{ "festival": { "name": "Fantastic Fest 2026", "dates": "September 17–24, 2026", "venue": "Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, Austin, TX", "source": "fantasticfest2026.eventive.org", "scheduleReleased": false, "scrapedAt": "2026-08-18" }, "films": [ { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4d1", "slug": "3-weeks-after", "title": "3 WEEKS AFTER", "director": "Miroslav Terzić", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Serbia", "Bulgaria", "Italy", "Croatia", "Luxembourg" ], "language": "Serbian", "runtime": 94, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Children in Peril", "Dark" ], "synopsis": "Three weeks after losing his best friend to suicide, Tzotza joins his classmates on a school excursion to Bulgaria despite still struggling with his grief. From the outset, it is clear he is an outsider. His classmates barely tolerate him, while his two teachers quietly do their best to protect him from their hostility.\n\nDuring a break at a highway rest area, Milica sneaks her boyfriend, Bogdanovic, onto the bus. It quickly becomes clear that he is the group's alpha—a charismatic troublemaker whose presence immediately shifts the dynamic.\n\nWhen the bus breaks down, the students and teachers are forced to take shelter in a nearly deserted resort preparing to close for the season. Cut off from the outside world, boredom and simmering tensions soon turn into cruelty, with Tzotza becoming the group's primary target. As the harassment escalates, a volatile confrontation forces long-buried resentments into the open, exposing an unsettling truth. The bullying reaches a devastating intensity, pushing Tzotza to his breaking point.\n\nBe warned: this is not a pleasant film. Depending on your state of mind, it may leave you emotionally devastated. Yet it is an essential work—a haunting portrait of a bored generation trapped in cruelty and apathy. It explores the perpetuation of bullying with unflinching honesty, revealing how easily victims and bystanders become part of its vicious circle.\n\nWith 3 WEEKS AFTER, Serbian director Miroslav Terzić has crafted a powerful film that will shake you to the core. From its stunning cinematography, which beautifully underscores the characters' loneliness and isolation, to its meticulous sound design and immersive sound mix, every element works in harmony to create an unforgettable experience.\n\nIt is probably the darkest film in this year's programme, but also—at least in my opinion—the most important. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4d1.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068973865temp-1787068973856-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4d1", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4d5", "slug": "5-more-minutes", "title": "5 MORE MINUTES", "director": "Javier Ruiz Caldera", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Spain" ], "language": "Spanish", "runtime": 93, "year": "2026", "premiere": "International Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Dark Comedy", "Sci-Fi" ], "synopsis": "Close your eyes. Imagine the worst possible moment for you to be stuck in a time loop. For Antonio and Barbara, a last-ditch, no-reception weekend away meant to save their marriage is a strong contender. Do they even like each other anymore? Communication is broken, therapy talk is in bloom, a car nearly runs them over, a noisy plane flies overhead—and their couple’s weekend hasn’t even started. When they get to the house, Carlos, the guy from the agency, shows them around the property before they find themselves five minutes in the past. Over and over again.\n\nBut the lesson they planned to teach their son the following Monday—that actions have consequences—will turn back on them. This is not your traditional time loop. Worldwide chaos, small-scale hell, the apocalypse on a domestic level. This unpredictable weekend quickly goes from bad to worse, but it might just be their marriage’s saving grace.\n\nThis dark comedy flirts with thriller and horror elements in a very entertaining mix, and we can’t help but relish the escalating carnage as it bleeds far beyond the couple and Carlos. Built on the ongoing creative partnership between director Javier Ruiz Caldera and actor Berto Romero, the film is as sharply written as it is directed, claustrophobic in the best possible way. Romero, Belén Cuesta, and Javier Cámara show us how absurd and petty and downright cruel anyone can get. If five minutes are too short to fix anything, they are definitely long enough to make everything worse. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4d5.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069609372temp-1787069608801-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4d5", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4da", "slug": "adult-supervision", "title": "ADULT SUPERVISION", "director": "Alex Schulman", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Sweden" ], "language": "Swedish", "runtime": 108, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "Children in Peril" ], "synopsis": "Bill, a middle-aged father struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, volunteers to chaperone her school trip to the remote Klippvik archipelago, hoping a few days together might bridge the growing distance between them. Joined by fellow parents Pontus and Bobo, the three adults quickly become overwhelmed by the brutal social dynamics simmering through this group of children.\n\nADULT SUPERVISION exposes the toxic \"mean girls\" culture that continues to thrive in schools, amplified by the relentless pressures of social media. While Pontus and Bobo dismiss the teenagers' behavior with jokes and misplaced observations, Bill is forced to relive painful memories of his own adolescence as the bullying escalates. What begins as an awkward school excursion gradually transforms into every parent's worst nightmare—a cautionary tale about unchecked cruelty, misguided authority, and adults whose good intentions prove tragically inadequate. In other words, it will have everyone questioning how anyone still has children or, if it's too late, whether they have a monster in the making back home.\n\nBalancing razor-sharp dark comedy with slow-burning psychological dread, the film builds its tension through mounting unease, escalating violence, and the unsettling realization of just how cruel ordinary people can become. The beautiful Swedish landscape provides a striking contrast to the increasingly disturbing events unfolding against its idyllic backdrop, showing that even those who appear trustworthy can reveal darker sides. Filled with morbid and sardonic humor, ADULT SUPERVISION contains moments that can be difficult to watch (those sensitive to animal cruelty, be warned—I wasn’t), delivering a disquieting portrait of adolescence and parenthood. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4da.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787073227238temp-1787073226890-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4da", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4dd", "slug": "attack-on-paradise", "title": "ATTACK ON PARADISE", "director": "Bob Colaers", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Belgium", "The Netherlands" ], "language": "Dutch, Arabic", "runtime": 99, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "ACAB", "Action", "Alumnus", "Body Count", "Gory", "Great Kills" ], "synopsis": "Poor Suleyman. A comb taken for a weapon, his mother’s pills taken for drugs, one panicked attempt to fight back, one dead cop, and a seven-year jail sentence. Now, fresh out of prison, he only wants one thing: to reunite with his mother and atone for his absence. But as a friend warns him: “This is no longer Paradise, it’s hell.”\n\nPrince Hamza has taken over the Paradise apartment complex, surrounding himself with lackeys, enforcers, and killers, each floor with its own particular flavor of danger. Suleyman barely has time to see his mother before everything explodes: she needs her medicine, the police storm the building in a long-planned raid, and Hamza turns her into leverage.\n\nForced into sharing the same objective as Yasmine, a rookie policewoman everyone underestimates, Suleyman has to fight his way up Paradise floor by floor. At this point, everyone wants him dead, and every new level brings a new threat, a new visual idea, and a new terrible choice.\n\nClose-quarters action? Check. Class rage and siege-movie tension? Check. Feverish visual flourishes? Absolutely. Bob Colaers’ ATTACK ON PARADISE turns a Belgian tower block into a full-contact descent into hell. Bones crunch, blood pools—this is visceral action at its finest. It is all anchored by co-writer and star Saïd Boumazoughe, whose sincere, guilt-ridden reluctance to engage slowly turns into a reckoning. Suleyman really chose the wrong day to come home. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4dd.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787073388470temp-1787073388434-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4dd", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4e5", "slug": "beware-boi-na", "title": "BEWARE BOIÚNA", "director": "Mike P. Nelson", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 104, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": "Opening Film", "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror", "Opening Night", "When Animals Attack" ], "synopsis": "Deep in the Amazon, a medical mission spirals into a fight for survival when Boiúna, a colossal ancient predator, awakens to reclaim her domain. In the jungle where nature holds absolute power, she decides who lives and who dies.\n\nLionsgate presents a Constantin Film/JB Pictures production, in association with North.Five.Six. (LIONSGATE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4e5.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068977380temp-1787068977376-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4e5", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4e9", "slug": "the-birthday-party", "title": "THE BIRTHDAY PARTY", "director": "Léa Mysius", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 114, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Cerebral", "Children in Peril" ], "synopsis": "It’s been a big day for Nora. She got promoted, fought with her daughter about a viral reel she posted of the family dancing, and most importantly, tonight is her 40th birthday. She lives in the remote countryside with her husband, Thomas, and daughter, Ida, sharing the estate with Cristina, an artist neighbor busy painting works no one ever buys. But the evening doesn’t go as planned when three men arrive uninvited, claiming Nora is not who she says she is. Nora was expecting cake. Instead, she got served a slice of her unsavory past.\n\nNight falls, and we are suddenly thrust into a heady mix of power games, shifting loyalties, and false appearances. Nora fights to protect the identity she has built, Cristina enters into her own dangerous confrontation with one of the men, and Ida begins to question the family story she has taken for granted. Who is telling the truth? Do we even want to know? Beneath the appearances, the women are never truly passive. They observe, strategize, change the rules of the game, and fight to shape the lives they have chosen for themselves.\n\nLéa Mysius gifts us with another film exploring female subjectivity and secrets through genre, continuing the fascinating path she began with AVA and THE FIVE DEVILS. We are far more interested in its shifting identities and alliances than in simply finding out who will make it through the night. We are here for the clammy, uncanny, obsessive mood, and for the pleasure of watching identities crumble under pressure to reveal what survives—or blooms—from the wreckage. It is difficult to single out one performance from such an exceptional cast (Monica Bellucci, Hafsia Herzi, and Benoît Magimel, among others), but newcomer Tawba El Gharchi is incandescent. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4e9.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787073513532temp-1787073513165-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4e9", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4ed", "slug": "the-blood-countess", "title": "THE BLOOD COUNTESS", "director": "Ulrike Ottinger", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Austria", "Germany", "Luxembourg" ], "language": "German, French", "runtime": 119, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Arthouse Gone Wild", "Comedy", "Queer", "Vampire" ], "synopsis": "Countess Elizabeth Báthory awakens in the modern day with her devoted lover as the leader of an ancient organization of centuries-old vampires. When the group realizes that anti-vampire activists are on the hunt for a mystical book that could end their eternal lives, Elizabeth and her lover agree to find and destroy it first. With Elizabeth’s reluctant nephew, a committed vegetarian vampire, the three will travel across Austria meeting a whole cast of silly characters, exploring 21st-century life, and draining beautiful women of their blood.\n\nIsabelle Huppert plays vampire Elizabeth Báthory in a gloriously camp comedy from the legendary director, Ulrike Ottinger. I’m not sure what else you need to know to be sold on this, but allow me to try and convince you further. The lesbian subtext of Báthory’s biography is made text, Huppert’s character is accompanied by an adorable pet bat, and there’s a surprise, third-act cameo that brought the house down in my screening.\n\nOttinger has made a name for herself as a writer/director with a deep love of arthouse cinema that she consistently and good-naturedly ribs. Her Isabelle Huppert vampire movie is no different, and the 84-year-old filmmaker brought her quirky sensibility to the lesbian vampire genre with appropriate flair: the costumes are over the top with ruffles and the blood sprays like geysers. There is, blessedly, no winking self-awareness to the jokes in this blood-soaked comedy as the ridiculous premise and characters are played ‘seriously.’ As such, this is high camp, so girls and gays to the front for the North American premiere of THE BLOOD COUNTESS. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4ed.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075974958temp-1787075974699-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4ed", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f3", "slug": "blood-feast", "title": "BLOOD FEAST", "director": "Herschell Gordon Lewis\nPowered by \nTerms · Privacy · System Status", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 67, "year": "1963", "premiere": "World Premiere of the 4K Restoration", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Gory" ], "synopsis": "There will never be another movie like BLOOD FEAST—the first \"splatter\" film in horror history.\n\nWritten by Allison Louise Downe, produced by David F. Friedman, and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, BLOOD FEAST follows a caterer named Fuad Ramses who is hired to provide \"an authentic Egyptian feast\" for a birthday party. He wastes no time in committing unbelievable mutilation murders to appease an Egyptian goddess named Ishtar.\n\nJohn Waters said it best: \"I first saw BLOOD FEAST at my local drive-in. When I saw teenage couples hopping from their cars to vomit, I knew I had found a movie after my own heart.\" A direct influence on Waters (MULTIPLE MANIACS), Frank Henenlotter (BASKET CASE), and dozens of 1980s slashers, BLOOD FEAST erupts with pop-art brain-bludgeons, tabloid-style ghoulishness, and pitch-black gallows humor. The movie's legendary status as a subversive benchmark is enhanced by the contributions of Allison Louise Downe—a writer, producer, special effects artist, actor, and assistant director who deserves to be immortalized for her contributions to horror and exploitation history.\n\nAGFA and Something Weird are honored to unleash the definitive presentation of this seminal splatterfest—newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative for the first time ever. (AGFA)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f3.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068979523temp-1787068979519-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f3", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f6", "slug": "bloody-tennis", "title": "BLOODY TENNIS", "director": "Nikias Chryssos", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Germany" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 90, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "Tennis has somehow become the coolest sport among all my friends in France. Sophie has a rather different experience. Sent to a summer academy in Southern Europe to hone her skills—skills the director is not convinced she even possesses—she enters a SUSPIRIA-inspired world where something feels wrong from the start. Every morning, the students must swallow a strange-smelling, gooey, chunky, blood-red smoothie. Cats are disappearing. Her roommate keeps her medication hidden inside a teddy bear. And as Sophie forms relationships with the women around her through friendship, rivalry, and desire, we come to understand that this will be a very bloody, very strange, sporting coming-of-age story.\n\nThe deeper Sophie gets, the more extreme the academy’s methods become. Leeches are used to improve performance, and a deeply unsettling assistant may know something about those missing cats. He is certainly the reason I found myself googling, “What is catgut actually made of?” I will let you discover the answer to that one on your own. But the strangeness never sidelines the sport: Sophie begins proving the director wrong, and the more she succeeds, the more power the academy gains over her.\n\nNikias Chryssos pushes familiar ideas about discipline, sacrifice, and competitive excellence into grotesque territory, turning the academy into a satire of performance culture itself: a world where every body must be optimized, every weakness corrected, and almost any damage can be reframed as commitment if it produces a winner. Hello, modern world. But the satire lands because Sophie genuinely wants what the academy is offering. The better she becomes, the more willing she is to accept its logic, and the price is paid through the people around her. With its sun-washed whites, eruptions of blood-red, and queasy humor, BLOODY TENNIS is as visually playful as it is unexpectedly emotional. Now, I have only been to Roland-Garros once, but I am fairly certain this is not how tennis academies normally operate. