The Fantastic Pavilion presents a weekly recap with the most relevant news about the world of genre cinema.
News
“To put food in my family’s mouths, there’s nothing I won’t do,” says Lee Byung-hun’s character in the official trailer for No Other Choice (Eojjeolsuga eobsda, 2025), a dark satire from master filmmaker Park Chan-wook. After earning the 2025 International People’s Choice Award at TIFF, No Other Choice is heading to select U.S. theaters on Christmas Day (December 25).
Synopsis: “Based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax, the story follows Man-soo on his desperate hunt for a new job after his abrupt layoff from the paper company he served for 25 years.”
Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary Chain Reactions (2024) hits VOD platforms on October 21 (U.S. and Canada) and October 27 (UK and Ireland). The doc tackles the influence of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and has interviews with Takashi Miike, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama, among others.
Full synopsis: “50 years after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shocked the world and forever changed the face of global cinema and popular culture, Chain Reactions charts the film’s profound impact and lasting influence on five great artists – Patton Oswalt, Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, King, and Kusama – through early memories, sensory experiences, and childhood trauma. By crafting a dynamic dialogue between contemporary footage and never-before-seen outtakes and delving into personal impressions triggered by distinct audiovisual formats (16mm, 35mm, VHS, digital), Chain Reactions goes to the heart of how a scruffy, no-budget independent film wormed its way into our collective nightmares and permanently altered the zeitgeist.”
Altitude Films released a new trailer for the notorious horror movie Shelby Oaks (2024), ahead of its UK and Ireland theatrical release on October 29. Directed by Chris Stuckmann and executive produced by Mike Flanagan, Shelby Oaks is about “a woman’s obsessive search for her missing sister,” which “leads her into a terrifying mystery at the hands of an unknown evil.”
FrightFest Glasgow selection House of Ashes (2024) will be available on VOD from October 30, thanks to Insurgence (trailer here). The debut feature by Izzy Lee was co-produced by C. Robert Cargill, co-writer of The Black Phone (2021).
Synopsis: “Still reeling from a miscarriage, Mia grieves her husband Adam, found dead at the veterinary clinic they owned. She’s been acquitted of Adam’s death, but is under public scrutiny and must serve a house arrest sentence due to living in a state where miscarriage carries heavy punishment. Enter Marc, an old friend who loves and protects Mia. Not long after he moves in, the new couple endures challenges: things go missing and they’re attacked by an unseen foe. Mia is sure that the culprit is a supernatural entity, but Marc’s convinced that humans are the problem. A security expert by trade, he installs a home surveillance system to help keep them safe, but soon finds out that this is an issue he can’t fix. Under all these pressures, Mia must call on her buried strength to move on with her life or risk death herself.”
That trailer for Erik Bloomquist’s Self-Help (2025) promises a dose of cultish horror for Halloween Night – it opens in U.S. cinemas on October 31 –. Self-Help follows a “young woman,” as she “infiltrates a dangerous self-actualization community after her mother becomes entangled with its enigmatic leader.”
Festivals
The 2025 FrightFest Halloween is taking place on October 31 and November 1 in London. Its lineup includes the animal attack flicks Primate (2025) and Coyotes (2025), the horror comedy Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon (2025), and Can Evrenol’s remake The Turkish Coffee Table (Cam Sehpa, 2025).
Home video
The 10-disc box set Exorcismo: Defying a Dictator & Raising Hell in Post-Franco Spain was announced by Severin Films. It contains the documentary Exorcismo: The Transgressive Legacy of Clasificada ‘S’ (2024) and 18 wild Spanish pictures from the post-Franco era. Some of these films are: León Klimovsky’s The People Who Own the Dark (Último deseo, 1976), Eloy de la Iglesia’s The Priest (El sacerdote, 1978), and Eugenio Martín’s That House in the Outskirts (Aquella casa en las afueras, 1980).
Second Sight is releasing, on December 8, Andrzej Żuławski’s cult favorite Possession (1981) on 4K UHD and Blu-ray. This three-disc set features a bunch of extras, including a “new interview with Guillermo del Toro” and a making-of doc.