The Fantastic Pavilion presents a weekly recap with the most relevant news about the world of genre cinema, plus our latest exclusives.
News
Mubi has released the first teaser for Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024), the sci-fi horror film that had a very successful presentation at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the Award for Best Screenplay. The Substance is about a middle-aged Hollywood actress (Demi Moore) and the titular substance that allows her to be young again through another body (Margaret Qualley). The film heads to theaters on September 19 (in countries like Mexico and Argentina) and September 20 (in the U.S. and Canada).
Jayro Bustamante’s Rita (2024), his first film since La Llorona (2019), will have its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival next week, on July 25. Deadline reported that this Guatemalan fantasy-drama has already secured U.S. distribution, thanks to Shudder. Rita will hit the horror streamer on November 22.
As we noted in our Fantasia 2024 preview, Rita follows a 13-year-old girl (played by Giuliana Santa Cruz) and it’s based on a real-life tragedy: the Guatemalan orphanage fire that killed 41 girls in 2017.
F. Javier Gutiérrez’s The Wait (La espera, 2023) screened last year at Fantastic Fest, Sitges and Mórbido Fest. The Andalucía-set film has been described as a rural thriller, a western, and an addition to the folk horror subgenre. According to Variety, general audiences in North America will finally be able to check out this Spanish effort in autumn 2024, given that Film Movement acquired its distribution rights.
The Platform (El hoyo, 2019), the Spanish genre film with evident social commentary, was on everybody’s lips when it hit Netflix during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to said streamer, it’s actually their fifth most popular non-English language movie. So of course a sequel was confirmed and now is ready to be released: The Platform 2 (El hoyo 2, 2024) arrives on Netflix on October 4. Watch the teaser trailer here.
Fantastic Pavilion’s exclusives
Fantastic Pavilion’s editor-in-chief Eric Ortiz choses the 10 must-see films at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 18 to August 4. The kaiju extravaganza Brush of the God (Kaminofude, 2024), the werewolf drama The Beast Within (2024), and the Shaw Brothers classic The Avenging Eagle (Leng xue shi san ying, 1978) are among the movies selected.
Festivals
The Sitges Film Festival shared today the first wave of programming for its upcoming 57th edition, taking place from October 3 to 13. As expected, this wave is pretty spectacular and includes high-profile genre films like Damien Leone’s slasher Terrifier 3 (2024), Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act (Le deuxième acte, 2024), Alexandre O. Philippe’s new doc Chain Reactions (2024), Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man (2024), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud (Kuraudo, 2024), and Tommy Wirkola and Rasmus A. Sivertsen’s animated flick Spermageddon (2024). Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo (2024), Steffen Haars and Flip Van Der Kuil’s Krazy House (2024), Severin Fiala and Veronica Franz’s The Devil’s Bath (Des Teufels Bad, 2024), and Claude Barras’ Sauvages (2024) will also screen at Sitges. In addition, the festival confirmed Nick Frost, Corey Feldman and Christophe Gans as guests. Find the full announcement here.
The London-based FrightFest has unveiled their 2024 lineup, which includes anticipated films like The Substance, Ant Timpson’s Bookworm (2024), Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks (2024), and Jon Spira’s documentary The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee (2024). Other promising titles are Children of the Wicker Man (2024), Scared Shitless (2024), Generation Terror (2024), Boutique: To Preserve and Collect (2024), and A Samurai in Time (2023). FrightFest 2024 will take place from August 22 to 26.
The 23rd edition of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF), which concluded on July 13, has revealed its award winners. Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead (Håndtering av udøde, 2024) won the H.R. Giger “Narcisse” Award for Best Feature Film. This adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s zombie novel of the same name also got the Silver Méliès for Best Fantastic European Feature Film, which makes it elegible for the Golden Méliès (Méliès d’or), set to be awarded during Sitges by the Méliès International Festivals Federation (MIFF).
Other NIFFF 2024 winners include Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow (Imaging The Future Award for Best Production Design), Ulaa Salim’s Eternal (Youth Award), Damian Mc Carthy’s Oddity (RTS Audience Award), and Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Audience Award for Best Asian Film). You can check out the full list of winners here.
The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) also announced their 2024 award winners. Francis Galluppi’s The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023) won both the Best of Bucheon prize and the Audience Award. JT Mollner got the Best Director Choice for Strange Darling (2023).
The Korean Fantastic Film award went to Jung Jae-hoon’s Esper’s Light (2024), while Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Steppenwolf (2024) won the MIFF Award for Best Asian Film. You can find here the complete list of winners.
In memoriam
Shelley Duvall (1949-2024). Beloved American actress Shelley Duvall passed away on July 11, just four days after her 75th birthday. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she died during her sleep at her house in Texas, due to diabetes complications. Duvall had a fruitful collaboration with director Robert Altman (3 Women, Popeye, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, among others) and certainly starred in Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining (1980). The original novel’s author, Stephen King, said that Duvall was a “wonderful, talented, and underused actor.”