The 15 Most Anticipated Movies At Fantastic Fest 2012

In merely two days, the Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale will be flowing, film nerd debates will divide friends and help others conquer the trivia game, and the most exciting genre movies from around the world will screen in Austin, TX, to packed crowds. Which can all only mean one thing: It's once again time for Fantastic Fest, the week-long celebration of all things horror, sci-fi, thriller, and action, put on by the good folks behind Austin's Alamo Drafthouse.

And, finally, the Complex Pop Culture will team will make its debut at the festival, seeing as many flicks as possible and reviewing as many as can be handled around all of the drinking, eating, and partying. Now, the tough questions of prioritizing come into play: To see another crazy piece of inventive cinema or take part in the Nerd Rap Throw Down, where film lovers sip on stiff beverages and battle each other with original rhymes that wouldn't even threaten the most lyrically deficient mixtape rapper?

If you're going to be anywhere near the Austin area this weekend, do yourself a favor and head over to the Drafthouse and experience the madness firsthand. And use this list of our 15 Most Anticipated Movies At Fantastic Fest 2012 as a guidebook of sorts. Unless, of course, you're too busy jotting down nerdy, battle-ready bars.

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Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

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Director: Pang Ho-Cheung
Stars: Chapman To, Ronald Cheung, Dada Chan

Given a limited VOD release by IFC Midnight last year, Chinese writer-director Pang Ho-Cheung's ridiculously violent Dream Home is one of the best slasher flicks to come around in quite some time. And it's also reason to keep tabs on anything the Hong Kong native does from here on out, so, instantaneously, his latest effort, Vulgaria, earns a look. Once its batsshit storyline comes to light, however, Ho-Cheung's new film leaps to the head of the upcoming Asian genre movie pack.

A satire of his native country's modern-day film industry, Vulgaria sends up on-set life with an array of ludicrous yet delightful imagery and side characters, including, that's right, "cow vagina feasts" and "candy-coated fellatio." Clearly, unlike the disturbing Dream Home, Vulgaria is a comedy, albeit one marked by animal abuse and full-frontal nudity.

Directors: Y.K. Kim and Woo-sang Park
Stars: Y.K. Kim, Vincent Hirsch, Joseph Diamond, Maurice Smith, Angelo Janotti, Kathy Collier

For lovers of "so bad they're good" movies, there's nothing better than channel-surfing late at night and stumbling across an old flick from the 1970s or '80s that's a feast of bad acting, incomprehensible writing, and gloriously cheesy fight scenes and special effects. But how often do you get to experience such low-budget pleasures on the big screen?

The folks at Drafthouse Films are ready to give audiences the opportunity to do just that when they release the long forgotten Miami Connection, an over-the-top compendium of charming, kitchen-sink filmmaking from 1987.

First, there's the plot, about "martial arts rock band Dragon Sound" and its "ultimate conflict against an army of cocaine-powered motorcycle ninjas." And then, as seen in this celebratory trailer, there's all of the "pizza parties," "neck gore," "intense crying over race of parents," and "non-stop confusing dialogue." Plus, after Miami Connection's Fantastic Fest screening, Dragon Sound will give a live performance.

OK, so it's not exactly Pink Floyd rocking out after showing The Wall, but it will do.

Director: Eron Sheean
Stars: Michael Eklund, Karoline Herfuth, Tomas Lemarquis, Rik Mayall

Having played at various festivals already, to largely enthusiastic responses, writer-director Eron Sheean's Errors of the Human Body has tons of momentum heading into Fantastic Fest, but can it live up to the hype?

The plot certainly sounds intriguing: Underrated actor Michael Eklund (The Divide) stars as a geneticist who frantically, and nightmarishly, dedicates himself to finding a cure for the medical anomaly that killed his infant son, but finds his mission upended by a few others who might have beaten him to the cure.

Deeply rooted in science, Errors of the Human Body seems just as much like a science fiction thriller as it does a psychological horror exercise. Assuming it's able to balance those sensibilities well enough, Sheean's film has the potential to be a real Fantastic Fest standout.