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f6.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787073756931temp-1787073756901-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f6", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f9", "slug": "carrie-two-episodes", "title": "CARRIE (Two Episodes)", "director": "Mike Flanagan", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Canada", "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 101, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.\n\nTold over eight propulsive episodes, the series expands King’s cultural landmark — deepening its characters and tensions, and following the small, everyday choices that build toward a single, shattering night, in a gripping, deeply human story about kindness versus cruelty, and whether we’re witnessing the making of a hero, a monster, or something far more complicated. (AMAZON MGM STUDIOS)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f9.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068980981temp-1787068980971-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4f9", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4fb", "slug": "cinema-recomposed-silent-monsters", "title": "CINEMA RECOMPOSED: SILENT MONSTERS", "director": "The Thieving Hand - Unknown Director / Frankenstein - J. Searle Dawley / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Lucius J. Henderson / The Ghost of Slumber Mountain - Willis O'Brien / Haxan - Benjamin Christensen / Hells Bells - Ub Iwerks /The Haunted Ship - John Foster and Mannie Davis", "directorShort": "Various directors", "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "No Dialogue", "runtime": 65, "year": "Original film releases: 1908, 1910, 1912, 1919, 1922, 1929, 1930. New scores are from 2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [], "synopsis": "A live string quartet plays new scores for seven classic silent horror short films. Seven composers, aged 17 to 24, composed new scores for silent short films under the mentorship of some of the industry's top professionals. This is CINEMA RECOMPOSED! Commissioned by Golden Hornet, in partnership with a team including Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Metro Cinema) and the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), this is the second year that Fantastic Fest will host a screening with a live score performed by the Invoke string quartet. The next generation of film composers is here!\n\nThis year’s short films include the following:\n\nTHE THIEVING HAND (1908) FRANKENSTEIN (1910) DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1912) THE GHOST OF SLUMBER MOUNTAIN (1919) HÄXAN: HELL SEQUENCE (1922) HELL'S BELLS (1929) THE HAUNTED SHIP (1930)\n\nGolden Hornet partnered with fellow 501(c)(3) non-profit, the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), to bring the second edition of CINEMA RECOMPOSED to life. AGFA is the world’s largest archive dedicated to genre movies and filmmakers.\n\nWe provide each composer with something that's often not accessible through traditional music programs: one-on-one access to composers working at the highest level. With help from Tim League and our Artistic Director, Graham Reynolds, we have assembled a team of some of Hollywood's best film composers to mentor each young artist, including Mark Orton, David Wingo, Brian Reitzell, Nicoletta Nomicou, and more! (GOLDEN HORNET)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4fb.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068981579temp-1787068981569-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4fb", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee4fd", "slug": "compliance", "title": "COMPLIANCE", "director": "Kyle Mangione-Smith", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 104, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "ACAB", "Conspiracy Theories", "Evil", "Found Footage", "Horror", "Mind Control", "Psychopaths", "The Future is Bleak", "Trauma" ], "synopsis": "As a company relations rep for the tech startup and homestay hotel brand UVisit, Sam closes all of the indemnifying loops when something goes wrong... a job she performs with increasing exhaustion and disillusionment. She has uprooted her life to LA to kick heartbreak and a drinking habit, only to find herself investigating a sexual assault case that could land her employer in hot water and further dissolve her conscience.\n\nSome of you may be reading this from a beautifully printed guide, pages earmarked with your most anticipated titles of this year’s festival. I’m willing to bet more of you are reading this scrolling on your phone, toggling between this movie and other equally wonderful options in your screening block. I bet that, for an extra few bucks to our vendor, we could track each swipe or click and then use that data to inform some sort of nefarious decision.\n\nThat’s because, of course, surveillance and conspiracy are central tenets of contemporary digital life—all of the data captured by all of the various entities and agencies feels illusory until it falls under their control, or becomes an issue of liability.\n\nThis is as good a space as any to note that COMPLIANCE deals with brutal and thorny issues of consent and complicity, fueled by the shifting visual perspectives that modern screen life offers—computer screens, wearables, and cameras hidden from view. Such a complex visual and emotional schema gives way to a dark web (and Dark Web!) of power, corruption, and lies. COMPLIANCE is the feel-bad movie of the fest, or at least, one of twelve. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! (JAKE ISGAR)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4fd.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068982172temp-1787068982168-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee4fd", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee506", "slug": "corpus", "title": "CORPUS", "director": "Corrin Evans", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 102, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Kinky", "Neon Thriller", "Queer", "Trauma" ], "synopsis": "The quietly horrifying cold open of CORPUS is quickly replaced by a REAL WORLD-esque title sequence and the grimy, pulsing late 1990s club scene in NYC.\n\nSayo, equal parts photographer and coke dealer, and his friends, trust fund baby Ross and the scene’s hottest new model Vince, enjoy a sweaty, sexually-charged night clubbing and reconnecting in Sayo’s dark room, before heading out to an exclusive, secluded modelling industry party at Vince’s insistence.\n\nFrom the blood-soaked opening moments at the remote estate, it’s clear nothing this weekend will be as advertised. The promised industry professionals turn out to be one well-known photographer, Billie, and her sapphic housemates, the elderly Cata and amateur poultry farmer Wren. The awkward introductions quickly become a series of sensual dinners, absinthe-fueled debauchery, midnight skinny dipping, and philosophical conversations around a bonfire.\n\nBalancing escalating sexual tension with a pervasive sense of unease, Corrin Evans makes her feature film directorial debut with a script co-written with Lily Cowles, delivering subdued tension and nuanced queer characters. Paired with beautiful visuals that are equally gory and erotic, CORPUS culminates in a frenetic and surprising third act that scratches an itch you didn’t know you had and lingers in the back of your mind long after the final credits roll. (KEV DOOLEY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee506.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068982803temp-1787068982792-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee506", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee50b", "slug": "the-cycle", "title": "THE CYCLE", "director": "Jordan Downey", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 111, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Feature", "Strong Women" ], "synopsis": "When the body of a man missing for thirty-six years is discovered at the scene of a horrific crime, it’s up to his estranged daughter to unravel his dark past. (SHUDDER)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee50b.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787074374800temp-1787074374607-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee50b", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee50d", "slug": "death-has-no-master", "title": "DEATH HAS NO MASTER", "director": "Jorge Thielen Armand", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Venezuela", "Canada", "Italy", "Luxembourg" ], "language": "Spanish", "runtime": 106, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Colonizers Suck", "Dark" ], "synopsis": "After the death of her father, Caro travels from Italy to Venezuela to sell her childhood home, an aging estate with a cacao plantation. Upon arriving at the mansion, she discovers it is occupied by Sonia, a former employee, and her young son, Maiko. Sympathetic to their situation, Caro initially agrees to share the house, moving into her parents' old bedroom while Sonia remains in the main living quarters. She also finds out that Sonia has been illegally subletting rooms to other tenants.\n\nWhen Caro explains that she intends to sell the property and tries to politely ask everyone to leave, Sonia refuses, insisting she has just as much right to remain there as Caro does. Seeking help, Caro tries to file a complaint at the local police station against the squatters, only to be warned against escalating the conflict. In the close-knit community, Sonia and her son are well known, and the authorities have little interest in intervening.\n\nAs the standoff intensifies, Caro exhausts her options and turns to her father's former lawyer, hoping he can resolve the situation. But what begins as an attempt to intimidate the occupants quickly spirals into violence, drawing Caro into the country's deep-rooted legacy of dispossession and brutality—one that refuses to remain buried.\n\nIn Jorge Thielen Armand’s pressure-cooker thriller, Asia Argento plays an expat who returns to the country she fled as a child following her father’s death, only to find herself at odds with the locals, their customs, and their way of life. A classic fish out of water, Caro has little regard for those around her, her sole concern being the money she stands to make from selling the family estate. She becomes the embodiment of colonialism, capitalism, and entrenched social inequality. The crumbling mansion she is determined to sell is as hollow and decayed as her own soul—a reflection of the moral emptiness that ultimately seals her fate. DEATH HAS NO MASTER is a masterfully crafted slow-burn thriller that deservedly premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last May. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee50d.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075997498temp-1787075997477-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee50d", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee510", "slug": "death-of-a-yellow-bird", "title": "DEATH OF A YELLOW BIRD", "director": "Cody Calahan", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Canada" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 93, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Don't Watch That Tape", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "After deciding to halt cancer treatment, an unnamed man travels to his family’s old cabin in the dead of a snowy winter to find some peace and quiet. Alone, with no outside contact besides difficult, strained conversations with his mother and wife, he starts to sense a strange presence. Haunted by a tragedy he can’t quite remember, finding an old camcorder and a collection of VHS home videos only makes the strangeness feel more acute. In an attempt to find some stability in his isolation, the man begins to film videos for his young son, but distortions and threatening sounds on the recorded tapes convince the man there is a ghost with him.\n\nCody Calahan’s film is a heartrending, beautiful examination of grief, family, and sacrifice. While the \"cabin in the woods\" horror movie is certainly a genre staple, Calahan’s deployment of stark imagery and an otherworldly soundscape give the audience a sense of emotional trauma more than creeping, violent dread. Long scenes of fresh snow and a dim cabin are punctuated by bright, sunlit flashbacks and home movies of the man’s childhood at the cabin with his family. When the man begins to hear the mysterious presence in his recordings, the film’s sound uses garbled, staticky words to communicate the otherworldliness of the entity and the man’s own mysterious past and identity. Would it surprise you to know the director was a producer on the soundscape horror UNDERTONE from earlier this year?\n\nIf Terrence Malick made a ghost movie, it might look something like DEATH OF A YELLOW BIRD. Torn between memory and the future, the protagonist is stuck in an alienating environment with a need for emotional closure to resolve his responsibility for a lingering familial trauma. With a final act that crosses time, this slow-burn, atmospheric horror movie builds to an unexpected finale. Calahan’s feature is an unsettling look at personal healing and sacrifice, with a sound design that demands a theatrical viewing experience. The film is sure to be one of the most cathartic experiences at this year’s fest. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee510.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068984960temp-1787068984949-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee510", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee513", "slug": "dog-god", "title": "DOG GOD", "director": "Ing K", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Thailand" ], "language": "English, Thai", "runtime": 110, "year": "1997", "premiere": "International Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Banned", "Take Your Vitamins" ], "synopsis": "Long regarded as one of the most elusive works in Thai cinema, DOG GOD emerges from almost 30 years of censorship as a gleefully anarchic act of cinematic heresy. Shot on 16mm with the help of friends and family on a shoestring budget, Ing K.'s cult underground piece blends black comedy, religious satire, and outsider independent filmmaking to question blind faith and blind following.\n\nWhen Victor Strong, a cult investigator, arrives in Bangkok to rescue a young woman from a New Age sect, he finds himself drawn into an increasingly bizarre world where devotees worship a stray dog as a divine being and charismatic gurus spin ever-more-elaborate spiritual ruses. Beginning with the tone of an absurd farce, the film gradually reveals itself as a razor-sharp critique of religious authority and collective delusion as our protagonist sinks deeper into this universe.\n\nBanned by Thai authorities in 1998 for allegedly insulting religion and, according to some complaints, testing the country's strict lèse-majesté laws forbidding insult to the monarchy, DOG GOD, originally titled MY TEACHER EATS BISCUITS, became a legendary \"lost\" film, circulating only through rare international screenings. Newly restored and re-edited by the director, the film returns not as a historical curiosity but as a strikingly contemporary provocation. By turns outrageous, camp, and challenging, Ing K.'s singular vision stands as a landmark of Southeast Asian independent cinema and a defiant testament to the enduring power of artistic dissent. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee513.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068985628temp-1787068985623-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee513", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee517", "slug": "donkey-princess", "title": "DONKEY PRINCESS", "director": "Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Chile", "France", "Netherlands", "Uruguay", "Germany" ], "language": "Spanish", "runtime": 90, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Beautiful Men", "Fantasy", "Strong Women", "Sword & Sorcery", "Take Your Vitamins" ], "synopsis": "After the death of her mother, Princess Diana is raised by her grieving father in the Kingdom of Chile. The king finds solace in crafting whimsical toys for his daughter while imposing a cruel decree: anyone who succumbs to the plague of love will be exiled to the Valley of Thorns.\n\nOn her birthday, Diana encounters Lalo, a young huaso (Chilean cowboy) whose unexplainable arrival awakens forbidden feelings she has never experienced. Smitten by the princess, he gives her a magical bracelet capable of granting any wish, with the caveat that each wish transports its owner to another kingdom in another time, potentially harming those one loves. The couple’s affair is discovered and Lalo is banished to the Valley of Thorns; Diana, heartbroken, uses the bracelet's wish-granting capabilities to reunite with him, embarking on a journey across space and time.\n\nTaking Charles Perrault’s fairy tale “Donkeyskin” as a guiding star, DONKEY PRINCESS reimagines its themes of identity, abandonment, transformation, and the ways we reshape ourselves after trauma. Directors Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña continue expanding the visual language established in THE WOLF HOUSE and THE HYPERBOREANS, crafting a purely formalist live-action feature filled with magical handcrafted worlds and haunting beauty.\n\nRooted in Chilean pop culture and folklore while paying homage to the dreamlike aesthetics of Jan Švankmajer and Yuri Norstein, the filmmakers transform the different worlds' fears of the plague into an exploration of grief and the fantasies we create to escape our losses. DONKEY PRINCESS understands that longing can be both a source of hope and a trap, and that sometimes we just miss something simply because we imagine how extraordinary it could be.\n\nPrepare yourself for a mesmerizing journey through love, loss, and rebirth; DONKEY PRINCESS is a fairy tale about the dangers of chasing impossible wishes and about finding the courage required to embrace the life that is already in front of us. (RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee517.