There are two types of people in this world. There are those who watch movies. And there are those who live to watch movies. These two groups may look the same. You can’t tell in line at the concession stand, but the difference is cosmic. The first group will see the latest MCU installment, enjoy it, text “that was good” to a friend, and promptly forget about it in the same way one forgets a Caesar salad. It is an event contained, digested, filed under “pleasant.”
The second group is different. The second group carries the movies in their bloodstream. They can quote the Star Wars prequels without irony, they have seen The Lord of the Rings extended editions more times than they’ve brushed their teeth, and know precisely which frame captures Viggo Mortensen’s foot-breaking howl. They schedule time off work not for family vacations, but to spiritually prepare for Christopher Nolan’s next 70mm epic, as if the arrival of a new film stock were a holy sacrament. And for this second group, film festivals are not an optional luxury. They are a pilgrimage.
Now, mention “film festival” to the uninitiated, and their eyes glaze over with the faint aroma of elitism. There’s Cannes, of course, where yachts multiply like Gremlins, and where a single flute of champagne costs more than the GDP of several small countries. Everyone there seems to own a scarf, even in June. As Dumb and Dumber so memorably put it: “I don’t know, the French are assholes.”
Then there’s Sundance, held in Park City, Utah, during the coldest week of the year. It’s a sort of cinematic endurance test where you prove your dedication by surviving frostbite. Sundance is part snow globe, part Silicon Valley, part ski lodge. Even South Park skewered it, which tells you everything you need to know. This is why many assume festivals are not for them. They are too glitzy, too gated, too full of people who use the word “oeuvre” without flinching.
But then there is Fantastic Fest.
Fantastic Fest is the festival that laughs at the velvet rope, kicks it aside, and says, “You, yes you, the one who can recite Army of Darkness backwards, you belong here.” Every September in Austin, Texas, at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, the largest genre film festival in the U.S. transforms one theater into a week-long carnival of chaos. The setting itself is a Kubrickian fever dream. The carpeting is patterned like The Shining, the elevators gush blood, Slim Pickens eternally rides his bomb, and HAL 9000 sits smugly in a corner, waiting for you to lose your cool. Dorothy was wrong. Home isn’t Kansas. Home is a Kubrick-themed multiplex during Fantastic Fest.
The festival just turned twenty, which meant, appropriately, it went medieval. Tim League, the Alamo’s resident ringmaster, kicked things off by leaping on a table and screaming “CHAOS REIGNS!” into a microphone. It’s a phrase that doubles as both slogan and survival guide. The opening night film, Primate, delivered exactly what the title promises. It was a homicidal chimp on a blood rampage, part Cujo, part Jaws, all nightmare fuel. The audience roared in delight. Somewhere, a studio executive cried with $100 bills.
But the films are only half the draw. The rest is what can only be described as cinematic vaudeville. There are the Fantastic Debates, in which filmmakers and critics spar over arcane topics like The Goonies vs. Monster Squad, say before donning gloves and settling the matter in an actual boxing ring. Watching a director sock a critic in the jaw is the kind of catharsis most of Hollywood dreams about but never admits.
There are theme parties that rival anything Cannes could muster. Past years have seen satanic marching bands (Itchy-O) and Mac Sabbath, a Black Sabbath cover band performed entirely by McDonald’s characters. Imagine Grimace growling his way through “War Pigs.” This year’s opening musical entertainment was Castle Rat, a medieval metal band dressed as if they’d walked straight out of a Renaissance fair tavern. Unfortunately, their lead singer performed with the sleepy disinterest of a Benadryl commercial. If they ever find a frontwoman who can channel Joan Jett rather than Sleeping Beauty, they’ll have something.
The programming itself ranged from the prestige (Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest hallucinatory drama) to the deranged (Fuck My Son, which is, mercifully or tragically, exactly what it sounds like). Sequels premiered (The Strangers 2, Black Phone 2), cult horrors got resurrected (V/H/S returned with a Halloween-themed entry that might be its best yet), and deep cuts like a 2002 adult film, Dildo Heaven, received a shiny 4K restoration. Fantastic Fest is the only place on earth where Paul Thomas Anderson and a pornographic time capsule from the early aughts can share a marquee without irony.
And then there are the secret screenings. For the unaware, these are films that the audience knows absolutely nothing about until the opening credits roll. The tradition has yielded surprises like M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, an experience that sent shockwaves through the crowd. This year, the secrets included Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, both received like gifts from the cinema gods. One screening even came with Christmas presents for the audience from a remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night from director Mike P. Nelson. Even Santa Claus himself came staggering out of the projection booth to deliver these gifts. The audience ate this film up like a Christmas ham.
Between screenings, the festival sprawls into side attractions with horror-themed arts and crafts, a scholastic-style book fair for pulp paperbacks, live podcasts, and celebrity jurors wandering around like lost relatives. Spotting Patton Oswalt in line for a film, or Fred Durst casually chatting about Limp Bizkit’s enduring cultural impact, becomes part of the tapestry. Even James Franco wandered around looking to talk cinematic tales with anyone.
The closing night party this year was hosted at Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios, a location steeped in its own mythology, where Sin City and Spy Kids were birthed. Mingling there felt like sneaking into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, only with more tequila and fewer Oompa-Loompas. Conversations unfolded with actors, directors, and people you half-suspected you’d seen in a VHS rental twenty-five years ago.
But here’s the thing, the chaos, the chimpanzees, the boxing matches, those are just the surface. The real heart of Fantastic Fest is the community. It’s the cinephiles who treat this week as Geek Christmas. It’s the joy of standing in line for a movie you’ve never heard of, chatting with a stranger about how Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon is actually better than Oppenheimer, and realizing you’ve found your tribe. It’s about being surrounded by people who love movies not as disposable entertainment but as essential nutrients.
This year, the festival even launched Fantastic Pitches, where aspiring filmmakers could present their movie ideas before celebrity judges and an audience. The winner walked away with a six-figure check and the promise that their film will premiere at next year’s fest. This isn’t just about consuming cinema, it’s about feeding it back into the ecosystem and keeping the blood pumping.
So yes, Cannes has yachts. Sundance has snow. Venice has gondolas. But only Fantastic Fest has a boxing match between a critic and a director, a secret Paul Thomas Anderson premiere, and the communal glee of watching a chimpanzee massacre a suburban household. And really, isn’t that what cinema is all about? Let chaos and yourself reign at Fantastic Fest next year and every year after.
One Response
They not like us.
#frakieray1actor
#badhaircutthemovie