The most fantastic time of year is here again. io9 is about to head down to Austin, Texas, for a week of fun, fucked-up films at Fantastic Fest, one of the coolest, most unique genre film festivals in the entire world. It’s a festival that focuses on only showing the weirdest, most out-there, totally badass films, and we’re excited to jump right in as always.
What makes attending Fantastic Fest difficult, though, is that every single movie sounds awesome. It was curated that way. So how do you choose what to see? Well, this year, as always, a few movies have names you’ve heard of—stuff like the horror sequel Black Phone 2 or the streaming anthology V/H/S/Halloween. But beyond that, you just have to go with your gut.
I’ve been attending Fantastic Fest for about 15 years and, over that time, I’ve come up with my own unique system to pick out which films I want to see most. First, I go through the entire list of feature films and read about every single one. I then rank them based on a) what I think the readers of io9 will be interested in, and b) what I want to watch. Then, I start at the top of the nearly 100-film list and attempt to work my way down it.
What follows are the 15 films currently at the top of that list, which also happen to be a great example of just how weird and wonderful Fantastic Fest can be. The festival runs from September 18 to 25 in Austin, Texas. Click here for more. And stay tuned to io9 for our coverage from the festival.
Bulk
Director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Meg 2) is back with a bonkers-sounding movie about a man who is sent to find someone in a house but realizes that every door in the house opens to a new dimension. As a huge fan of alternate realities, multiple timelines, and all that kind of Primer/Back to the Future Part II stuff, this sounds like that fused with House of Leaves. Sign me up.
Vicious
Dakota Fanning stars in this film that is actually being released by Paramount, but I wasn’t quite aware of it yet. Fanning plays a girl who is presented with a box. Inside the box, she is to put three things: something she needs, something she hates, and something she loves. And, apparently, all hell breaks loose.
Bad Haircut
Getting a haircut can be one of the most relaxing, invigorating things ever. That is, unless it’s a bad one. And in Bad Haircut, not only does someone get a bad haircut, they get it from a barber they slowly realize is completely psychotic and maybe supernatural, and, well, we are in.
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