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787074667737temp-1787074667502-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee517", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee51c", "slug": "extreme-prejudice", "title": "EXTREME PREJUDICE", "director": "Walter Hill", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 105, "year": "1987", "premiere": "Special Presentation", "section": "Special Presentation", "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Action", "Western" ], "synopsis": "", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee51c.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068986954temp-1787068986950-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee51c", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee51f", "slug": "the-face-of-horror", "title": "THE FACE OF HORROR", "director": "Anna Biller", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "UK" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 120, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Gory", "Shot on Film", "Strong Women" ], "synopsis": "Ah, first love. Eleanor loves Edward. Edward loves her beautiful face, her gorgeous body, her money too, for sure. Her as a person? Probably not. And as for her father, certainly not at all. Which is why he kills him to secure Eleanor’s hand in marriage. Meanwhile, Edward’s squire murders the husband of Eleanor’s sister, Beatrice, to satisfy his obsessive lust. So when the two grief-stricken sisters agree to the marriages, they make one condition: that their father and Beatrice’s husband be avenged—unbeknownst to them, by the very men who murdered them.\n\nMarriage, however, does not live up to Edward’s childish, entitled notions of romance. He recoils from anything resembling responsibility: the farm, his sick wife, their child. He quickly redirects his affections toward a lovely, spoiled noblewoman who also happens to be significantly richer. He’s a knight, for god’s sake. He deserves luxury. And once Eleanor stands between him and the life he believes he is owed, he begins reluctantly, then increasingly enthusiastically, to arrange her destruction. He cannot stand her “sad face” anymore. Eleanor thus discovers that the man she loved never truly saw her as anything more than a pretty possession. Her marriage has become a nightmare. Luckily for her, death is not quite the end.\n\nTransposing the classic Japanese ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan to medieval England, Anna Biller once again builds a gorgeous romantic fantasy only to reveal the cruelty festering underneath. Shot on 35mm and drenched in vibrant color, THE FACE OF HORROR is campy, grotesque, frequently funny, and genuinely tragic. Edward may be absurd, but Eleanor’s suffering never is. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee51f.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787074767539temp-1787074767249-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee51f", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee522", "slug": "flapjax", "title": "FLAPJAX", "director": "Rocko Zevenbergen", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA", "Canada" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 98, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Aliens", "Alumnus", "Camp", "Gross Out", "Take Your Vitamins" ], "synopsis": "Arrow Bentley is the most enthusiastic restaurant manager you have ever seen. He spends the night in a spare room off the kitchen, he works more shifts than he needs to, and he talks to the cartoon pig mascot who plasters every inch of the kitschy dining room. Does he work at the freshest, coolest fast food joint in New York? Nope! He works at Hamudders, a pork-based eatery with the nutritional value of a landfill and a taste that would have killed the SUPERSIZE ME guy in three days.\n\nArrow’s enthusiasm and can-do attitude have finally been noticed, and the big guys over at Hamudders HQ have trusted Arrow to relaunch a long out-of-circulation product pulled for unknown reasons: Flapjax. He’s got a short time to plan the world premiere with his one-hit-wonder mom, his best employee trying to quit, and his growing suspicion that the Flapjax itself is hiding something sinister.\n\nTake a bit of LOONEY TUNES, a dash of Troma, add a hint of Brian Yuzna, and you have the recipe for Rocko Zevenbergen‘s FLAPJAX. This fast food horror-comedy delivers on all the fronts you’d want from such a concoction: movement amplified by silly noises, a musical number, and some gonzo practical effects. Each bit of Zevenbergen’s film is filled with sight gags, handmade production design, and satire.\n\nIf you think an overzealous middle manager and his corporate bosses with nefarious interests have nothing to say about the modern American experience, then you haven’t been paying attention. Advertisements plaster over almost every inch of available space, and at all times one must consume, consume, consume… So consume this feast you must! FLAPJAX is sure to go into the darkest corners of your stomach and sure to be a blast with a Fantastic Fest audience. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee522.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787074639920temp-1787074639591-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee522", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee527", "slug": "frisk", "title": "FRISK", "director": "Todd Verow", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 89, "year": "1995", "premiere": "North American Premiere of the 4K Restoration", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Beautiful Men", "Psychopaths", "Queer", "Restoration", "Shot on Film", "Unsafe Sex" ], "synopsis": "Dennis is a god. He’s got charm oozing out of his round pectorals, a square jaw without a wisp of facial hair, and a stare to make most anyone submit to his masculinity. Even his overwhelming desire to murder for sexual pleasure would make him the perfect poster boy for an All-American classic. There’s just one hiccup: Dennis is gay. His serial killer daydreams are concentrated on the young, attractive men he brings home, though he hasn’t actually killed anyone yet. He is quite open with his friends about his fantasies, but they think Dennis is just acting out an extreme roleplay fetish. It’s time for Dennis to leave the world of fantasy and pop his murder cherry.\n\nWhen FRISK premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in 1995, it seemed the queer audience wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Tales circulate about a mass walkout from The Castro with exiting festival attendees yelling at the movie screen, and the film is still banned from distribution or showcase within the UK. Some people have labeled the film \"controversial.\" Almost all of the main characters are unrepentant sociopaths, and the erotic fantasies are rendered with an uncritical eye toward violence, blood, and torture. With the attack on queer rights and people on the rise in the world, and certainly at the time of the film’s original premiere, it’s not hard to see why a film featuring some of the worst queer people alive would ruffle some feathers.\n\nRevisiting the film 31 years later, I found Todd Verow’s adaptation of the Dennis Cooper novel to be unapologetic, viscerally kinky, and undeniably erotic. A film exploring some of our most monstrous desires, with a fresh new hunk destined for the butcher’s block every ten minutes, is not for everyone. I loved it. I found the film’s embrace of intense fantasy to be a giant middle finger to anyone asking queer people to be respectable—a liberating act of cinema by and for gay people. Also, Parker Posey as a sadistic, sexy killer automatically elevates this to the upper echelons of queer cinema. Lucky for you, you don’t have to take my word for it. Fantastic Fest is pleased to present the North American premiere of the restoration of this queer video nasty. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee527.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068989154temp-1787068989143-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee527", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee52c", "slug": "full-phil", "title": "FULL PHIL", "director": "Quentin Dupieux", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France", "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 78, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Absurd", "Alumnus", "Arthouse Gone Wild", "Comedy", "WTF" ], "synopsis": "Deep in the bush, mad scientists Chad (Tim Heidecker) and Andy (Eric Wareheim) make the discovery of a lifetime—a head-chomping dime-store creature from the lagoon who may unlock the secret to eternal life. Naturally, they’re the leads of a ‘50s B-movie being enjoyed by a famished Madeleine Doom (Kristen Stewart), languishing in a posh Parisian hotel with her estranged father, Phil (Woody Harrelson). Phil is hoping that an all-expense trip to the City of Love will help him reconnect with his daughter, but their increasing discontent arouses the suspicion of the hotel’s head of hospitality (Charlotte Le Bon), who takes it upon herself to surveil them throughout the evening.\n\nProlific prankster Quentin Dupieux is no stranger to Fantastic Fest audiences, and FULL PHIL will certainly not bring any new converts to the cause. This feature-length Aristocrats joke, with its disparate threads, monstah movie bona fides, and casual body horror, builds to a climax that’ll have your belly shakin’ with uneasy laughter. (JAKE ISGAR)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee52c.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068989825temp-1787068989815-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee52c", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee530", "slug": "future-tense", "title": "FUTURE TENSE", "director": "Jenna Cato Bass", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "South Africa", "Australia" ], "language": "English, Afrikaans, Dutch, Xhosa", "runtime": 98, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Cerebral", "Colonizers Suck", "Sci-Fi", "Strong Women" ], "synopsis": "In the near future, the world is suffering from the effects of climate change, provoking mass migration and civil unrest across the globe. With this backdrop, a young couple books a romantic time-travel experience, promising to take people back to a pristine world unmarred by the current ravages of overpopulation. When they land, they are greeted by a beautiful, lush landscape, luxury accommodations, and blissful silence. But the trip takes a sharp turn when one of them reveals their true intentions, resulting in a conflict that has higher stakes beyond just the personal.\n\nWe are pleased to welcome Jenna Cato Bass back to Fantastic Fest, after having screened her psychological horror film GOOD MADAM in 2021. A subtle science fiction that grapples with timely issues like climate change and wealth inequality through a genre lens, Bass has crafted a film that’s equally entertaining and intelligent. The two leads have incredible chemistry, guiding us through a range of emotions and shifting allegiances throughout the film. FUTURE TENSE doesn’t offer any easy solutions, opting for a continually surprising and thought-provoking journey, in a dystopian future that seems a little too realistic for comfort. (LISA DREYER)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee530.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075051917temp-1787075051434-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee530", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee532", "slug": "game-master", "title": "GAME MASTER", "director": "Éric Judor", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 89, "year": "2026", "premiere": "International Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Comedy", "Heartwarming", "LARPing" ], "synopsis": "GAME MASTER marks renowned French comedian Éric Judor’s return to the director’s chair for the big screen with a joyous celebration of imagination, awkward parenthood, and the transformative power of play that ventures deep into the wonderfully eccentric world of live-action role-playing. Alexandre, played by Éric Judor himself, is an exasperated father desperate to put his daughter Isaure onto what he thinks is the right path. When he hears that she is skipping an important business-school interview, Alexandre infiltrates a sprawling medieval fantasy LARP to find his daughter in an irresistibly funny adventure.\n\nJudor, whose singular blend of deadpan absurdism and emotional sincerity has made his films enduring cult favorites, crafts a comedy that affectionately skewers fantasy fandom while embracing the generosity, creativity, and community that define it. Trading corporate frustrations for enchanted forests, foam swords, and elaborately improvised kingdoms, his reluctant hero discovers that the greatest challenge isn't slaying mythical beasts, but confronting the compromises and disappointments of adulthood, turning what begins as an embarrassing rescue mission into an unexpectedly heartfelt quest of self-discovery.\n\nGAME MASTER balances broad physical comedy with genuine emotional warmth, never losing sight of the father-daughter relationship at its core. The film's lovingly realized LARP setting becomes both playground and emotional battleground, where elves, orcs, scheming nobles, and enthusiastic hobbyists coexist in a delightfully convincing parallel reality. Bursting with infectious energy and a deep affection for outsiders who refuse to stop dreaming, the film is not just a fantasy spoof or family reconciliation story; it’s also an ode to unapologetic geek culture and a pleasant reminder that growing up doesn’t have to mean leaving the magic behind. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee532.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075133581temp-1787075132987-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee532", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee536", "slug": "ghost-in-the-cell", "title": "GHOST IN THE CELL", "director": "Joko Anwar", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Indonesia" ], "language": "Indonesian", "runtime": 106, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "Within the confines of an Indonesian prison where violent criminals, corrupt officials, and privileged white-collar offenders coexist under an oppressive regime, the arrival of a mysterious new inmate unleashes a terrifying force that turns this institution into the perfect setting for a feverish supernatural siege. Bodies start piling up and prisoners are transformed into grotesque works of art. In a place where violence is routine, these macabre acts shock even the toughest inmates.\n\nAs panic spreads, rival gangs, outcasts, and prison authorities are forced into an uneasy alliance. They must uncover the origins of the malevolent entity before it consumes the institution from within, but they quickly realize that not everyone (and certainly not everything) can be bribed, controlled, or contained.\n\nBlending outrageous gore, explosive action, unexpected comedy, and biting social commentary, Indonesian genre visionary Joko Anwar delivers his most deliriously ambitious film yet: a blood-soaked fusion of supernatural horror, prison thriller, martial arts action, and pitch-black political satire. GHOST IN THE CELL uses its supernatural premise to expose the corruption, inequality, and moral decay festering beneath the surface of contemporary society, haunting one of Indonesia’s most notorious social institutions with its own sins. Wildly inventive and playfully excessive, the film confirms Joko Anwar as one of contemporary genre cinema's most audacious voices. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee536.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075178141temp-1787075177910-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee536", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee538", "slug": "gimme-truth", "title": "GIMME TRUTH", "director": "Brad Abrahams & Simon Ennis", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Canada" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 84, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Aliens", "Alumnus", "Conspiracy Theories", "Documentary" ], "synopsis": "What happens when you lose all trust in corporate and governmental institutions?\n\nIn the age of misinformation and citizen sleuths, it is not hard to understand how one could become so easily intertwined with conspiracy thinking after such disillusionment. From chemtrails and extraterrestrials to alternative archaeology and pandemic conspiracies, GIMME TRUTH ventures into the ever-expanding landscape of contemporary belief by exploring the human appeal and social consequences of such reasoning.\n\nRather than ridicule or endorse their film's subjects, directors Brad Abrahams and Simon Ennis approach conspiracy culture with curiosity and empathy, following individuals whose search for hidden truths has become central to their identities. As their participants pursue enlightenment, certainty, and community beyond the boundaries of mainstream institutions, the film asks what happens when personal conviction begins to outweigh shared evidence, and when these beliefs become more than just theories.\n\nThe documentary never tries to prove or debunk any of these theories, but rather tries to understand how they can become a source of purpose or a framework through which one tries to make sense of an increasingly fragmented world. By turns surprising, unsettling, darkly humorous, and unexpectedly compassionate, GIMME TRUTH offers a nuanced portrait of a society struggling to agree on what is real, serving as a deep analysis of what it means when the search for truth becomes a way of life. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee538.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075247462temp-1787075247173-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee538", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee53b", "slug": "girl-in-the-night", "title": "GIRL IN THE NIGHT", "director": "Luka Marčetić", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Slovenia" ], "language": "Slovenian", "runtime": 94, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Absurd", "Camp", "Comedy", "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Heartwarming", "Strong Women" ], "synopsis": "Rok is trapped in the fluorescent existential purgatory of his monotonous work at a gas station. His greatest act of rebellion is pocketing the occasional chocolate bar during his night shift. One evening, a bruised young woman stumbles into his store. By night, she's a self-appointed vigilante, roaming the city in search of missing pets, lost objects, and the kinds of crimes everyone else is too tired to notice. Desperate for a connection with this enigmatic lass, and burdened by his own terrible instincts, Rok steals her bicycle.