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, taking place at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas from September 19-26.
This year’s circus-themed festival might be scarier than ever, especially if you suffer from coulrophobia–the fear of clowns. Even the festival’s mascot Chingu –a cute knife wielding creature–has gotten a polka-dot clown makeover for this year.
This year’s festival includes clown-oriented films like TERRIFIER 3, featuring the return of the grease-painted murderous maniac Art the clown.
Fantastic Fest is showing a vivid collection of circus and carnival themed repertory screenings to tie in with this year’s theme.
These include a new restoration of the 1964 monster musical, THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES!!?
There will be a special presentation of the 1970 film the CARNIVAL OF BLOOD, which was shot guerilla-style at NYC’s Coney Island. This screening is a rare spooky season treat! According to the festival’s website “AGFA [American Genre Film Archive] is thrilled to present a preservation of CARNIVAL OF BLOOD from the only known 35mm elements in existence.”
A kinder-gentler circus-themed film at the festival this year is the World Premiere 4K Restoration restoration of BIG TOP PEE WEE (1988) which features Pee Wee’s world being shaken by the unexpected arrival of the Cabrini Circus, a close-knit troupe of circus performers.
The festival also includes AV GEEKS PRESENTS NIGHTMARES OF A CLOWN: a showing of 16mm films. The festival program explains.
“Yes, clowns can be scary, but imagine the nightmares a clown might have! Dare to dive into a world of twisted circus dreams with our special live screening of 16mm school and church films featuring clowns and their deepest fears. This is your ultimate chance to confront your childhood clown phobia (coulrophobia) and maybe even swap it for some new spine-chilling thrills!”
The clowns at Fantastic Fest don’t stop at the films, they creep over into the festival’s live entertainment. There’s a drag event where Austin drag artist Louisiana Purchase presents CLOWN TOWN, a carnival drag show. The festival’s opening night party even features the dark side of the most famous clown to ever hustle a french fry–yes, there will be a version of Ronald McDonald from the Upside Down via the bowels of outer space in the only McDonald’s themed Black Sabbath cover band – Mac Sabbath.
Clowns aren’t the only terrifying thing at Fantastic Fest this year. The festival also features plenty of movies with the usual-Fantastic Fest attractions: martial arts, depressed Irishmen, black humour, haunted flats, post death goals, slasher flicks, Ukrainian space truckers, grannies in danger from thugs in pig masks, shipwrecked robots, Latvian folklore and the traditional gobs of delicious blood-spattered mayhem.
Fantastic Fest might not be for everyone, but for those who enjoy genre film…it’s fantastic!
This year’s festival is the first since Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired both the Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters and Fantastic Fest. — Anna Hanks
Editor’s Note: Anna will be covering Fantastic Fest in person, while I (Jason) will be covering remotely from my home in Victoria, BC via a few screeners and watching social media reactions. Since I just returned from Toronto and the Toronto International Film Festival, I’m hard at work on recovering from sleep and writing up more reviews out of TIFF. Having been to Austin and Fantastic Fest many times over the years, I have always loved the programming and that the entire festival takes place at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar location making it really easy to arrive early in the day, watch movies for many hours and interact with fellow badgeholders inbetween screenings. If you are attending, please have the greatest time ever and do make some new friends at the theatre, which is one of my favourite places in the world (where I will happily return for South By Southewest 2025) — JW
Fantastic Fest takes place from September 19th to 26th at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas. For more information on films playing at the festival, point your browser to www.fantasticfest.com!