If you love genre films, there truly is nothing like Fantastic Fest. While most festivals play a more balanced slate of films covering all genres, this Austin, Texas-based fest plays only the good shit. Other festivals sometimes refer to them as “Midnight Movies,” but it’s always midnight at Fantastic Fest. Horror, sci-fi, fantasy, martial arts, all the stuff that never gets nominated for awards, that’s what the festival is all about. In past years, big films such as Zombieland, Split, Frankenweenie, and Pan’s Labyrinth have played there, but really the focus is on the many, many smaller films general audiences don’t discover until much later, if ever.
For example, our favorite film from 2022, The Antares Paradox, still has yet to get a U.S. release while several others (The Menu, Werewolf by Night, Smile, Bones and All) became fan favorites later. But now it’s 2023 and we’re here with a list of the amazing, weird, wonderful genre movies that you should get on your radar now for the upcoming year. Some of these have release plans, others do not, but all are worth at least a glance.
Plus, we’ve added info on a few films we missed at the festival but heard amazing things about too.
1. River
This Japanese time-loop movie has to be seen to be believed. Every single person in town is looped back in time every two minutes but they always keep their memories, meaning they can try and solve the puzzle, in hilarious fashion, each and every time. Destined to be a classic. Read our review here.
2. The Animal Kingdom
The powerful, heartwarming tale of one family’s experiences in a world where humans everywhere are randomly mutating into animals. Just a stunning, beautiful film. Read our review here.
3. Sleep
A wife begins to go crazy as she becomes increasingly sure her husband’s sleepwalking is the result of being possessed by a ghost. Scary, funny, and intense, this is a great movie.
4. Infested
The killer spider genre gets a whole new bite with this edge-of-your-seat thriller about what happens when a high-rise is infested by giant, mutated killer spiders. Yes, the film is scary, but it’s also very human too. Read our review here.
5. The Toxic Avenger
In this modern reimaging of Troma’s outdated cult classic, Peter Dinklage plays a man who is given superhuman powers when dumped in a pool of toxic waste. It’s gory, it’s hilarious, and it’s incredibly dumb, but it’s also done very, very well. Read our review here.
6. Dream Scenario
Nicolas Cage stars as a seemingly normal college professor who quickly becomes the most famous man in the world when he randomly starts appearing in the dreams of people everywhere. Things then take a sinister turn and the movie becomes less about that weird idea and more about fame in a modern society. Smart, funny, and thought-provoking, it’s a very good film. It’s out in November and you can read our review here.
7. Concrete Utopia
We’ve all seen big, global disaster movies, but Concrete Utopia tells that story on a local scale when a single apartment building is all that’s left standing after an earthquake hits Seoul. There’s some spectacle in there but what makes the film so good is how it makes the audience question their own morality. Read our review here.
8. So Unreal
Sometimes you just want to watch a movie about watching movies, and So Unreal is that and so much more. Using footage from films like The Matrix, Tron, The Terminator, Hackers, The Net, and many others, it shows how Hollywood has reacted to the tech explosion of the past half-century. Plus it’s got tons of weird movies to watch out for too. Read our review here.
9. Riddle of Fire
Three kids who just want to play the new video game system they stole get sent on a wild adventure for blueberry pie. It sounds odd, but is completely in line with the very unique, specific, and yet somehow also familiar voice of this nice throwback film. Read our review here.
10. There’s Something in the Barn
Call it National Lampoon’s Presents Gremlins in Norway. Martin Starr stars as a goofy dad who moves his family to Norway only to find out the barn on their property has an elf living in it. The movie is super goofy and a little uneven, but a heck of a lot of fun to watch either way. Read our review here.
11. Where the Devil Roams
A family of circus performers looking to spice up their act happens upon a devilish ability that involves lots and lots of killing. The first half of the film is a little slow and vague but once it gets going, it’s brutal as all hell.
Note: We’re at the point in the list where everything from here on out was just okay. We didn’t dislike any of these movies, but we didn’t love them (hence the headline saying 10, but there are more). Nevertheless, some people will love them, and we think they’re noteworthy enough to get a shout out.
12. Project Silence
Project Silence has an amazing premise that gets lost in one major issue. The premise is that a bunch of genetically enhanced attack dogs are set loose on a bridge and the humans have to fight for their lives. However, who wants to cheer for dogs being killed, right? Also, the movie kind of treats both the dogs and the humans as heroes, which makes for a very uneven experience.
13. The Last Video Store
A girl returning movies to the last video store in Canada finds herself, along with the store’s owner, fighting the larger-than-life stars of those movies. It’s a super fun idea and the movie has a couple of great scenes, but the whole thing feels mighty stretched out in a feature format.
14. In My Mother’s Skin
A Filipino family near the end of World War II is faced with some truly terrible situations and, eventually, the consequences of trusting an evil fairy. The movie has some fantastic body horror in it, and wonderful performances, but wow can it be slow as heck. It premiered at Sundance earlier this year (where we ran a review) and it’ll be on Prime Video soon.
15. The Origin
Scheduled for release next year, this survival film starring Shadow and Bone’s Kit Young wants to be a prehistoric Predator. However, once its big secret is revealed, all the goodwill it’s built up with some excellent filmmaking gets lost in the obviousness.
But also…
Though we didn’t see it at Fantastic Fest, The Creator also played there, which we already saw and really loved. Plus, we attended a secret screening that ended up being Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. It’s not an io9 movie (i.e., it’s not sci-fi, fantasy, or horror), but a fantastic film to be sure.
We missed…
Almost 100 feature films play over the course of Fantastic Fest so we missed, well, most of them, considering we only saw 16 over the four days we were in attendance. But a few of the ones we missed that had the best buzz were UFO Sweden, described as almost an Amblin-like alien film; Suitable Flesh, an intense Lovecraft adaptation from Joe Lynch; When Evil Lurks, an apparently dynamite and different possession film; and Kill, which was described as John Wick on a train.