\n\nAs the “sole witness” of the crime, and with the promise of finding her lost bike, Rok joins her nightly capers. The pair navigate a nocturnal world populated by eccentrics and loners, with every interaction leading them deeper into a city where social detachment and boredom feel like the greatest danger haunting its residents.\n\nAfter shattering Slovenian box-office records with his debut feature, AT HOSTAR, Luka Marčetić returns with a delightfully deadpan love letter to misfits and the spirit of youth. Equal parts a melancholy hangout comedy and a lo-fi vigilante romp, GIRL IN THE NIGHT is packed with awkward encounters and quiet optimism. This absurdist crowd-pleaser reminds us that sometimes changing the world starts with helping someone find what they've lost, even if you're the reason it went missing in the first place. (RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee53b.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068993000temp-1787068992988-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee53b", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee53d", "slug": "the-glorious-dead", "title": "THE GLORIOUS DEAD", "director": "John Adams & Toby Poser", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 81, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus" ], "synopsis": "Sheriff Deb is woken up by her deputy, Mikey, on her day off. Half the sheriff's office hasn't shown up for work, and the phone lines are down. Deb heads out to perform a welfare check on a local resident, only to find the house completely empty. As the day unfolds, strange things begin happening around town. The power is out, blood runs from some faucets, animals have disappeared, and more and more people are reported missing. Residents are growing uneasy after discovering rotten, flesh-like holes on their properties.\n\nAs the hours pass, things become increasingly bizarre. The dead come back to life, grotesque flesh-covered creatures begin roaming the town and feeding on people, and a heavy snowfall slowly engulfs the area.\n\nWhile Deb tries to make sense of what's happening, the remaining townspeople become convinced that a virus is spreading. They cut off all access in and out of town and begin burning the dead who have come back to life. Alone against the growing panic, Deb starts to realize that this strange and terrifying day may be the beginning of the end.\n\nIt wouldn't be Fantastic Fest without our yearly dose of the Adams family. The most prolific family in genre filmmaking returns with their own take on the Rapture, setting the apocalypse not in a sprawling city but in a quiet small town, making it all the more unsettling. This isn't the end of the world you expect. It arrives quietly, spreads relentlessly, and before long has you by the throat.\n\nEvery film the Adams family directs and produces feels different, yet unmistakably their own. THE GLORIOUS DEAD may be modest in scale, but it's generous in heart. And it's always a pleasure to see an entire family come together, film after film and year after year, with the same passion and commitment. Every project is crafted with genuine care and love, and every film the Adams family brings into the world deserves to be seen. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee53d.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075355080temp-1787075354813-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee53d", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee53f", "slug": "godmother", "title": "GODMOTHER", "director": "John Veron", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 85, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Desert", "Horror", "Respect Your Elders" ], "synopsis": "Romantic desert oasis weekend trip tip #47: Nothing good will happen when your first vacation jam is Eric Carmen’s yacht rock standard \"Make Me Lose Control.\" Colby, a formulaic debonair fintech-type dude, has meticulously planned the perfect couples' weekend at a Pueblo Revival-style home in the New Mexico high desert for his girlfriend, Theo. But all his strategizing gets put on the sideline once Theo invites her free-spirited sister Katie, fresh off a painful breakup.\n\nAs if the clashing personalities between Colby and Katie weren't enough for Theo, the trio's rental home hosts, the seemingly gracious Martinsons, played by horror legends Dee Wallace and Bruce Davison, harbor unsettling motives for the fate of the couple. Trapped between Colby's safe and controlling predictability and Katie's reckless spontaneity, Theo finds herself mediating her loved ones' tensions while the isolated desert retreat is gestating something increasingly strange and devilish.\n\nSpending a few holidays with my family under the spell of Las Cruces’s Organ Mountains and the beautiful Mesilla Valley, I can understand why director John Veron chose this enchanting and mystical place as the setting for his debut film. Co-written with gaming personality Alanah Pearce and executive produced with the guidance of streaming superstar Seán McLoughlin (Jacksepticeye), GODMOTHER explores the compromises we make for love and identity. The film also presents a thoughtful contrast between older generations' couple expectations and more contemporary relationship goals. For Theo and the audience, in the words of the late Eric Carmen, this nightmarish desert retreat will \"take you over the edge, make you lose control.\" (RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee53f.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068994251temp-1787068994247-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee53f", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee543", "slug": "half", "title": "HALF", "director": "Samjad", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "India" ], "language": "Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kanada, English", "runtime": 96, "year": "2026", "premiere": "International Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Action", "Great Kills", "Road Trip", "Vampire" ], "synopsis": "Ivy and her twin brother are no ordinary siblings. Born half-human, half-vampire, they were raised by their mother to always look out for one another. Now adults, the twins set off on a road trip, only to be ambushed by a ruthless gang of scavengers who leave them for dead. As night falls, their bodies regenerate, revealing the full extent of their vampire heritage. With a newfound thirst for vengeance, the twins embark on a bloody mission to hunt down every last one of their attackers.\n\n\n\n\nHALF is an exhilarating blend of action, thriller, and horror, packed with genuinely memorable set pieces. It demands a little patience in its opening act, but once it hits full throttle, it never lets up. Brutal, gory, and consistently funny, this Malayalam vampire film marks Samjad's second feature. The action sequences, choreographed by Very Tri Yulisman—best known for THE RAID 2 and THE NIGHT COMES FOR US—are a major highlight. Most importantly, HALF never takes itself too seriously, and that's exactly why it works. It's a film determined to entertain, and Samjad knows precisely how to deliver a wildly enjoyable ride. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee543.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075773196temp-1787075773115-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee543", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee546", "slug": "hell-house", "title": "HELL HOUSE", "director": "George Ratliff", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 86, "year": "2001", "premiere": "World Premiere of the Restoration", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Children in Peril" ], "synopsis": "This church wants to scare the hell out of you. Literally.\n\nHELL HOUSE is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows the Trinity Assembly of God Church in Dallas, Texas, as they build a \"hell house\" for the Y2K Halloween season. Hell houses are the evangelical Christian church’s answer to a haunted house—a Fundamentalist fright night meant to scare the bejesus out of any nonbeliever. But instead of Draculas and Freddy Kruegers, the church recreates scenes that graphically depict modern-day \"evils\" such as botched abortions, AIDS-related deaths, fatal drunk driving crashes, date rapes, and drug-induced suicides.\n\nShot on gorgeous 16mm film stock by director George Ratliff and friends, HELL HOUSE is an outrageous, enthralling, and poignant vérité window into the creative effort and religious zeal behind this over-the-top event. The film chronicles the entire hell house process, from the initial script meeting to the lavish production design, while also remaining an intimate portrait of the people who fervently believe its message. Fans of AMERICAN MOVIE, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, and MISTER ORGAN take note: this movie might be your new favorite obsession.\n\nAGFA is honored to present a new restoration of HELL HOUSE from the original 16mm camera negative for the first time ever with director George Ratliff in person. (AGFA)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee546.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068995533temp-1787068995530-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee546", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee548", "slug": "henry-portrait-of-a-serial-killer-presented-by-dark-sky-films-agfa", "title": "HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (Presented by Dark Sky Films & AGFA)", "director": "John McNaughton", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 83, "year": "1986", "premiere": "World Premiere of the 35mm print", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Iconic Killer" ], "synopsis": "Brand-new 40th anniversary 35mm print! One of the most harrowing films of the 20th century, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is right up there with key works by Haneke, Cronenberg, and Noé in its effortless ability to push the audience in directions it never thought it’d go. Presaging both our current true-crime obsession and the era of “elevated arthouse horror,” this shockingly audacious debut feature by John McNaughton (WILD THINGS, MAD DOG & GLORY), with its chilling, career-defining turn by Michael Rooker (AMC's THE WALKING DEAD, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), has inspired multiple generations of filmmakers to go for the throat.\n\nIn a voyeuristic style that does not judge, McNaughton’s camera glides around a few short weeks in the life of a drifter psychopath (Rooker) operating with amoral lizard-brain impunity as he mass-murders on the streets of Chicago. For shelter, Henry exploits the already-toxic living situation of ex-cellmate Otis (Tom Towles), who eventually follows him in animalistic killing sprees with execution methods and victims chosen at random to avoid detection. Meanwhile, Otis’ unsuspecting sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) comes to visit and mysteriously falls in love with the distant Henry.\n\nAmongst the gruesome, senseless violence, McNaughton fashions an impeccable three-hander hangout film: one of America’s greatest indies that also became a revolutionary genre-bender. HENRY is just as much in conversation with SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE as it is with THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE or DAWN OF THE DEAD, and the film’s shattering industrial music score sets the scene in its own incredible way. (BRET BERG)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee548.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075797059temp-1787075796999-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee548", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee54b", "slug": "the-heretiks", "title": "THE HERETIKS", "director": "Gregg Bishop", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 89, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Children in Peril", "Coming of Age", "Evil Entity", "Witchy" ], "synopsis": "From Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, the writers of HELLRAISER (2022) and THE NIGHT HOUSE, comes the first production from Dread Central’s new company Be Afraid—THE HERETIKS. Directed by Gregg Bishop, this Halloween-set home invasion horror fuses supernatural mayhem, suspense, and old-school practical-effects energy into one wickedly entertaining ride.\n\nSet over the course of a single fateful night, THE HERETIKS follows a disaffected teenager, Ada, forced into an unlikely alliance with a renegade witch when her younger sister, Mabel, is marked for sacrifice by a fanatical coven determined to usher in the apocalypse. As the clock races toward midnight, ancient grudges, forbidden magic, and blood-soaked rituals collide in a relentless fight for survival. The film channels the kinetic spirit of '80s horror while delivering a contemporary coming-of-age story about family, identity, and the courage to defy inherited beliefs. Bishop blends inventive scares, dark humor, and propulsive action to tell a tale that is as emotionally grounded as it is gleefully unhinged.\n\nFueled by a fresh ensemble cast and an atmosphere steeped in autumnal dread, THE HERETIKS embraces the pleasures of practical horror without sacrificing heart. Every chase, spell, and confrontation builds toward a feverish finale that transforms Halloween night into a battleground between blind devotion and hard-won self-determination. Equal parts witchcraft thriller, survival horror, and midnight crowd-pleaser, the film is an exhilarating celebration of rebellious outsiders, supernatural chaos, and the enduring appeal of horror that wears its love of the genre proudly on its sleeve. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee54b.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075883917temp-1787075883748-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee54b", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee550", "slug": "i-have-proof", "title": "I HAVE PROOF", "director": "James Cullen Bressack", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 76, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Burnt Ends", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "If you look at James Bressack’s IMDb, you will see 51 directing credits and 196 producing credits. I don’t know how many films qualify for someone to be considered prolific, but at only 36 years old, either the kid just keeps slapping his name on shit or he legitimately never stops working! Either way, I HAVE PROOF is just that; proof that when Bressack steps away from the movie machine he has built, he is still able to tap into the filmmaker instincts that were present in his early career, regardless of the budget he is given to work with.\n\nI HAVE PROOF is a film made of pure rawness and grit. There is dirt on the lens, spit in each scene, and blood in the reels. And you will feel it.\n\nBressack bought a bunch of old homemade porn to record over, mostly because that is the only way you can find enough VHS-C tape at Bressack production speed, and wrapped the production just a few weeks after its inception. Each tape carried a ghost signal of what was once there; a flicker, a moan, a body, bleeding through the horror that was recorded over it. This movie is not for everyone. It is deeply disturbing, uncomfortable, and as visceral a gut punch as you could hope to get at a film festival. It totally fucking hits.\n\nThis found footage, mostly POV film, is led by relative newcomers Larsen Deane and Lily Van der Meer, and frequent fixtures in the Bressack universe, B.J. Hendricks, Kay Day, and David Josh Lawrence. If you miss when found footage actually felt dangerous, this is for you. (AHBRA PERRY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee550.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068997922temp-1787068997910-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee550", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee553", "slug": "into-the-sky", "title": "INTO THE SKY", "director": "Evan Wolf Buxbaum & Drew Mylrea", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 97, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Aliens", "Comedy" ], "synopsis": "We first meet Bobby butt-naked, covered in blue goo, lying on a golf course in North Carolina, hundreds of miles away from his hometown in upstate New York. For the past year, Bobby's life has been shattered by repeated abductions at the hands of a mysterious force in the sky. After making his way back home, with his marriage now in shambles, he meets Nico. Nico is renting his former house while planning her brother's wedding, with the hope that it will prove to her family that she isn't a burnout.\n\nUnaware of the external forces disrupting Bobby's existence, Nico becomes entangled in his life as the two strike a deal to help solve each other's problems: Bobby will help plan the wedding, and Nico will help Bobby reconnect with his estranged wife. The arrival of Jaden, another abductee who has suffered the same bizarre phenomenon as Bobby for the past five years, only raises the stakes and adds to Bobby's problems.\n\nBeginning as an intriguing abduction mystery centered on Bobby's desperate attempts to understand what is happening to him, INTO THE SKY gradually reveals itself to be something more far out. Elevated by a solid ensemble including Sam Richardson, Sofia Black-D'Elia, and David Cross, the film refuses to stay grounded in a single genre. Combining a heartfelt romance, cosmic mystery, and light comedy, directors Drew Mylrea and Evan Wolf Buxbaum craft a genre mash-up that will lift its audience up into unexpected places. (RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee553.