Here are 11 films we’re most hyped to see at Fantasia 2021

Thank goodness for film festivals like Fantasia Fest. With the world still in the clutches of an ongoing pandemic, the Montreal festival supplies both in-person and virtual components this year. In celebration of its 25th year, the lineup is as stacked as ever, including such in-person screenings as The Night House starring Rebecca Hall, The Suicide Squad, and the Nicholas Cage-starring Prisoners of the Ghostland. The virtual sector promises to deliver the goods, as they always do, with wide-ranging and eclectic narratives about zombies, grief, technology, and witchy stuff.

This year’s festival runs a bit earlier than last, kicking off August 5 through August 25. Check out the lineup, ticket info, and much more here.

Below, B-Sides & Badlands handpicks 11 feature films we absolutely can not wait to see.

Glasshouse

A memory-shredding neurochemical permeates the atmosphere like airborne dementia. Safe within an airtight glasshouse, a family preserves their past through rituals of collective memory. Mother teaches her children to protect their sanctuary at all costs. They hand-pollinate plants and shoot intruders on sight. The litany of their recited history centers around the long-awaited return of Luca, the prodigal son. Free-spirited Bee misses her twin passionately. To escape the memory of his loss, she deliberately exposes herself to the toxin. Gabe looms as a tragic warning against this path: he played too long outside, and now he is forever a child. Haunted by guilt, Evie obsessively archives keepsakes in her memory box to protect herself from her deepest fear: oblivion. The youngest, Daisy, lives solely in the present – a savage innocent. When Bee breaks the family’s first rule and lets a Stranger into their sanctuary, it upsets the family’s rituals, unearthing truths they have tried to keep buried. Is he really their lost brother? Or are they players in a story he is rewriting to his own ends?

Blue Whale

A provincial Russian town is ravaged by a wave of inexplicable teen suicides. Rebellious and sharp-witted schoolgirl Dana (Anna Potebnya, SAMA DURA) grieves for her younger sister, a once-happy kid who suddenly withdrew and stepped in front of a train. Desperate to learn what happened, Dana explores her sister’s online history, discovering a sinister social-media game that encourages youths to take an escalating series of self-harm challenges – 50 tasks in 50 days. Beginning with actions designed to alienate them from friends and family, the challenge breaks its victims lives apart to push them past any point of return. Hungry for answers and out for revenge, Dana registers for the game, opening a doorway into the cruelest of hidden online worlds. One that will jeopardize the lives of everyone she cares about.

Broadcast Signal Intrusion

It’s 1999 in Chicago, and a new digital information age has dawned. James (Harry Shum Jr.) is a video techie archiving archaic broadcast tape masters onto DVDs when he stumbles upon an unnerving anomaly: a masked figure speaking in distorted tones drops into the midst of a news show. He learns that this is one of a series of such “intrusions” over the past several years, including two unsolved cases in his city. Already tormented by the disappearance of his wife some time before, James becomes driven to solve this mystery. First delving into the burgeoning Internet, he then follows the clues to a number of eccentric and disturbed individuals, with the help of a young woman named Alice (Kelley Mack). The deeper he digs, the more his obsession grows – even at the potential expense of his own sanity.

King Knight

What makes a good witch nowadays? A deep sense of spirituality and communion with nature? Devotion to a tight-knit group of like-minded free spirits? A successful Etsy shop and a sick set of Tarot cards? Living the dream alongside his beautiful life partner Willow (WESTWORLD’s Angela Sarafyan), the revered high priest of a modern Californian coven, Thorn (CRIMINAL MINDS’ Matthew Gray Gubler) has it all… as well as a secret past that may or may not be as dark as his wardrobe. And much like the tides pursuing the moon, our past tends to follow us around. So, when his beloved uncovers said secret on the night of their Beltane celebrations, Thorn sets out on a soul-searching journey back to his hometown.

When I Consume You

Just beyond the shadows, in the corner of your vision, just out of sight, his yellow eyes lurk. Down and out, and grasping to stay above water, Wilson Shaw (Evan Dumouchel) and his sister Daphne (Libby Ewing) struggle to make it in the world. When a supernatural figure appears to be behind their history of misfortune, Wilson must rethink his family, his place in the world, and what he knows to be real. Wilson is forced to muster all his strength, to face off against forces he does not fully understand, in a desperate bid for redemption, for his sister and himself.

