Everybody Goes To The Hospital will make your blood run cold.
The heightened sound editing by Andrew Siedenburg and Nikolay Antonov is a character in the film. There is no better way to articulate its effect. The camera work from Lidia Nikonova swings from following closeups to static long takes, and it is nothing short of magnificent.
There is a theatrical delivery of much of the dialogue. Deragh Campbell is marvelous playing Katy. She delivers a compelling performance, reminding us how much we rely on the family matriarch to set our boundaries. Campbell’s pervasive anxiety flows on the screen.
The film brilliantly captures the poetic chaos of family gatherings. A myriad of intimate vignettes are all swirling together in an authentic picture where time loses all meaning. FAMILY PORTRAIT is haunting in so many ways. It will leave you breathless and wanting more.
SWEATY LARRY
Our introduction to Sweaty Larry is as ridiculous as it should be, and the original song saying over the credits (written and performed by ATL’s 
DEATH PERCEPTION
Kevin Bohleber gives Cody a know-it-all environmentalist vibe. He hides a much more nuanced undertone. Kelley Mack is Wilda. She mixes a breezy girl-next-door quality with authentic emotional baggage. 
The titular location is a real place in Utah. It is striking and entirely isolated, making for an immediately tense premise. The score is haunting and ethereal, comprised of disembodied voices. Scenes in which Grant trips on mushrooms utilize a combination of ever-evolving animation and VHS-style imagery to illustrate his POV. It is trippy. 
The hilarious and terrifying overall premise might seem unrealistic to some, but I can tell you it is entirely plausible. When my husband was a first-year associate coming out of grad school at Yale, he passed out on the way to work three days in a row from lack of sleep. After being revived by police officers and refusing medical attention, he arrived five minutes late only to be told, “That’s a YP, a You Problem.” Empathy be damned when there is a dollar or deal to be made.
The film looks spectacular. Sharp cinematography from Ali Armino ups the production ante. Lead performances are fantastic. Everett Osborne and Tommie Earl Jenkins command your attention with dazzling charm and ferocity, making us beg for an expanded world. Without needing to, BURN OUT takes a hard left turn into total WTF near the end of its 12-minute runtime, but the metaphor completely stands. It was unhinged before that choice. Executive Producer Jamie Lee Curtis knows talent when she sees it. Goldman’s voice is fresh, intense, and welcomed.
Performances from the entire cast are magnificent. Yoav Levi is Captain Hayim Amzalag, the prisonguard tasked with orchestrating the clandestine plans for the most valuable prisoner of war. Hayim’s anxiety manifests in a toothache, a burst blood vessel, and digestive issues as he dodges the press. Levi brings a dazzling physicality to the role. You will not soon forget him.
Noam Ovadia is David, a precocious, tenacious, Lybyan-Israeli who identifies as an Arab and Sephardic Jew learning perspective on the Nazis. Procuring an after-school job, David uses his quick-witted brain to solve problems. Ovadia is a star. It is an award-worthy turn. He outshines every other cast member.
Tom Shoval and Paltrow wrote the screenplay. In the third storyline, we explore Micah (Tom Hagi
Stimson Snead takes us on a comedy of trial and error in DWF: LA sci-fi feature TIM TRAVERS AND THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX. This film is a story of a mad genius’s guide to what if, get ready to have your mind blown.
Samuel Dunning is Tim Travers. He is funny, charming, and owns this role. Travers is stubborn as hell and honest to a fault. The character has authentic mad scientist vibes. The number of alternative death scenes and distinctly unique versions of the same character is Multiplicity on crack. Dunning eats it up.
One of the most harrowing stories I’ve seen featured in a short film comes from BriGuel‘s HOW I ROLL. This 13-minute emotional rollercoaster is an eye-opening tale of resilience. Robin Cohen lives with MS, navigating Miami, Manhattan, and a family history of shocking violence, loss, and great love. 
BriGuel beautifully edits Cohen’s innermost thoughts, one on top of the other in the most organic way, mimicking the chaos of our mind’s intrusive thoughts. With an abundance of home videos and footage of Robin’s daily life and love story, HOW I ROLL introduces the world to a woman who inspires us to love, laugh, and live life to its fullest despite what might feel like insurmountable odds. Eternal positivity and perseverance are the beauty of life.
You must be logged in to post a comment.