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787075711976temp-1787075711897-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee553", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee555", "slug": "janur-ireng-sewu-dino-the-prequel", "title": "JANUR IRENG: SEWU DINO THE PREQUEL", "director": "Kimo Stamboel", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Indonesia" ], "language": "Indonesian, English", "runtime": 94, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "For anyone wondering precisely how many goat sacrifices are too many for one movie, Kimo Stamboel’s latest slice of blood-drenched Southeast Asian gothic horror does its damnedest to find out. Serving as a prequel to the Indonesian box office smash SEWU DINO (aka A THOUSAND DAYS), JANUR IRENG turns back the clock to 1997 to explore the origins of a debilitating thousand-day curse.\n\nThree months after the untimely death of their father, siblings Sabdo and Intan are left desperate and destitute when their family home mysteriously burns to the ground. Seemingly out of nowhere, Arjo, the wealthy uncle they never knew they had, appears and invites them to come and live at his palatial country estate. No sooner have they arrived, however, when Sabdo is forced to participate in bizarre late-night rituals, while his younger sister experiences all manner of supernatural disturbances as she is groomed for an even more nefarious fate.\n\nStamboel, a long-time Fantastic Fest favorite who has been terrifying and delighting Texas crowds ever since his early collaborations with fellow Mo Brother, Timo Tjahjanto, pulls out all the stops for this deliriously demonic delight. As with all the best Indonesian horror films, things start off innocuous enough, with malformed shadows and unexplained bumps in the night, but it doesn’t take long until events crescendo into a cacophonous carnivale of giant horned demons, disembodied spirits, and ancient rituals, climaxing in an eruption of decapitations and disembowelments, as ancient folklore and timeless savagery collide in spectacular blood-soaked revelry.\n\nAdapted from much the same school of folklore-infused online creepypasta that nurtured successes like BACKROOMS and SLENDER MAN, JANUR IRENG weaves potent historical context into the origins of an already established mythology. Whether audiences are familiar with this blockbuster franchise already, or are being lashed to its subterranean altar for the first time, Stamboel ensures that all who witness its horrors will leave gleefully thrilled and fulfilled. (JAMES MARSH)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee555.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068999214temp-1787068999205-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee555", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee557", "slug": "jim-queen", "title": "JIM QUEEN", "director": "Marco Nguyen & Nicolas Athane", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 84, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Animated", "Beautiful Men", "Kinky", "Musical", "Queer" ], "synopsis": "Jim Perfect is indeed perfect: perfect body, perfect hookups, perfect body hair distribution, and a perfectly monetized social media and OnlyFans presence. He’s the hottest guy in Paris, with a string of adoring fans begging just for a scrap of his attention. One of those adoring fans is Lucien, a tiny twink with a shrine to Jim in his bedroom closet, hidden away from the ever-watchful eyes of his conservative politician mother. When Jim is struck with heterotosis, the mysterious virus turning queer people all over France straight, he loses all his Instagram followers and is forced to team up with Lucien in an odyssey through gay Paris to find the cure.\n\nNicolas Athane and Marco Nguyen’s animated satire skewers everyone from the gym gay who won’t get off his phone at the weight rack to the purist leather daddy who won’t take \"no\" for an answer. A world premiere in Cannes’ Midnighter section earlier this year, JIM QUEEN gleefully recreates queer male subcultures with a cheeky wink and a deep affection. Like a drag queen lovingly reading you for filth, this comedy can only be so mean to its subjects because it knows and loves them so thoroughly.\n\nThe past couple of years have been really rough. In America and across the globe, we’ve witnessed a rising tide of far-right fascism sweep through politics and into our lives. While certainly not new, it has been turbocharged recently, and our queer family has been scapegoated and attacked on all sides. JIM QUEEN, with all its silliness, is a movie about the need for our community to come together to fight back against the oppression and the erasure of our queerness. Conservative fascism is here, and we will rise up to meet it with fetish singlets and rubber pups. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee557.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787068999834temp-1787068999830-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee557", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee55b", "slug": "jollyface", "title": "JOLLYFACE", "director": "Justin Floyd", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 77, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "ACAB", "Gory", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "Nick and Claire seem like the perfect couple. Sure, there are moments when Claire's desire to be a well-meaning ally veers into \"white savior\" territory, like when she urges Nick to confront what she perceives as judgmental looks directed at them for being a biracial couple. Nick seems to be accustomed to these interactions; he plays along, and life moves on. At least, it does until the day Nick is murdered outside their apartment.\n\nConsumed by grief and knowing that the criminal justice system tends to disregard the thorough investigation and prosecution of crimes perpetrated against Black people, Claire embarks on her own search for the truth about Nick’s death. Her determination soon places her in the crosshairs of a sinister killer who is determined to ensure that she never gets out of her apartment complex alive.\n\nIn his feature film debut, Justin Floyd crafts a home invasion horror film that uses familiar genre conventions to examine the ways racial identity can be manipulated and weaponized. As an exciting new voice in horror, the director is able to project an understanding of the contradictions, anxieties, and fears that exist within communities of color. Despite its complex themes, the movie never loses sight of its flow and its characters, allowing their emotional struggles to provide a balance to the escalating violent situations happening around them.\n\nThe true terror of JOLLYFACE lies not only in its menacing killer but in the systems and attitudes that allow these kinds of monsters to exist. With contemporary, pointed social commentary, the film delivers kills, shocks, and uncomfortable truths, leaving audiences with plenty to discuss. (RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee55b.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787076153198temp-1787076153118-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee55b", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee55d", "slug": "kick-on", "title": "KICK ON", "director": "Nick Kozakis", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Australia" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 89, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Action", "Gory", "Mean" ], "synopsis": "Eden and her three best friends spend their nights drinking, dancing, getting high, and breaking into fights across Melbourne's club scene. They are kicked out of a dance club, and after a quick pit stop for a chicken souvlaki wrap and a few energy drinks, they set out in search of one last fix to keep the party going. Their night leads them to the extravagant drug lair of Roman, casually known to his friends as Ray, the volcanic son of a sadistic mobster.\n\nWhat begins as an awkward afterparty, fueled by a mountain of drugs, bad decisions, and Ray's increasingly reckless behavior, quickly spirals into a violent situation far beyond the group's casual bar fights. Trapped inside the apartment, Eden and her friends must fight for their lives to escape while paranoia, betrayal, and brutal violence continue to escalate between Ray and his gang.\n\nAs a fan of Irish goodbyes, a bad party you can't escape from is one of my worst nightmares. KICK ON is far from your typical D.A.R.E. after-school special, delivering a drug-fueled crime thriller with enough gore, impalings, and relentless mayhem to rival the nastiest slashers. Director Nick Kozakis continues to cement himself as an original voice in the Australian Horror New Wave, blending razor-sharp pacing and an infectious sense of fun that never undercuts the brutality of the film. KICK ON shows how Australian genre cinema remains as wild, inventive, and unapologetic as ever. Fantastic Fest is thrilled to host the US Premiere of KICK ON. So, grab your mates; this is one party you won't want to miss. (RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee55d.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787078859966temp-1787078859800-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee55d", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee560", "slug": "kung-fu-deadly", "title": "KUNG FU DEADLY", "director": "Fergal Costello", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Ireland", "Australia" ], "language": "English, Mandarin", "runtime": 96, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Action", "Camp", "Comedy", "Martial Arts" ], "synopsis": "Danny and Frank, childhood best friends with mild boundary issues, are eking out a living in Dublin with their haphazardly run extermination company when they come across a group of Chinese criminals attempting to unleash a Jiangshi on the city with the Taoist guardian, Lien, currently hunting them. Lien quickly uncovers the fact that Danny is, by lineage, the other guardian that should be helping her; a fact he is blissfully unaware of in the tedium of his life.\n\nFrom deciding whether to hang up his branded coveralls and sell his childhood home to being tasked with protecting humanity, Danny’s life is at a major crossroads and Frank is along for the ride. The unlikely trio, as well as Danny and Frank’s auntie, set out to discover the truth about Danny’s father and the criminals spreading this evil, while convincing and training Danny to accept his destiny.\n\nFor his sophomore feature outing, director Fergal Costello (WE ARE NOT ALONE) is joined by action director Lee Huang (WARRIOR NUN, THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS) to create a hilarious, action-filled supernatural adventure. Bringing together young, up-and-coming actors in the lead roles and veteran stunt performers, KUNG FU DEADLY delivers heart, laughs, and, of course, dynamic fights to tell a fun, uplifting story about the power of friendship. (KEV DOOLEY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee560.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787078909354temp-1787078909173-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee560", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee563", "slug": "kylgor-in-the-grisly-abyss", "title": "KYLGOR IN THE GRISLY ABYSS", "director": "Mason Jeffrey Newton-DeRushie", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Canada" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 74, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "Gory", "Great Kills", "Puppets", "Take Your Vitamins" ], "synopsis": "A nearly utopian kingdom secretly provides for its people by ravaging and oppressing neighboring lands. One day, one of those kingdoms elects a trio of champions and charges them with a simple task: kill the king.\n\nKylgor and his men battle courageously through the kingdom, storm the castle, and promptly remove the king’s head before fleeing from his most faithful guards. While navigating their escape, Kylgor, his compatriots, and the king’s guards fall into a deep, mystical cave. Trapped, with only their wits and steel to save them from an unending horde of ravenous beasts, deceitful hallucinations, and evil magicks corrupting their very flesh (err… foam rubber), the former enemies must either find enough common ground to work together or die in the dark labyrinth.\n\nKYLGOR IN THE GRISLY ABYSS, the directorial debut from writer/director Mason Jeffrey Newton-DeRushie, is full of blood and guts, the nearly forgotten art of stop-motion animation, gnarly puppets, beautiful illustrations, and, above all, heart. In the tradition of the great sword-and-sandal barbarian movies, airbrushed conversion vans, and kids' movies that were way too heavy for their intended audience, KYLGOR IN THE GRISLY ABYSS delivers on every promise it makes. Mason Jeffrey Newton-DeRushie crafts deep lore and a world that I can’t wait to return to. (KEV DOOLEY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee563.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069002529temp-1787069002524-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee563", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee566", "slug": "little-doors", "title": "LITTLE DOORS", "director": "Anthony Oberbeck", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 79, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Burnt Ends", "Cerebral", "Sci-Fi" ], "synopsis": "Isolated and awkward, a woman hires an equally socially inept locksmith to open a door in her empty, abandoned McMansion in the quiet post-apocalyptic world of LITTLE DOORS. A small connection built on mirroring behavior and unambiguous communication quickly becomes a relationship as he’s invited to move in.\n\nThe two make every attempt at a normal romantic relationship, including uncomfortably standing by a fire together, exchanging gifts, having a picnic while the world burns behind them, and spending nearly every moment together while their conversations continue in their quiet, matter-of-fact manner. All the while, the woman is hiding a secret. A large, angry-looking cyst reveals itself to be a small, locked wooden door in the side of her body. A door someone starts knocking on from the other side.\n\nNo longer able to hide it, the two face the decision of whether or not to open it. She explores medical and spiritual intervention to no avail, and eventually allows her partner to pick the lock. What they find on the other side transforms their relationship forever.\n\nA thoughtful, absurdist exploration of relationships, emotional availability, and one’s own sense of self, LITTLE DOORS quietly speaks volumes. Anthony Oberbeck, as writer, director, and co-lead of LITTLE DOORS, expertly weaves deadpan humor and heart while illuminating the sad, difficult realities of finding connection in the modern world. A powerful directorial debut, this movie has a unique charm that is sure to resonate with those of us who have a terminal case of social awkwardness. (KEV DOOLEY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee566.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787078963682temp-1787078963661-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee566", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee568", "slug": "magick-mtn", "title": "MAGICK MTN.", "director": "Hana Mae Lee & Hal Satin", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 80, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Burnt Ends", "Camp", "Take Your Vitamins" ], "synopsis": "Lord Mmorke, a tepid and ghoulish narrator, walks us through 3 separate fables all intersecting in a realm beyond the tangible. Rituals and retellings about a Deathrock squatter jailed by a sadistic psychiatrist and the evils of regret, a pair of criminal plumbers plunging further towards Hell's grips and the beer-soaked leather of the Sunset Strip, and an architect's ambition built on the shaky bedrock of the Devil's promise. What begins as a tale ends in a spell cast upon unsuspecting characters and audiences alike. (HAL SATIN & HANA MAE LEE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee568.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069005658temp-1787069005655-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee568", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee56a", "slug": "mr-creamjeans-hidey-hole", "title": "MR. CREAMJEANS' HIDEY HOLE", "director": "Heath Benfield", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 70, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Burnt Ends", "Gross Out" ], "synopsis": "Keep your safe word handy as we follow blackmail victim Henry, guided by the dulcet tones of the eponymous Mr. Creamjeans, through the Hidey Hole, a “museo de arqueología erótica” unlike anything we’ve ever seen. The offer to Henry is simple: see what the Hidey Hole has to offer, provide his own contribution to the curation, and the tapes of whatever it is he has done will be his.\n\nWhat follows is a collection of bizarre, lewd vignettes, each more satisfying than the one before. From delivering what an underappreciated wife really wants to rejecting the notion of a single final girl in the name of sisterhood, MR. CREAMJEANS' HIDEY HOLE consistently provides gut-busting laughs and more phalluses than maybe all other feature film submissions to Fantastic Fest this year combined.\n\nMR. CREAMJEANS' HIDEY HOLE is a bold and unapologetic first feature from director Heath Benfield and writers Josh Griffey (Mr. Creamjeans himself) and Jonathan Holiday, who, along with other cast and crew, make up the film collective Misfit Parade. For the last several years, Misfit Parade have honed their skills and their “Troma, but elevated” sensibilities on a series of bawdy shorts, building a dedicated audience who shares their sense of humor and need to emasculate male entitlement. Don’t miss your opportunity to become a misfit and see this future cult classic first in its World Premiere at Fantastic Fest. (KEV DOOLEY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee56a.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069006265temp-1787069006261-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee56a", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee56c", "slug": "no-rest-for-the-wicked", "title": "NO REST FOR THE WICKED", "director": "Kasper Kalle", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Denmark" ], "language": "Danish, Faroese", "runtime": 103, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Beautiful Men", "Horror", "Queer", "Relationship Horror" ], "synopsis": "The Faroe Islands are a hard place to live. Daily life is a struggle, and everyone knows each other and their business. A young man, Baldur, chafes against the restrictions of his religiously conservative community, particularly when he is saved from a drowning accident by a very scruffy, intense stranger named Helge. Their burgeoning relationship is cut short by Christian judgment and tragedy, and all hope appears to be lost. A blood sacrifice to the unknown being who dwells beneath the waves brings renewed hope in this doomed, eldritch romance.\n\nNO REST FOR THE WICKED begins as many an indie gay romance does: a period piece, repressive religiosity, and lingering stares. Once the isolated, 19th-century community has been established and our two leads have begun to open up, the film takes a turn into unfathomable horror. It’s a refreshing shift in genre, emphasizing the mysteriousness of the ocean and the power of queer transgression.\n\nFantastic Fest is a particularly unique festival where our audience can ignore standard models of morality and root for the gay man who makes a supernatural deal permitting possession and blood sacrifice. Egor Venned plays the young, inexperienced Baldur, and Pilou Asbæk (GAME OF THRONES’ Euron Greyjoy) is the confident, older sailor who helps Baldur to accept himself. NO REST FOR THE WICKED revels in unspeakable horror as a metaphor for the resistance to heterosexuality and the destruction of societal norms. If that sounds too heavy, have no fear; there's also a lot of hairy, sea-soaked chests and eldritch, bloody nipple play. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee56c.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069006914temp-1787069006903-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee56c", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee56f", "slug": "no-way-down", "title": "NO WAY DOWN", "director": "Mohamed Chabane & Théo Jourdain", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 91, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "ACAB", "Gory", "Horror", "Make Them Pay", "Survival", "Trauma" ], "synopsis": "Idriss is fresh out of prison and determined to leave his past behind, hoping to rebuild his life and reunite with his girlfriend, Mélia. When he visits a former associate to collect money he's owed, he's offered a deal instead: the debt will only be settled once Idriss evicts a squatter from the abandoned Kraken apartment complex. Refusing to be drawn back into violence, Idriss walks away.\n\nBut the conversation is overheard by Ouss, an aspiring gangster eager to prove himself. Seeing an opportunity, Ouss decides to enter the Kraken and do the job himself. His friend Marvin, a self-proclaimed content creator, tags along, unaware that they are stepping into the territory of a dangerous and deeply violent man.\n\nWhen Mélia—Marvin's sister—learns where her brother is headed, she calls Idriss and begs him to help bring him back. As the group enters the vast, decaying complex in search of the boys, the tension steadily mounts. Climbing floor after floor, they come to realize they are being hunted by a man whose existence is intimately tied to Idriss's past.\n\nNO WAY DOWN marks the feature debut of Théo Jourdain and Mohamed Chabane, delivering a raw and brutal thriller. Their boogeyman emerges from a very real social issue affecting major cities around the world: the shortage of affordable housing and the ruthless practices sometimes employed to clear unwanted tenants. Bolstered by a talented young cast, Jourdain and Chabane turn the sprawling, decrepit Kraken complex into a nightmarish labyrinth, expertly trapping their characters alongside a relentless psychopath and ensuring the audience feels every ounce of the film's suffocating claustrophobia. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee56f.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069007720temp-1787069007709-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee56f", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee573", "slug": "ogroff-presented-by-bleeding-skull", "title": "OGROFF (Presented by BLEEDING SKULL)", "director": "Norbert Moutier", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 89, "year": "1983", "premiere": "World Premiere of the Restoration", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [], "synopsis": "If Leatherface from THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE made a home movie with a Super 8 film camera, it would feel a lot like OGROFF.\n\nThe French countryside is stalked by Ogroff, a deranged cannibal armed with a menagerie of knives, axes, and chainsaws. No one who enters Ogroff's haunted forest is safe from the killer's bloodthirsty wrath—not lumberjacks, automobiles, or children. One day, a woman (who may also be a serial killer) becomes obsessed with tracking down Ogroff. Will her infatuation lead to love or something far more sinister?\n\nNothing else on earth resembles OGROFF. Shot on Super 8 film for $18,000 in France's Orléans Forest by video shop owner/horror zine publisher Norbert Moutier (aka N.G. Mount), this is the zenith of accidental avant-garde horror. Moutier applies his influences (Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, Rollin's THE GRAPES OF DEATH) to a chaotic, droned-out slasher aesthetic that showcases experimental synthesizers, crazed gore, and surreal deviations from reality. Dizzying, fascinating, and charmingly nihilistic, OGROFF stands at the precipice of inspired art and lowbrow trash. But it transcends both as a singular mutation that you'll never forget.\n\nNow for the first time, Bleeding Skull presents a sparkling restoration of OGROFF from the newly discovered U-matic tape masters. Just don't get too close to the forest... you may never return. (Joseph A. Ziemba)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee573.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069008331temp-1787069008327-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee573", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee575", "slug": "the-ones-who-grieve", "title": "THE ONES WHO GRIEVE", "director": "Quarxx", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 116, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Dark" ], "synopsis": "Set in the French countryside at the end of the 19th century, THE ONES WHO GRIEVE follows Jacob, a deeply religious man who works as a soul keeper. Believing he is liberating those afflicted by a mysterious illness, he imprisons them behind wooden masks after sewing their eyes and mouths shut. His daughter, Zélie, lives under his tyrannical rule and dreams of freedom. When Jacob sells her beloved horse, Thunder, her resentment reaches its breaking point, prompting her to defy him by hiding an infected soldier in the family barn.\n\nAfter Zélie is assaulted by a neighbor, Jacob's delusions deepen. Convinced she has sinned, he brutally mutilates her before deciding the only way to keep her \"safe\" is to keep her for himself. But Zélie has finally reached her limit. When an opportunity presents itself, she seizes it and turns the tables on her father.\n\nTHE ONES WHO GRIEVE is French director Quarxx's third feature film. In 2018, he left a lasting impression on our audience with ALL THE GODS IN THE SKY, a bleak and unsettling science fiction tale. Although the two films differ in genre, they share a common thread: an unflinching exploration of suffering.\n\nWith THE ONES WHO GRIEVE, Quarxx examines the tyranny of a self-proclaimed prophet who wields religion as a tool of domination and control. Thierry Frémont fully inhabits the role, delivering a chilling performance that lays bare the character's monstrous nature. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee575.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787079154430temp-1787079154422-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee575", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee577", "slug": "pathetic-fallacy", "title": "PATHETIC FALLACY", "director": "Adam Egypt Mortimer", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 98, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Musical", "Pyschedelic" ], "synopsis": "Asher and Iris are madly in love. After Iris succumbs to cancer, Asher is wracked with grief, searching for answers, wishing he had been taken instead of her. In his quest to reconnect with her, he stumbles into an alternate universe filled with homicidal maniacs, talking creatures, and one very cool dive bar. He’s given a tempting offer: try to cheat death and bring her back… but at what cost?\n\nDirector Adam Egypt Mortimer (DANIEL ISN’T REAL, ARCHENEMY) is no stranger to crafting mind-bending tales, and he’s brought the full force of his talent to crafting PATHETIC FALLACY. Wildly imaginative and incredibly touching, the film is filled with psychedelic visuals and propulsive action, all shot on 35mm.\n\nAnchoring the film are incredible performances from Jessica Rothe and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi, whose onscreen chemistry is palpable. The two also lend their vocal talents to the incredible soundtrack by Johnny Jewel, which serves as the backbone of the film. PATHETIC FALLACY is by turns exhilarating, heartbreaking, hilarious—and most of all, human. (LISA DREYER)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee577.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787079325487temp-1787079325395-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee577", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee57a", "slug": "phreaker", "title": "PHREAKER", "director": "Adam Yorke", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Canada" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 98, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "ACAB", "Bullying", "Coming of Age", "The Future is Bleak" ], "synopsis": "AT&T poisoned the minds of millions by telling them to “reach out and touch someone.” What did they expect from those grasping for human connection? For Jake Bellman, a blind teenager in a downwardly mobile home at the turn of the 21st century, the phone became a curiosity and then an obsession. He finds himself in chat rooms, striking up conversations with strangers, only to discover that he has a gift for mimicry.\n\nBy memorizing dial tones, he can swindle systems into free long-distance calls, and by imitating those on the other end of the line, he can manipulate to a far greater degree. It’s called “phreaking,” and Jake is one of the best to ever do it. This, however, is a recipe for making more enemies than friends.\n\nPicking up the baton from hacker classics like SNEAKERS and THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Adam Yorke’s sophomore feature delivers a taut, propulsive character piece in a world before pre-digital ubiquity. Based on true events, with the names changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty), PHREAKER is one that you can’t miss. (JAKE ISGAR)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee57a.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069010964temp-1787069010954-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee57a", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee57d", "slug": "platypus", "title": "PLATYPUS", "director": "Joshua Gratton", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Canada" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 85, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "Body Count", "Kinky", "Queer", "Shot on Film" ], "synopsis": "A woman receives a foreboding tarot reading. A man eating an apple is murdered on a beach. A precocious young woman has dreams of a masked killer. A woman walks into an antique store followed by a mysterious figure... and the film continues.\n\nDescribing the plot of PLATYPUS is like trying to explain a slasher captured through a dream. Sexual desire, violence, voice-over, a plot unconcerned with character arc, and obviously fake blood are just a few of the elements that make up Joshua Gratton’s second feature outing as a director. A beautifully constructed throwback, PLATYPUS transcends a mere love letter to a genre and celebrates the joys of low-budget, DIY filmmaking. Each kill, each cut around an actor starting a movement cue, and each bit of ridiculous dialogue draws your attention to the movie being brought to life in front of you.\n\nYou will see nothing else this year—at Fantastic Fest at least, but I would bet all year long—like PLATYPUS. Wholly original, laugh-out-loud funny, and strangely disturbing, this relatively simple horror premise feels like trying to remember a movie that never existed. Shot on Super 8 film and accompanied by one of the best scores of the year, each moment feels ripped from half a dozen low-rent movies you’d catch on cable at 2 AM. Gratton’s film indulges in the sensual pleasures of the genre (stay away if full-frontal nudity isn’t your jam), demonstrating his familiarity with the tropes while queering them at every turn. It’s a heady concoction that creates a film that feels transgressive and incredibly familiar, especially for a Fantastic Fest audience. So grab your mask, a knife, and your stupidest, hot boyfriend for the World Premiere of PLATYPUS. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee57d.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069011540temp-1787069011536-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee57d", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee57f", "slug": "play-house", "title": "PLAY HOUSE", "director": "Nicolas Jon Curcio", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 85, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Don't Watch That Tape", "Horror", "Puppets" ], "synopsis": "Exactly one year ago, Nic Curcio, Kirby Gladstein, and Ben Gojer stood on stage in the Highball and promised all of us that they could make a kick-ass horror film. They won the inaugural Fantastic Pitches and have returned to Fantastic Fest to world premiere PLAY HOUSE. Since accepting their crowns, the team has been on a full sprint to the finish. With no time to catch their breath, the team barreled through development, casting, and production, taking a week's break for the director and producer to get married before heading into post. Divide/Conquer (M3GAN, BLACK PHONE 2) joined Chroma as executive producers on the film. My spidey senses and my Instagram algorithm tell me that this is just the beginning of what will be very scary and successful careers for all three of these champions.\n\nCurcio’s directorial debut follows Elliot (Will Harrison from DAISY JONES & THE SIX) as he navigates a terror where all millennial egos go to die: the real estate market, where thanks to the death of his mother, he is able to buy the most shitty of homes in LA County. With the help of his best friend Alden (Jordan Gonzalez from THE LONG WALK), Elliot plans to restore the dilapidated house to the cozy home it once was in hopes of winning back his ex-girlfriend played by Jessica Sula (MICHAEL), because nothing says emotional growth like the grand gesture of home-buying.\n\nWhile cleaning out the basement of his new home, Elliot discovers some old VHS tapes crammed into the dark reaches of the broken water heater. Each musty tape contains an episode of a children’s television show that not even the darkest nerd corners of the internet can identify. The show’s host Mr. Morton (James Urbaniak from OPPENHEIMER) smiles with the kind of warmth that curdles a few seconds too late, and his monster friends feel less like puppets than something that used to be. The more he watches, the more we appreciate our rental agreements. (AHBRA PERRY)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee57f.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069012135temp-1787069012126-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee57f", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee581", "slug": "posthumous", "title": "POSTHUMOUS", "director": "Josh Tanner", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Australia" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 110, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Don't Watch That Tape", "Horror" ], "synopsis": "Zoe's drinking has become a problem, so she's abandoned her car, her boyfriend, and her university studies to temporarily move back in with her surly, single father—a man who's content to share meals and pay off her drunk driving fines, but seems to have little interest in emotionally connecting with his daughter. Zoe's mother died from a terminal illness after rejecting life-saving treatment that could have compromised her pregnancy, but before she departed, she had the foresight to leave behind a series of VHS recordings—concise messages of motherly wisdom meant to be viewed annually on Zoe's birthdays up to her 21st.\n\nResigned to the couch while her father's at work, Zoe spends her 30th birthday alone, rewatching the old VHS tape, charting her mother's decline from grainy message to grainy message, aware that her relationship with her mother has always been a one-way conversation through physical media that degrades a little bit every time she pops the tape into the family VCR. When a new lead points Zoe to the reclusive widow next door, and her father gets evasive about their shared past, Zoe breaks in and uncovers a failed occult therapy to channel her mother's pain through portals opened by arcane sacred geometry... and possibly, a way to finally converse with her mother through those same cracks.\n\nDirector Josh Tanner's debut feature is a chilling ghost story, with some genuinely creepy chills, twists, and jumps, but what stuck with me after the credits rolled was how thoughtfully Tanner uses Zoe's mother's analog VHS recordings to stand in for memory itself—subjectively captured and slowly wearing down each time it's revisited. (CHRIS LARSEN)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee581.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787079658694temp-1787079658495-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee581", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee583", "slug": "a-prayer-for-the-dying", "title": "A PRAYER FOR THE DYING", "director": "Dara Van Dusen", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Norway", "Greece", "UK", "Sweden" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 95, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Gory", "Western" ], "synopsis": "Jacob, a Danish immigrant still haunted by his experiences in the Civil War, has built a new life in the town of Friendship. Serving as both priest and sheriff, he is called to retrieve a body found just beyond the town limits and escorts a disoriented woman, discovered wandering in a nearby field, back to the local doctor. After examining the corpse, the doctor warns Jacob that the man may have been carrying diphtheria. The woman may also be infected. When her husband arrives to take her home, the doctor attempts to warn him about the risk of contagion, but the man refuses to listen.\n\nFearing an outbreak, the doctor urges Jacob to keep the diagnosis secret to prevent the townsfolk from panicking and trying to leave town. After Jacob suffers a personal loss, the doctor orders a quarantine just as a devastating bushfire changes course toward the town. Determined to protect the people in his care, Jacob is pushed to his breaking point. Trapped between a deadly epidemic and the approaching inferno, and having lost nearly everything he holds dear, Jacob struggles to preserve both the town and his own sanity.\n\nBased on Stewart O’Nan’s novel of the same name, Dara Van Dusen’s debut feature is nothing short of a gem—one that deserves to be experienced on the big screen. The film's assured direction, outstanding performances, and breathtaking cinematography immerse viewers in an apocalyptic story where the true threat isn't zombies or monsters, but the devastating consequences of human fear, ignorance, and poor decisions. It is a vision of hell on earth, set in a time when a single mistake could prove fatal and there was no turning back. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee583.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069013571temp-1787069013560-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee583", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee585", "slug": "red-snow", "title": "RED SNOW", "director": "Ilja Rautsi", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Finland", "Estonia", "Sweden" ], "language": "Finnish", "runtime": 92, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Horror Competition" ], "tags": [ "Christmas Is Coming", "Comedy", "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Gross Out", "Horror", "Vampire" ], "synopsis": "Johanna is a rebellious teenager whose parents are divorced. Her mother doesn't really want to spend time with her, her father is too preoccupied with his upcoming wedding to his new girlfriend, and her little brother is a brat. Johanna's only wish is to become a vampire, like Edward in TWILIGHT, to escape her miserable life.\n\nOn Christmas night, the whole family drives to her grandmother's house for the holiday—an eccentric woman who lives in a huge mansion. When Santa shows up at the door and asks for permission to enter, all hell breaks loose: he's actually a vampire on a rampage. To Johanna's delight, her wish might finally come true.\n\nBut every vampire has an enemy, and when a hunter arrives at the house with his psychopathic apprentice, he unleashes havoc, turning the entire night into a nightmare. Suddenly, becoming a vampire doesn't seem as appealing as Johanna once thought.\n\nRED SNOW is Ilja Rautsi's first feature. Mostly known for his work as a screenwriter on HATCHING and NIGHTBORN, he made a name for himself directing two outrageous short films that traveled festivals worldwide: HELSINKI MANSPLAINING MASSACRE and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DICKS. If you don't know the man, his ice-cold Finnish humor and demeanor may put you off, but under that cold Nordic exterior is a huge genre fan and talented director who twists genre conventions to deliver outrageously dark comedic stories that will make you giggle in your seat. And in these somber times we live in, we certainly need outrageous dark comedy. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee585.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787079705868temp-1787079705773-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee585", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee588", "slug": "resident-evil", "title": "RESIDENT EVIL", "director": "Zach Cregger", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 93, "year": "2026", "premiere": "Gala Screening", "section": "Gala", "programs": [], "tags": [ "Horror", "Opening Night" ], "synopsis": "From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (WEAPONS, BARBARIAN) comes a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the RESIDENT EVIL franchise. In an all-new story, RESIDENT EVIL follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.\n\nFrom TriStar Pictures, Constantin Film, and Davis Films, RESIDENT EVIL hits theatres September 18, 2026. (TRISTAR PICTURES)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee588.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069014847temp-1787069014836-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee588", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee58a", "slug": "river", "title": "RIVER", "director": "Joshua Giuliano", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 92, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Horror", "Iconic Killer", "Psychopaths", "Strong Women", "Survival" ], "synopsis": "After the death of their father, Carla, Drew, and Lucy reunite to scatter his ashes on the river he loved so much. Their relationship is clearly strained, and tension mounts when Carla speeds the boat up and strikes something just beneath the surface, causing a fuel leak. Old wounds are torn open and the blame game ensues, making it painfully clear their father was far from perfect.\n\nStranded on the river and with no obvious way back, Carla takes matters into her own hands, swimming toward shore with a plan to walk back to the car. But as she nears the bank, she spots a bloodied, masked man watching her from the tree line. She swims back to the boat in a panic... and the man follows. Setting aside their grievances becomes the siblings' only hope of survival, as a lunatic with no intention of letting them leave begins to play a merciless game of cat and mouse.\n\nYou have to hand it to Joshua Giuliano for a remarkable opening scene, one that toys with the audience's imagination from the very first frame. Setting the tone within the first five minutes is merely the starting point of a descent into hell for these three characters. By placing them on a boat—isolated and vulnerable—Giuliano forges a new kind of hunting ground for a psychopathic killer, ensuring the audience is given no moment of relief. And this is only the beginning.\n\nSuperbly shot and anchored by stellar performances across the board, RIVER is a film that will stay with you long after the credits roll. For a debut feature, Giuliano delivers one of the most terrifying films of the year—and whatever he does next, he has set a formidably high bar for himself. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee58a.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787079905075temp-1787079904912-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee58a", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee58c", "slug": "roma-elastica", "title": "ROMA ELASTICA", "director": "Bertrand Mandico", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France", "Italy" ], "language": "French, English, Italian", "runtime": 107, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Pyschedelic", "Queer" ], "synopsis": "No one does it like our boy Mandico. His post-apocalyptic fever dream AFTER HOURS stole hearts in 2022; his queer fantasy epic SHE IS CONANN tore ‘em apart in 2023; his daring split-screen dance picture DRAGON DILATATION caused many an aggressive chin stroke. With ROMA ELASTICA, he sets his gaze toward the lineage of Italian cinema with this retro-kitsch blast… in English, no less!\n\nMarion Cotillard, herself no stranger to Fantastic Fest after last year’s THE ICE TOWER and 2015’s APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD, is Eddie: a capital-M Movie Star who may be at the end of her illustrious career. Maybe it’s the burn from international success; maybe it’s the cancer metastasizing inside of her—who’s to say? Wooed to Rome for a brazen French/Italian co-production, Eddie and her gal Friday (a very game Noémie Merlant) dive headfirst into the future, as only a high-powered 1980s mega-production could deliver.\n\nWith a body of work about shifting and parallel fantasies, it’s no surprise that Mandico would eventually set his sights on cinema itself. And with Cotillard’s ferocious performance, he has the perfect vessel for exploring this dream space with equally gorgeous and complex interiority. An instant entry into the Movie-About-Movies Hall of Fame, ROMA ELASTICA is a pure pleasure object, hitting at the surface and burrowing far underneath. #MANDICO4EVA (JAKE ISGAR)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee58c.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787079952733temp-1787079952619-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee58c", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee58e", "slug": "roy-from-space", "title": "ROY FROM SPACE", "director": "Héctor López Carmona", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Mexico" ], "language": "Spanish", "runtime": 64, "year": "1983", "premiere": "World Premiere of the Restoration", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Animated", "Camp", "Psychedelic", "Restoration", "Sci-Fi", "Take Your Vitamins" ], "synopsis": "Roy is an astronaut on a mission to Mars. He quickly uncovers a scheme to invade Earth from an evil space empire and, with his girlfriend and his spaceship’s doctor, he must put a stop to the villainous plot before time runs out.\n\nROY FROM SPACE was released in 1983 to a somewhat confused reaction. Directed by Héctor López Carmona with a very small budget and a small team of animators, many of whom had never professionally animated previously, there definitely are some rough edges. The film was heavily criticized for its jerky animations and a plot that seemed to float from event to event with little connective tissue. Roy and his fellow spacefarers populate a colorful, hyperpop world that operates on the logic of a B-movie 1960s space opera. While perhaps not hard sci-fi, there is a certain science-fiction/fantasy enthusiasm that infects every frame. ROY FROM SPACE plays like a three-episode arc of a Saturday morning Space Race cartoon, at least in this programmer’s opinion.\n\nOriginally the film contained a section lifted from a Japanese sci-fi film that someone… forgot… to get the rights to, and the animators had also traced over sections of the original 1936 FLASH GORDON serial. For 43 years, the film was abandoned to the halls of cinema obscurity. No longer. Featuring a newly animated section to replace the Japanese footage, and with a blessing from the daughter of the film’s original producer, Deaf Crocodile has restored this gem of Mexican cinema to be enjoyed in all its glorious retro-futurist wonder. ROY FROM SPACE is perfect for you if you love ‘60s STAR TREK or Spaceman Spiff. (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee58e.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069017682temp-1787069017678-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee58e", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee591", "slug": "screamplay", "title": "SCREAMPLAY", "director": "Rufus Butler Seder", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 93, "year": "1984", "premiere": "World Premiere of the 4K Restoration", "section": null, "programs": [ "Rep Screening" ], "tags": [ "Beautiful Men", "Camp", "Cult Classic", "Iconic Killer", "Restoration", "Take Your Vitamins", "Unsafe Sex" ], "synopsis": "Edgar Allan (Rufus Butler Seder) is an aspiring screenwriter who has just come to Hollywood to make it in the movies... only to wind up working as the janitor at a fleabag apartment complex run by the greasy ex-boxer Martin (George Kuchar) instead.\n\nWhen Edgar begins channeling his frustrations with his kooky neighbors into fodder for his latest screenplay, the vivid murder scenes he writes begin to happen for real. As the bodies pile up and the line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly blurred, Edgar, convinced that the only way to be a real writer is to suffer, is slowly driven mad.\n\nInventively produced using a host of early cinematic techniques and featuring a memorable performance by underground film legend George Kuchar, Rufus Butler Seder's SCREAMPLAY is a singularly charming tribute to Old Hollywood and a marvel of low-budget but high-concept filmmaking.\n\nNew 4K restoration by Muscle Distribution in association with Matchbox Cine. (ELIZABETH PURCHELL)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee591.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069018280temp-1787069018270-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee591", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee594", "slug": "sick", "title": "SICK", "director": "Agata Trzebuchowska", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Poland" ], "language": "Polish", "runtime": 90, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "Arthouse Gone Wild", "Respect Your Elders" ], "synopsis": "A teenage boy is exiled to the countryside, tasked with caring for his ailing grandmother. Alone, he spends his days aimlessly scrolling Instagram, trying to get up the courage to text a girl he has a crush on. When his older sister shows up to help him, it’s a relief, as he now has company, as well as someone to help care for grandma. Relief quickly turns to annoyance as his sister begins teasing him, pushing his boundaries, and refusing to assist with their grandma’s care. What begins as a typical sibling dynamic slowly spirals into something much more complex, mirroring the transformation of their grandmother, who goes from lying comatose in bed to acting in extremely unusual and alarming ways.\n\nYou may recognize Agata Trzebuchowska from her acting career (including the Academy Award-winning IDA), but her first feature puts her on the map as an exciting new director to watch. Fully in command of her craft, Trzebuchowska has created a fearless film, with impeccable sound design, beautiful cinematography, and impressive performances from the entire cast.\n\nThe story unfolds subtly, slowly escalating, rewarding (or perhaps punishing) the viewer with my personal favorite ending of the fest. As the title implies, SICK is thrillingly perverse, which is the highest compliment at Fantastic Fest! (LISA DREYER)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee594.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787080080866temp-1787080080844-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee594", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee596", "slug": "the-spiral", "title": "THE SPIRAL", "director": "Paolo Strippoli", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Italy", "France", "Belgium" ], "language": "Italian", "runtime": 115, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror", "Witchy" ], "synopsis": "Meet Alice. Her estranged mother, Anna, has just arrived at her Rome apartment in the middle of a storm with a preposterous confession: twenty years ago, she made a bargain that cursed their entire family. Talk about dramatic.\n\nBack then, during a lavish party at the family estate, the family dog viciously attacked young Alice, crushing the dreams Anna had already built for her daughter. You see, she’d just booked her first commercial (for a pasta company). And in Anna’s mind, that future could not possibly survive the loss of a leg. So when a mysterious Stranger appears in the hospital chapel and offers Anna a one-of-a-kind bargain, however morally obscene, Anna refuses—until she doesn’t.\n\nOver the next two decades, every attempt she makes to repair the damage only creates new debts, new sacrifices, and consequences for the whole family—and beyond. The monster she fed once keeps demanding payment. Now, Anna believes Alice might hold the key to ending this cruel spiral. This is horror built from guilt: however much Anna loves her daughter, that love is contaminated by ambition, vanity, and the future she projected onto her.\n\nFantastic Fest alum Paolo Strippoli returns with a lush, unnerving film. As in his previous work, he remains fascinated by the hidden costs of miracles and the moral cost of asking others to carry our pain. He also has a particular gift for turning seemingly ordered lives inside out, revealing the guilt and darker desires concealed beneath them. Jasmine Trinca and Romana Maggiora Vergano immerse us in this terrible night, while Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s Stranger—charming, frightening, and utterly implacable—gives the film its most unsettling presence. Now do me a favor: however tempting, try to resist making bargains in churches. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee596.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069019518temp-1787069019507-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee596", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee598", "slug": "the-squirrel", "title": "THE SQUIRREL", "director": "Markus Lehmusruusu", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Finland", "Germany", "The Netherlands", "Sweden" ], "language": "Finnish", "runtime": 92, "year": "2026", "premiere": "International Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Cute Animals", "Sci-Fi" ], "synopsis": "In a futuristic, aseptic Finland where all forms of interaction and emotion are forbidden, Pasi, an engineer at Syn Bio working on a robotic dog, stumbles upon a strange creature at his way home. His personal AI assistant immediately alerts the sanitary department, and an agent is dispatched to investigate, only to find nothing. Later that night, Pasi returns to the spot and discovers a small injured squirrel. That might not seem unusual—if animals hadn't completely vanished from their world.\n\nCurious, Pasi brings the squirrel to work to have it scanned before taking it home, initially treating it like a biohazard. But contact with the tiny furry creature awakens something he has never experienced before: emotions. As his bond with the squirrel deepens, Pasi's entire world is turned upside down.\n\nTHE SQUIRREL is Markus Lehmusruusu's second feature, and it's impossible not to be charmed by it. Pasi begins the story as a bored robotics engineer developing a mechanical substitute for a beloved pet—one designed to provide companionship without provoking any emotional attachment. Yet the more time he spends with the squirrel, the more curious he becomes and the more attached he grows. But squirrels have needs too, and Pasi eventually realizes that returning his tiny friend to where it belongs is the right thing to do—even if it means challenging everything he has been taught since birth.