The Fantastic Pavilion presents a weekly recap with the most relevant news about the world of genre cinema.
News
Julia Ducournau’s new feature Alpha (2025) got is first teaser trailer, thanks to Neon Rated. The film premiered last Monday, May 19, at the Cannes Film Festival, to a divisive response. Cinephiles in the U.S. will have to wait until October to check it out by themselves.
Synopsis: “Alpha (Mélissa Boros), a troubled 13-year-old lives with her single mom (Golshifteh Farahani). Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm.”
Deadline shared the exciting news that director Ben Wheatley secretly shot a genre movie titled Bulk (2025), which is now set to premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (August 14-20), as part of the Midnight Madness programme. According to Wheatley himself, Bulk offers “car chases, gun fights, sci-fi and romance.”
IT: Welcome to Derry, the series based on Stephen King’s classic novel, will serve as prequel to Andrés Muschietti’s horror flicks. IT: Welcome to Derry is set in 1962 and features Bill Skarsgård once more as Pennywise. It’ll be available to stream on HBO Max in the fall. Meanwhile, you can watch here its new teaser.
The RZA unveiled the poster for his new directorial effort, One Spoon of Chocolate (2025). The actioner will debut at the Tribeca Festival on June 8.
Synopsis offered by Tribeca: “After serving his country in the army, Unique (Shameik Moore) was falsely accused of assault and sent to prison. Now that his sentence is over, Unique sets up shop in Ohio to restart his life, linking up with his only surviving relative Ramsey (RJ Cyler). There’s something insidious happening in this town, though, via its racist sheriff and his crew of similarly bigoted acolytes, all of whom have a knack for violence and share a gruesome secret pertaining to missing young black men. When they set their sights on Unique and turn his life upside down, the former soldier has no choice but to bring the ruckus down on the sheriff and his goons. Hell hath no fury like a veteran scorned (and armed with a sword).”
Home video
Scream Factory announced an impressive box set dedicated to Italian genre master Mario Bava. The 12-disc Blu-ray set contains the following Bava pictures: Black Sunday (1960), The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), Black Sabbath (1963), Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966), Knives of the Avenger (1966), Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970), Roy Colt & Winchester Jack (1970), Four Times That Night (1971), A Bay of Blood (1971), Baron Blood (1972), Lisa and the Devil (1973), and Kidnapped (1974). The Mario Bava Collection will be released on July 31.
Lamberto Bava, Mario Bava’s son, is the subject of another upcoming Blu-ray box set. High Tension: Four Films by Lamberto Bava is the title of Severin Film’s collection, which includes The Prince of Terror, The Man Who Wouldn’t Die, School of Fear, and Eye Witness. It’s wort noting that these movies were originally directed by Bava as “a four-part anthology series for Italian TV.” The set arrives on August 26.