Fantastic Fest is only a couple of days away deep in the heart of Texas where genre lives! The festival has become one of our most anticipated events of the film year. We’re excited to be covering the festival again and with that a new slate of films we can’t wait to watch. Fantastic Fest this year is bringing more than just amazing films with a new activation called Fantastic Games. I’ll be talking about that slate in a different post so stay tuned. Here are my top 5 films I’m excited to see at Fantastic Fest this year.

BODY ODYSSEY directed by Grazia Tricarico.

Body Odyssey captured my attention when I saw the first still when looking through the lineup. The poster showcases actress Jaqueline “Jay” Fuchs who is also a real-life body builder. The film’s synopsis is as follows. Check out the trailer below as well that promises the film will have some fantastical elements to it as well.

“Mona is a senior bodybuilder who is training for a world championship, her existence is a spasmodic quest for perfection and beauty. Her life is steadily followed by her coach who monitors her single daily actions like a demiurge and an artist: her sleep, her nutrition, her training sessions, her doping dosage, her psychology and even her sexual life. This routine gets interrupted when a young guy appears: a single brief sexual encounter over-balances her discipline and her will. Her body will start evolving into a separate entity with a different personality.”

DRAGON DILATATION directed by Bertrand Mandico

I was fascinated last year by Bertrand Mandico’s film She Is Conann which played at Fantastic Fest. Bertrand has another film at Fantastic Fest this year with Dragon Dilatation. The new film is described as a split screen film that explores the actors’ performances. Check out the synopsis below.

The combination of two film essays, Petrouchka and La Déviante Comédie. The first part is a rereading of Stravinsky’s ballet, while the second consists of traces of an unpublished performance.

The film has some familiar faces if you were a fan of She Is Connan as well, so should be interesting. If Bertrand delivers anything close to Conann this is sure to become another in my top 10 of the year.

DEAD TALENT SOCIETY directed by John Hsu

Dead Talent Society played at Midnight Madness over at TIFF last week and people loved it. I didn’t get the chance to watch the film in Toronto but will definitely be in attendance in Austin. The synopsis can be found below.

Set in a fictional underworld where ghosts can linger in the mortal realm by competing to haunt humans, the film follows a rookie ghost (Wang) as she embarks on a journey to find her own uniqueness under the tutelage of a passionate agent (Chen) and a washed-up diva (Pinna

A lot of the reactions for the film and reviews praise not only its spooky element but also the heart of the film. It’s also being described as if they made a movie about the other world in Beetlejuice so I’m game for that.

PARVULOS directed by Isaac Ezban

Parvulos is a film that has such a dope and interesting poster I had to look into it. I haven’t looked into the film and what it’s all about except for the small synopsis which you can check out below.

Three young brothers living in a cabin in the middle of the woods hide a dark, disturbing secret in their basement.

The premise sounds intriguing and just some of the stills online give off an intriguing flair. I don’t know much more about what the film will entail and sometimes that’s good.

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL directed by Adam Elliot

Mary and Max completely changed me when I first watched the film in high school. There was no way I would miss out on the chance to watch the latest film from Adam Elliot Memoir of a Snail. Check out the synopsis below.

A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel – a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea-pigs

If you’re a fan of stop motion, you definitely have to put this one on your list. It truly looks wonderful and is by far my most anticipated of the year so far.

Those are just some of the films I’m most excited for and can’t wait to share others I discover at the fest. Make sure to stay tuned in here and our social media channels for more during and after Fantastic Fest.