Hellbender

“I love you so much, I could just eat you up. If you break my heart, I’ll devour you.” Teenager Izzy (Zelda Adams) lives a lonely life with her mother (Toby Adams), their house isolated deep in the Catskill Mountains. That scenic seclusion is no accident. Her mother has gone through enormous efforts to keep Izzy largely away from people since she was five. For her own protection, and perhaps for that of others. They spend their days being each others’ best friends, teaching one another and making music in their two-piece rock band, H6LLB6ND6R. As Izzy begins to grow more into herself, she starts venturing into town, spending time with other people, and a sharp thirst for deeper knowledge is stirred. Knowledge of self, and also of her family’s mysterious history… with witchcraft.

The Night House

Reeling from the unexpected and shocking suicide of her husband, schoolteacher Beth (Rebecca Hall of GODZILLA VS. KONG) is left alone in the remote lakeside home he built for them. Beth valiantly tries to hold it together – but when the nightmares come (and they do!), that becomes increasingly difficult. Not helping: disturbing visions of a presence in the home calling to her, beckoning her with a ghostly allure. Other unexplained phenomena pop up, like the stereo system bursting to ear-splitting life during sleeping hours, and the “night house” across the lake that strangely appears and disappears. Against the advice of her concerned friends, Beth begins digging into her husband’s belongings, yearning for answers. What she finds are secrets both bizarre and frightening – a mystery the frazzled widow is determined to unravel.

Kratt

Ah, children. The source of much joy, hope and innocence for many, but truth be told the little monsters are out to kill us all. Let’s be honest, they’re all selfish wretches who do nothing but drive you crazy and suck up your will to live. And now, in a small Estonian village, two narcissistic little brats (Nora and Harri Merivoo, the director’s kids!), dropped off at their Grandmother’s (Mari Lili) farm for a few weeks while their parents attend a self-help retreat, may bring about the end of human existence as we know it. Complaining about the actual work they’re expected to do, these little snot-nosed pests bring the local legend of the Kratt – a Terminator-like demonic spirit that must always be fed work, or else – to life just so they can take it easy, but in doing so they may have set in motion the destruction of Grandma, her village and perhaps the world with it. And all because they couldn’t get internet access.

The Righteous

Agony reigns in THE RIGHTEOUS, the slow-burn and character-driven horror film from actor Mark O’Brien (READY OR NOT and ARRIVAL). One of the most exciting debuts in recent memory, Mark O’Brien writes, directs and stars in this incredible addition to the occult horror genre. THE RIGHTEOUS takes full advantage of the dreary otherworldliness of Newfoundland as it centres on a former priest who left the church to start a family, only to be gripped by tragedy after the death of his child. One night, he and his wife are visited by a young stranger who turns their life upside down. With unexpected twists and turns, the film’s destabilizing tension creeps into your bones like a damp chill you can’t quite shake off.

The Deep House

Tina (Camille Rowe) and her boyfriend Ben (James Jagger) are two daredevil YouTubers with a passion for “urbex” – the exploration of hard-to-find, abandoned urban edifices and buildings. Through a forest with no name (all good for now), and that isn’t on any maps (what could go wrong here?), and beyond a “danger – do not enter” sign (okay, now this is definitely a horror film), they find their way to what could be their newest and greatest adventure. While live on social media, they film themselves as they take a literal deep dive into the bottom of an artificial lake, where lies a mysterious house with a sinister past… a haunted house… of course.

The Sadness

Strap yourself in for the most intense freakout of a transgressive horror rollercoaster to smash through cinemas in ages. In an alternate version of Taiwan, a rapidly spreading pandemic that the government has largely chosen to ignore suddenly mutates into a rabies-like affliction. The infected find themselves unable to control their id, acting on their every primal impulse. Limbs are torn, faces are peeled, everything becomes a weapon – or an orifice – and anything could happen. Anywhere. Everywhere. In the midst of escalating, city-wide ultra-violence, a young couple on opposite sides of town struggle to re-connect. And that’s all you need to know!

Follow B-Sides & Badlands on our socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram