Austin’s 3rd Annual Fantastic Fest Report

Austin’s 3rd Fantastic Fest offered hungry audiences a buffet of exotic cinematic treats from around the globe. From September 20-27, badge holders and the general public were treated to an expanded lineup that included some non-genre films while still delivering the signature horror and sci-fi staples the fest has become justifiably lauded for.

Fest founder Tim League, who hosts the event at his Alamo Drafthouse theaters, stated that he broadened the definition of what constitutes a fantastic film this year, and the eclectic lineup reflected this. From global warming eco-horror (The Last Winter) to animated art-porn (Princess) to Japanese New Wave crime-mod (Velvet Hustler) to experimental gay biker-punk (Crazy Thunder Road), no deviant subgenre felt unrepresented.

Zombie legend George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) personally presented his latest hotly-anticipated undead saga, Diary of the Dead, which cleverly uses the mockumentary conceit to take playful jabs at deadly-serious social issues. He also takes shots at his own work, as well as that of the many imitators he’s inadvertently spawned. Regarding the trend begun by 28 Days Later, he remarked, Zombies don’t run. Their ankles would snap off! They shamble. Also on hand was P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights), with his own sort of horror film, There Will Be Blood, about a ruthless oil tycoon terrifyingly depicted by the Oscar-winning Daniel Day Lewis. It is a monster movie, Anderson argued, the whole time I was making it, I kept thinking about Dracula.

Another surprise was the sneak North American premiere of Southland Tales, the 2nd film from indie darling Richard Kelly. My hope is that it will continue to sit in the audience’s mind and then maybe, if they do get a chance to see it a 2nd time, they can really understand the complexity of the puzzle that we’ve tried to design, Kelly told the Express-News. While the ambiguity of his Donnie Darko worked to its advantage by challenging viewers to solve the movie’s narrative jigsaw (even if a few pieces felt deliberately left out), viewers of his ambitious sophomore effort could be forgiven for feeling as if a dozen puzzles were intermixed.

Secret screenings are often a highlight of the festival, and this year’s batch included The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, poetically depicted by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck; Persepolis, a moving animated adaptation of the Iranian coming-of-age graphic novel; and Big Man Japan (Dai-Nipponjin), a postmodern comic masterpiece that, without giving anything away, must simply be seen to be believed.

A good part of the fun is the ensuring director/star Q&A’s, which are occasionally more entertaining than the films themselves (Postal). Cult luminaries such as Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected) and Patton Oswalt (The Comedians of Comedy) made appearances to promote Everything Will Be Okay (beating out Bill Plympton for Best Animated Short) and Sex and Death 101 by Daniel Waters (Heathers), respectively.

While it was impossible to catch all 60 features and 30 short films, other noteworthy entries include the Canadian stoner slapstick of Weirdsville, the Korean animated lunacy of Aachi and Ssipak, and The Backwoods starring Gary Oldman, a kind of Spanish Deliverance by way of Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs.

The next Fantastic Fest isn’t for another year, which is probably fortunate, as this is about the time attendees will require to recover.

-Andy Gately, 2007