\n\nThe film's production design is fantastic. Its chilly aesthetic and deadpan humor inevitably evoke Aki Kaurismäki, yet beneath the cold exterior lies a surprisingly warm story about resisting conformity and stepping beyond one's comfort zone. More than anything, THE SQUIRREL reminds us that life is richer when shared with animals. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee598.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069020126temp-1787069020116-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee598", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee59c", "slug": "the-swallow", "title": "THE SWALLOW", "director": "Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 82, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": "Closing Film", "programs": [], "tags": [ "Beautiful Men", "Body Count", "Closing Night", "Eco-horror", "Evil Entity", "Great Kills", "Horror", "Mean", "Survival" ], "synopsis": "Five teenagers enter a chained-off section of a forest for a lazy weekend swimming in a river. There are some strange warnings around and a pile of muddy gear left behind by previous campers, but that probably means nothing, right? They don’t have cell service, but who cares? These teens are reconnecting with nature. Even setting up shelter seems unnecessary when you have all weekend. Unless this is your first horror movie ever, you can see where this is going. Shortly after arriving, the group comes across a strange toxic sludge that acts like quicksand with some extra, surprise quirks. That’s when they start dying.\n\nAre you afraid of the woods? Have you ever been dragged on a trip with your sister’s annoying, colossally stupid friends? Do you like watching young, beautiful people dying while covered in mud? THE SWALLOW is perfect for you. Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s genre construction feels like an intentional throwback to B-movies of the ‘80s with some modern anxieties. What does it mean to willingly abandon the comfort of the constant surveillance of a consistent WiFi connection? And can we ever know what forces are controlling our lives? THE SWALLOW doesn’t set out to answer these questions, even when it asks them, but it does kill some young people for your sadistic pleasure. Enjoy! (AUSTIN KING)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee59c.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069020851temp-1787069020817-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee59c", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a0", "slug": "too-many-beasts", "title": "TOO MANY BEASTS", "director": "Sarah Arnold", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 96, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [], "synopsis": "After being transferred to a small town in the French countryside for assaulting a superior officer, disgraced cop Orsini has all but given up on his career, going through the motions with little interest in the job. That changes when he and his new partner are called to investigate a series of acts of property damage across several estates. After hearing that the incidents may have been orchestrated by a local farmer long believed to be dead, Orsini begins digging deeper. As he gradually pieces the puzzle together, Orsini also begins opening up to the station psychiatrist, Stéphane Denjir, who proves to be just as troubled and disillusioned as he is.\n\nThe deeper Orsini digs, the more he uncovers a web of corruption tied to the region's exploding wild boar population and its prestigious hunting season. As devastated crops fuel growing resentment among local farmers, long-simmering tensions threaten to erupt. With nothing left to lose and fed up with the corruption surrounding him, Orsini risks everything to expose the truth, aided by the equally determined Denjir.\n\nInspired by an article in a French newspaper about farmers’ anger over supplemental wildlife feeding and the wild boar population explosion, Italian-Swiss filmmaker Sarah Arnold’s debut feature deftly blends offbeat black comedy with crime drama, while remaining firmly rooted in the very real conflict between social classes. Alexis Manenti and Ella Rumpf (whom our audience will recognize from RAW and TIGER GIRL) make for a perfectly mismatched duo whose chemistry reaches its peak in an outrageously funny final act. TOO MANY BEASTS, which premiered at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes earlier this year, showcases the undeniable talent of a filmmaker with a masterful command of a cinematic language that seamlessly blends social satire with gleefully trashy humor. (ANNICK MAHNERT)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a0.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069021567temp-1787069021557-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a0", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a2", "slug": "upiro", "title": "UPIRO", "director": "Óscar Martín", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Spain" ], "language": "Spanish", "runtime": 106, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Main Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Gothic", "Horror", "Kinky", "Unsafe Sex", "Vampire" ], "synopsis": "Spain, 1755. As the Age of Enlightenment promises to replace superstition with reason, Ana, a young woman sent to a remote monastery to atone for her sins, finds herself trapped within a cloistered world ruled by unwavering faith and absolute obedience. Behind the convent's austere walls, several sisters are afflicted by a mysterious blood disease, while an atmosphere of mounting dread unsettles the isolated religious community. When an unconventional priest begins investigating the unexplained illness, scientific certainty and religious doctrine collide with an ancient evil: an upyr, the Slavic precursor to the vampire.\n\nFollowing the acclaimed AMIGO (world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2019), director Óscar Martín draws inspiration from the first documented case of vampirism officially recognized by the Catholic Church in Spain, transforming a little-known historical episode into an unsettling exercise in gothic horror. Rather than embracing the familiar iconography of modern vampire cinema, UPIRO returns to the myth's obscure origins, where folklore, history, and collective fear intertwine. Blending the atmosphere of religious horror with the intrigue of a historical mystery, Martín crafts a slow-burning narrative, where silence, ritual, and the oppressive beauty of the rural landscape become as unsettling as the supernatural itself.\n\nWith stark, somber visuals, tension accumulates with hypnotic precision, revealing a world in which every act of devotion conceals the possibility of corruption, and every attempt to explain the unknown only deepens the mystery. UPIRO explores the enduring power of fear, fanaticism, and inherited trauma, breathing unsettling new life into one of horror's oldest myths while asking whether the darkest monsters are supernatural or born from the stories societies choose to believe in. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a2.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069022156temp-1787069022146-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a2", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a7", "slug": "vertiginous", "title": "VERTIGINOUS", "director": "Quentin Dupieux", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "France" ], "language": "French", "runtime": 67, "year": "2026", "premiere": "US Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Absurd", "Animated", "Arthouse Gone Wild", "Comedy", "Sci-Fi", "Take Your Vitamins", "The Future is Bleak" ], "synopsis": "Ever wondered whether we all live in a simulation? The idea has fascinated many for decades, even before films such as THE MATRIX or philosopher Nick Bostrom propelled it into the mainstream. In VERTIGINOUS, Quentin Dupieux offers his own delightfully off-kilter take on the concept, brought to life through the voice of French actor Alain Chabat, whose character Jacky is desperate to prove to his friend Bruno (Jonathan Cohen) that they are living in a simulation. As anyone familiar with Dupieux's work might expect, this is neither a grand science-fiction dystopia nor a sleek technological utopia. Instead, it is a razor-sharp satire that turns the simulation hypothesis into an absurdly funny mirror of contemporary life.\n\nRendered with graphics that nostalgically evoke the aesthetics of early-2000s PlayStation 2 video games, VERTIGINOUS embraces its digital awkwardness and artificiality rather than disguising it. The deliberately dated visual style becomes more than a gimmick; it reinforces the film's playful questioning of reality while amplifying its surreal humor and blatantly going against the AI-animation boom. As glitches, repetitions, and bizarre encounters accumulate, the familiar world of these two characters begins to feel increasingly unstable, exposing the strange routines, conventions, and contradictions that govern everyday existence.\n\nWith his trademark deadpan wit and taste for the absurd, Dupieux transforms a metaphysical thought experiment into an irresistibly entertaining comedy. Beneath its deceptively simple premise lies a sly commentary on our relationship with technology and identity, allowing the filmmaker to explore deeper philosophical questions while keeping things light. Equal parts philosophical prank and comic provocation, VERTIGINOUS is quintessential Dupieux and invites audiences to laugh at the possibility that reality itself may be nothing more than a poorly rendered game, and that our greatest challenge is learning to play along. Whether or not we live in a simulation is ultimately beside the point. The real mystery is why everything feels so weird and why we can't stop laughing about it. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a7.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069023552temp-1787069023542-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a7", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a9", "slug": "victorian-psycho", "title": "VICTORIAN PSYCHO", "director": "Zachary Wigon", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 102, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Great Kills", "Horror", "Psychopaths" ], "synopsis": "Set in Victorian England, VICTORIAN PSYCHO sees an eccentric governess arrive at a remote gothic manor, where strange happenings stir suspicion that she’s not what she seems. (BLEECKER STREET)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a9.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069024144temp-1787069024135-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a9", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5ab", "slug": "welcome-to-dolly-s-house", "title": "WELCOME TO DOLLY’S HOUSE", "director": "Seven Ych, Rady Fu, & Tree Muta", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "R.O.C. (Taiwan)" ], "language": "Chinese", "runtime": 86, "year": "2026", "premiere": "North American Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Animation", "Ghosts", "Horror", "Witchy" ], "synopsis": "The film starts with a marriage proposal in the Paris catacombs. Talk about my dream life. Princess Maria is a rising YouTuber, a ghost-debunking influencer whose life itself is already a performance. She has a vlog with her partner, A-Yue (aka Flawless Florist – yes, yes, you can see where it’s going) entitled Weird Channel. Princess Maria has an endearing personality, but she also is eager to please, and plays a submissive role in their relationship that clashes with her partner’s more stoic, coldly controlling nature.\n\nAfter the catacombs debacle, with the channel losing momentum, Princess Maria receives a video of a disappearing girl. In the background, she notices Madam Dolly, a very famous dollmaker who creates custom, one-of-a-kind dolls. Maria has always owned one of those extremely rare dolls, called Yaya. And in a twist of fate, Madam Dolly is back in Taiwan for the first time in decades to throw a party. Maria has to be there. She and A-Yue engineer access to Dolly’s house because each sees an opportunity in this mythical place very few have entered. Once inside the mansion, however, Maria’s sense of self begins to unravel – helped along by a French-speaking child, much to this French programmer’s delight. Surreal nightmares. Identity crisis. The deeper Maria goes, the more the house forces her to reconsider every relationship she has ever had, and who or what has decided what she could and should become.\n\nTaiwan’s first major rotoscoped 2D animated feature is a true visual proposition. The slightly uncanny movements serve the story and themes to a T, carrying the film through a slow descent from mystery into gothic horror. Drawing on an “awakening doll” story from the Taiping Guangji tradition, Seven Ych, Rady Fu, & Tree Muta have created a singular, ambitious, visually rich object, with genuinely unsettling ideas about performance, ownership and the need to belong. When you’ve spent your life performing for others, how do you know who you are? (SONIA DROULHIOLE)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5ab.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069024782temp-1787069024772-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5ab", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5af", "slug": "what-happened-to-doris", "title": "WHAT HAPPENED TO DORIS?", "director": "Nick Simon", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "USA" ], "language": "English", "runtime": 92, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Ghosts", "Horror", "Strong Women" ], "synopsis": "In 1970s Los Angeles, a single mom is tormented by a demonic presence in her home. Typical poltergeist behavior quickly escalates to physical assaults, terrifying her children and leaving her bruised and emotionally distraught. Unable to ignore it any longer, she teams up with paranormal investigators to help her uncover exactly what she is living with, to save her family.\n\nWHAT HAPPENED TO DORIS? is based on the documented paranormal case of Doris Bither. UCLA parapsychologist Barry Taff and a team of researchers conducted a 10-week investigation of her home, documenting moving objects, strange lights and sounds, and other activities they eventually attributed to a poltergeist. This film does the famous case justice, filled with enough creepy dread and terrifying jump scares to make you feel like you’re the one being haunted. Starring Heather Graham in the titular role, WHAT HAPPENED TO DORIS? will make you believe in ghosts... and maybe a little scared to turn your lights off tonight. (LISA DREYER)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5af.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069025424temp-1787069025420-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5af", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5b1", "slug": "wild-horse-nine", "title": "WILD HORSE NINE", "director": "Martin McDonagh", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "UK", "USA", "Chile" ], "language": "English, Spanish", "runtime": 118, "year": "2026", "premiere": "Texas Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Dark Comedy" ], "synopsis": "Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) are dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island by their bureau chief, MJ (Steve Buscemi). Amongst the Island's iconic statues, and as the longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies, Chris's newfound bond with a pair of rebellious students (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) threatens to send everyone’s trip to this remote paradise sideways. (SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5b1.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069026032temp-1787069026023-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5b1", "screenings": [] }, { "id": "6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a5", "slug": "rei", "title": "ÜREI", "director": "Yerkezhan Baizhan", "directorShort": null, "countries": [ "Kazakhstan" ], "language": "Kazakh", "runtime": 80, "year": "2026", "premiere": "World Premiere", "section": null, "programs": [ "Next Wave Competition" ], "tags": [ "Alumnus", "Horror", "Respect Your Elders" ], "synopsis": "When an elderly grandmother is left alone with her young granddaughter, a routine visit gradually gives way to an experience where vulnerability, memory, imagination, and reality begin to blur. Yerkezhan Baizhan, returning with a feature length version of the short that world premiered at FF in 2024, crafts a compact work of horror that is as emotionally resonant as it is unnerving. Avoiding conventional shocks in favor of mounting psychological tension, ÜREI builds its atmosphere through sound and the fragile rhythms of domestic life. The familiar interior of a rural Kazakh home becomes a space where generational bonds coexist with ancient fears, transforming an ordinary act of familial care into an unsettling descent into the unknown.\n\nBlurring the boundaries between psychological distress and folklore, Baizhan uses the language of supernatural horror to evoke the emotional realities of grief, loneliness, and the quiet terror of growing old. Through haunting, dark fairy-tale imagery, the film explores the grandmother's increasing isolation and voicelessness alongside the granddaughter's struggle to navigate a world that has suddenly become unfamiliar and threatening. As inherited fears pass between generations, the child is forced to confront mysteries she cannot yet understand, and learn that loss can take monstrous forms.\n\nRooted in the textures of rural Kazakh life yet strikingly universal in its exploration of childhood fear, aging, and mortality, ÜREI suggests that the most terrifying stories are those whispered within families and carried across generations. With remarkable confidence and restraint, Baizhan emerges as a distinctive new voice in contemporary genre cinema, finding profound emotional weight and unexpected tenderness within terror and unease. (SARA LOPO)", "posterFile": "posters/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a5.jpg", "poster": "https://static-a.eventive.org/1787069022833temp-1787069022822-poster.jpg", "url": "https://fantasticfest2026.eventive.org/films/6a84822c93e9428e10cee5a5", "screenings": [] } ] }