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Fantastic Fest 2016: First Official Films Announced for Film Festival

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Fantastic Fest 2016 First Films Announced

The first slate of films being screened at the 2016 Fantastic Fest have been released. The 12th annual Fantastic Fest “focuses on genre films such as horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, Asian, and cult. The festival takes place in September at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, filling eight screens for eight days and hosting many writers, directors and actors, either well-established or unknown. A notable feature of this festival is the inclusion of “secret screenings”…For these screenings, the audience often does not know what the film will be until seated, moments before it begins.”

Tim Burton‘s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children fits Fantastic Fest to a tee. Fantastic Fest seems like the perfect venue to introduce that film to the public (though its listed as a special screening, not as a world premiere). Though Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children looks like a great film, one of the highlights of this year’s festival is the Phantasm: Remastered presentation. The 4K restoration should be a horror fan’s delight with the film being shown in its cleanest and most detailed version to date. The world premiere of sixth Phantasm film entitled Phantasm: Ravager will have its World Premiere at the 2016 Fantastic Fest.

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American Honey looks good but The Greasy Strangler looks like pure, gross fun.

The official press release for the 2016 Fantastic Fest’s first wave of films:

24X36: A MOVIE ABOUT MOVIE POSTERS

Canada, 2016

World Premiere, 83 min

Director – Kevin Burke

Through interviews with art personalities from the past four decades, 24 x 36 examines the birth, death and resurrection of illustrated movie poster art.

A DARK SONG

Ireland, 2016

World Premiere, 99 min

Director – Liam Gavin

Sophia is a determined young woman who hires a weird occultist to perform a ritual which will risk not only their lives and souls, but also the very essence of their being.

ALOYS

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Switzerland, France, 2016

US Premiere, 91 min

Director – Tobias Nölle

Aloys Adorn is a lonely private investigator who, after the death of his father, finds himself sucked into a mysterious “telephone walking” game with a mysterious woman who might be his only hope.

AMERICAN HONEY

United States, 2016

Texas Premiere, 158 min

Director – Andrea Arnold

Andrea Arnold’s first US feature follows 18-year-old Star as she leaves her home in Oklahoma and goes in search of adventure, adulthood and America.

BELIEF: THE POSSESSION OF JANET MOSES

New Zealand, 2015

US Premiere, 89 min

Director – David Stubbs

The true story of the Wainuiomata exorcism provides the basis for David Stubbs’ striking debut feature, a documentary exploring the tragic death of Janet Moses in a traditional Maori exorcism ceremony.

THE CREW

France, 2016

US Premiere, 81 min

Director – Julien Leclercq

It’s bad men face versus worse men as thieves face off against dealers in this super slick French heist thriller from the director of Chrysalis and The Assault.

DEAREST SISTER

Laos, France, Estonia, 2016

World Premiere, 100 min

Director – Mattie Do

After moving to the city, a poor woman realizes her recently blinded cousin can not only commune with the dead, but they can provide a path to much-needed wealth.

DOWN UNDER

Australia, 2016

North American Premiere, 87 min

Director – Abraham Forsythe

In the aftermath of massive race riots, two carloads of dim-witted alpha males set off to defend their respective territory with outrageous results in this sharp edged Australian satire.

THE DWARVES MUST BE CRAZY

Thailand, 2016

World Premiere, 92 min

Director – Bhin Banloerit

A Thai village of little people is attacked by evil, butt-munching, fart-tracking Krause spirits – floating heads with attached intestines – in this slapstick horror-comedy.

FAULTLESS

France, 2016

North American Premiere, 103 min

Director – Sébastien Marnier

After burning out in Paris, Constance returns to her home town only to find herself in lethal competition with a younger girl for her old job.

FRAUD

United States, 2016

Texas Premiere, 53 min

Director – Dean Fleischer-Camp

A family’s home movies document a desperate crime, and the subsequent bid to escape the consequences in this impressionistic meta-fiction born from the manipulation of hundreds of hours of innocuous uploads to YouTube. An extraordinary feat of editing, a provocative parable of the pursuit of happiness and a disturbing demonstration of the mutability of the stories we share in the Internet age.

THE GREASY STRANGLER

United States, 2016

Special Screening, 93 min

Director – Jim Hosking

Brayden fears his first love affair is turning his father into a bloodthirsty monster who’s covered in grease and has an 18-inch penis that looks like a dead chicken.

