Author: Anna Hanks

Time loop movies are a fickle product. The formula is simple: take one moment, repeat that moment, make that moment into a story that means something. That’s far easier said than done. This Spanish language movie from director Javier Ruiz Caldera manages to achieve that difficult task. Enter Antonio (Berto Romero) and Barbara (Belén Cuesta) off […]

The best genre films are often the ones that you just don’t see coming. The ones where it seems you are on the highway traveling at a high rate of speed in one direction, and then suddenly you are on an exit you never saw coming, headed somewhere totally different. That’s exactly what happens in […]

While Paul & I are finishing off this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and couldn’t be having a better time, our hero Anna Hanks is in Austin covering the 2026 edition of this year’s Fantastic Fest, taking place entirely While I (Jason) be there as TIFF is running at the same time, I have covered […]

It’s easy to forget how revolutionary the American television show “Saturday Night Live” was when it came on the air in 1975. A live sketch show, made by a flock of twenty –somethings who had never made anything before was a highly risky proposition. It was a huge gamble for flagship network NBC, back when […]

DON’T MESS WITH GRANDMA is a vivid and fluid black comedy written and directed by Jason Krawczyk. JT (Michael Jai White) works delivering meals to seniors, which is sometimes easier said than done. But a bunch of his time is taken up with elder care: being a dutiful grandson taking care of his Granna (Jackie […]

Editor’s Note: It was a busy opening night at Fantastic Fest with many filmmakers, actors and movie buffs all in attendance for the start of eight days of genre mayhem. My gifted writer Anna Hanks was at the premiere of NEVER LET GO, which was also simulatenously released in theatres everywhere at the same time. […]

Spooky season is nearly here. Halloween decorations are starting to slither up on stores and houses while skeletons of all sizes and sorts are for sale. That means it’s time for Fantastic Fest, the perfect kickoff to the creepiest time of the year! Fantastic Fest is one of the largest genre festivals in the USA, […]

Kim Jee-woon is the mastermind behind this dark, dark comedy about the making of a film in 1970s South Korea. “Described as an experimental and genre-defying drama shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative,” on IMDB, that only begins to explain the contours of  this fabulous period piece.  Here, Director Kim […]

What do a big bad chemical company, an old school mop and sense of vengeance give us when they are combined? THE TOXIC AVENGER! The brisk and sprightly new film had its World Premiere as the Opening Night Film at Fantastic Fest 2023 in Austin, Texas.   When making a movie based on an earlier property, […]

SAW X, the newest instalment of the 20 year-old Saw franchise had its World Premiere as the fourth and final Secret Screening at the 2023 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. (Though to be fair, it was a general but unsubstantiated rumor at the festival that Saw X was to be the final secret screening.) Despite […]

It’s a familiar tale: a poor student goes to an elite institution filled with the offspring of very wealthy families and desperately wants to be on the other side of the class divide. On first glance, SALTBURN is one of these stories. But the deeper you get into the exclusive and disturbing world, things are […]