german premiere

the gesuidouz

Hanako and her horror punk band are given a last chance to release a successful album. Time is running out, since Hanako’s 27th birthday – by which rock legends normally should be dead – approaches quickly. After Toronto THE GESUIDOUZ brings its pogo vibes to the Fantasy Filmfest Nights. It is as eccentric as LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA, as energetic as EX DRUMMER and as charming as HEAVY TRIP.

bring them down

When Michael’s neighbor and rival Gary finds two of Michael's sheep dead, an old feud between the two flares up again and threatens to drag everyone into doom. Christopher Andrews' first feature begins like classic Irish cinema with its pitch-black humor, but then develops into a dense, non-linear revenge drama – right up to a Greek tragedy, at the end of which no one escapes without bloody hands.

german premiere

noise

Ju-Hee hears strange noises. When the young woman disappears without a trace, her hearing impaired sister starts investigating. She soon begins to hear dangerous things, too. After cursed eye operations (THE EYE) and hair extensions (EXTE), in NOISE the ears are the thread. This classic ghost story is an example of the qualities of Asian genre cinema, scaring at the point to make you not believe your ears anymore.

german premiere

locked

When Eddie (Bill Skarsgård) tries to steal the wrong car, an unparalleled ordeal begins. Locked up for days without food or water, he is at the mercy of a diabolical adversary (Anthony Hopkins). The latter is the owner of this custom-made SUV, which might drive them straight to hell. Skarsgård shines once again as an actor in this thriller effectively directed by David Yarovesky (BRIGHTBURN).

german premiere

jimmy and stiggs

Constantly high and drunk Jimmy gets a visit from some weird little grey men with big eyes and spiky needles. Joe Begos (BLISS, VFW), writer, director and leading actor, brings pure madness to the screen. The brilliantly frenetic production keeps pace with Jimmy's increasing paranoia and the wacky, handmade bloody interludes splatter the screen with hectoliters of neon-colored alien slime.

german premiere

clown in a cornfield

As soon as Quinn arrives at the small town Kettle Springs with her father, the rednecks get on her trail. But not enough. The local mascot “Frendo”, a sadistic killer clown comes to life and starts targeting her new friends. Director and author Eli Craig, who already gave us a lot of fun with his legendary TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL, returns with a flawless slasher with creative deaths and a lot of humor.

memoir of a snail

Grace’s and her companion snail Sylvia’s story is set in an universe mixing Tim Burton, WALLACE & GROMIT and dark gothic flair. This impressive stop-motion animation takes us with its pitch-black humor on a journey full of misfortunes and an unstoppable Grace searching for love and belonging. After MARY & MAX, Oscar winner Adam Elliot is finally back with a carefully staged world full of quirky characters.

the ugly stepsister

Toes are chopped off, a nose is maltreated with a hammer and chisel, a corpse is rotting and there is also an extremely greedy tapeworm. THE UGLY STEPSISTER is a remake of the Grimms' fairy tale “Cinderella” – but from a so far neglected perspective: the heroine is one of the badly misunderstood “ugly stepsisters”. This biting satire of society’s beauty norms is nasty and brutal.

german premiere

companion

When Iris looked for the first time into Josh’s smiling face, suddenly everything made sense for her. She knows that she is his soulmate, and that everything is perfect! Perfect, until the friends’ weekend at the dreamlike mansion by the lake. No matter how hard Iris tries to be accepted by Josh's clique, it doesn't work. Isn't his best friend Kat bluntly hostile towards her and doesn't the super-rich Sergey scrutinize each of her moves with a lewd look? When an unexpected disaster tests the fate of everyone involved, Iris is forced to finally realize what is really going on. And she picks things up deadly fast... 

COMPANION is one of those fascinating scripts that astonish us with unpredictable twists and turns, which makes it very hard to say anything about the plot. But just this much: the producers of BARBARIAN have once again got themselves a mega-cool project and a great talent in feature debut director/writer Drew Hancock. Perfectly crafted and performed by a sensational cast led by Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid, COMPANION is a real gift for genre fans.

german premiere

the wailing

A video chat turns into a trauma for Andrea when a horrific crime is committed in front of her eyes. But no one believes her story of the sinister man she saw standing in the doorway. Searching for answers, Andrea follows a scarry wail to an abandoned house... Twenty years earlier, on the other side of the world, film student Camila secretly shoots snapshots of the fascinating Marie – until she notices a sinister figure in the background. And again a terrible wailing is to be heard, and leads for sure to perdition… It’s too late to escape anyway. 

Pedro Martín-Calero's feature film debut immediately gets under your skin and leaves you with that ice-cold feeling of hopeless menace with which J-horror à la THE RING or THE GRUDGE terrorized its then unprepared audience a few decades ago. The brute, effective sound design, combined with nervewrackingly schock moments makes THE WAILING a flagship of the next generation of Spanish horror.