JUNGLE TRAP : Presented By Bleeding Skull

United States, 1990/2016

World Premiere, 80 min

Director – James Bryan

Exploitation demigod James Bryan’s massively entertaining, decapitation-fueled shot-on-video horror masterpiece about a jungle hotel haunted by kill-crazy ghosts in loin cloths, shot in 1990 and unreleased until THIS VERY MOMENT.

KHALNAYAK

India, 1993

Repertory Screening, 190 min

Director – Subhash Ghai

Ballu is an unrepentant gangster who has dedicated his life to the celebration of villainy. He is a bad, bad man and not ashamed one bit. However, with the help of his mother and a sympathetic cop, Ballu will rise above his circumstances to gain satisfying redemption.

MAGADHEERA

India, 2009

Repertory Screening, 157 min

Director – S.S. Rajamouli

Harsha, a dirt bike racer, lives for thrills. One day he crosses paths with Indu, a girl with whom he feels strangely connected. Through this bond, Harsha discovers his hidden identity: a reincarnated warrior king.

MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN

United States, 2016

Special Screening, 123 min

Director – Tim Burton

From visionary director Tim Burton, and based upon the best-selling novel, comes an unforgettable motion picture experience. When Jake discovers clues to a mystery that spans alternate realities and times, he uncovers a secret refuge known as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As he learns about the residents and their unusual abilities, Jake realizes that safety is an illusion, and danger lurks in the form of powerful, hidden enemies. Jake must figure out who is real, who can be trusted, and who he really is.

ORIGINAL COPY

Germany, 2016

Texas Premiere, 95 min

Directors – Florian Heinzen-Ziob and Georg Heinzen

In the heart of Mumbai, behind the screen of one of the last Hindi Film cinemas, lives Sheik Rahman, the city’s last painter of film posters. This is his story.

PHANTASM: REMASTERED (1979)

United States, 1979

Special Screening, 88 min

Director – Don Coscarelli

One of the most influential and important horror films of all time, Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm returns to Alamo Drafthouse’s screens in a gorgeous 4k remaster.

PHANTASM: RAVAGER

United States, 2016

World Premiere, 87

Director – David Hartman

The fifth and final film in the classic Phantasm film series, Phantasm Ravager follows our intrepid everyman hero Reggie on his quest across dark dimensions as he struggles to confront and vanquish the sinister Tall Man.

POPOZ

The Netherlands, 2015

International Premiere, 85 min

Directors- Erwin van de Eshof & Martijn Smits

Festival favorite Huub Smit (New Kids Nitro; New Kids Turbo; Bros Before Hos) stars as a Dutch cop raised on far too many American action films in this outrageous action comedy.

PSYCHO RAMAN

India, 2016

US Premiere, 127 min

Director – Anurag Kashyap

Raghavan is a cop: brutal, violent, and drug-addicted. Ramanna is a criminal: psychotic, unpredictable, and vicious. It’s only a matter of time before they meet and when they do, Mumbai’s slums will be colored deep crimson.

SALT AND FIRE

Mexico, 2016

U.S. Premiere, 93 min

Director – Werner Herzog

Herzog’s most wildly unpredictable film, Salt and Fire is a meticulously slow burning, quasi-ecological thriller punctuated by moments of the lyrically poetic and the inexplicably, outrageously absurd.

S IS FOR STANLEY

Italy, 2016

North American Premiere, 82 min

Director – Alex Infascelli

Alex Infascelli’s documentary about Emilio D’Alessandro, Stanley Kubrick’s personal assistant for more than thirty years, which provides never-before-seen insight into the private auteur.

THE VOID

Canada, 2016

World Premiere, 90 min

Directors – STEVEN KOSTANSKI & JEREMY GILLESPIE

Trapped in a hospital with a handful of people, a small town sheriff finds himself caught up in the demented plot of a death-obsessed madman.

WE ARE THE FLESH

Mexico, 2016

Texas Premiere, 80 min

Director – Emiliano Rocha Minter

Somewhere within a ruined city, a man makes an offer to a pair of siblings who wander into his abandoned building: food and shelter in exchange for building a strange room…

ZOOLOGY

Russia, France, Germany, 2016

US Premiere, 87 min

Director – Ivan I. Tverdovsky

Natasha is a lonely, middle-aged woman who still lives with her mother and feels insecure about her tedious life… until she grows a tail.

Leave your thoughts on the Fantastic Fest 2016 first wave of films lineup below in the comments section. Readers seeking more film festival news can visit our Film Festival Page. Want up-to-the-minute notification? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook. The 2016 Fantastic Fest runs from September 22-29, 2016 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas.

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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