Director: Adrián García Bogliano
Stars: Francisco Barreiro, Laura Caro, Alan Martinez, Michele Garcia

In less than two years, Argentinian writer-director Adrián García Bogliano has stormed through the film festival circuit with three critically praised and uniquely original horror flicks. First came Cold Sweat, a wacky death-via-nitroglycerin thrill ride with a darkly funny edge; after that, Bogliano switched gears with Penumbra, a Roman Polanski-inspired mood piece punctuated by occultism and methodically paced suspense.

Like Cold Sweat and Penumbra, both of which prominently featured beautiful women in little clothing and situations of provocative distress, Bogliano's latest, Here Comes the Devil, reportedly includes a fair amount of sexiness (see: Mexican pop star turned actress Laura Caro), but, narratively speaking, it seems to owe more to "creepy kid" movies than any sordid inspirations. The film centers on a family vacationing in Tijuana, where the fam's two kids disappear into a cave and return to their parents with strange and surely horrific personality defects.

That's all we know for now, other than the early word that Here Comes the Devil unpredictably charges its way into late-game twists and a downer of an ending. So far, so good.

Director: Makinov
Stars: Vinessa Shaw, Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Normally, directors who willingly remake perfectly great old horror films receive endless screwfaces from your friends here at Complex. And Spanish filmmaker Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's 1976 shocker Who Can Kill a Child? certainly qualifies for such distinction. Thus, Come Out and Play, a redo that, based on its trailer, appears to be a shot-for-shot revisitation of Serrador's unflinching trip to a deserted island inhabited by homicidal youngsters, should anger us to no end.

So how is it that we're actually excited to see this one? One word: Makinov. Going out of his way to be enigmatic, the one-named director refuses to do in-person appearances, wears a red mask straight out of Timecrimes, and has the gumption to shoot a hilariously cryptic "manifesto" as a pre-screening introduction. Anyone who'll intro a horror flick with the following statement deserves to have his film be seen: "I want to scream at the stupid person who keeps checking photos in Facebook, when you can go into the woods and get yourself a good fuck." Genius.

Director: Marcus Dunstan
Stars: Emma Fitzpatrick, Josh Stewart, Christopher McDonald, Daniel Sharman, Navi Rawat, Andre Royo, Johanna Brady, Lee Tergesen

In 2009, screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (Saw IV, Saw V, and the Feast series) caught horror watchers off-guard with The Collector, a nasty little piece of home invasion gruesomeness complete with some of the nastiest kills in years and a new masked serial killer, the titular Collector, to add to the genre's canon. And in the grand tradition of scary movie franchises, director Dunstan (who handles behind-the-camera duties while sharing writing credit with Melton) is back with The Collection, one of Fantastic Fest's biggest premieres.

The Collector, with its sadistic Home Alone-like contraptions and outbursts of blood-splatter, is definitely one of the more graphic, cringe-inspiring horror films of the new millennium. Assuming that Dunstan and Melton have gone the traditional sequel-has-to-be-even-sicker route here, The Collection could very well cause a few of those "So-and-so threw up outside the theater" reports, which, of course, every horror-promoting film festival needs to ensure credibility.

Director: Christopher MacBride
Stars: Aaron Poole, James Gilbert

One of the coolest things about attending a film festival is the opportunity to discover new filmmaking talents. Quite often, the most memorable movies seen come from unknown directors, not the bigger names. Of all the first-timers debuting flicks at this year's Fantastic Fest, Christopher MacBride has the strongest hold on our attention with his film The Conspiracy, a narrative meets documentary mash-up about a dangerous descent into secret societies. As you can tell from the image above, we're not talking The Skulls here.

Directors: Jen and Sylvia Soska
Stars: Katharine Isabelle, Tristan Risk, Antonio Cupo, John Emmet Tracy, David Lodgren, Twan Holliday, Paula Lindberg

Last year, Canadian siblings Jen and Sylvia Soska made waves throughout the genre community with the wonderfully titled Dead Hooker in a Trunk, an exploitation throwback that, while rough around the edges, exhibited massive potential and a perverse creativity. And with their drastically different, less jokey follow-up, American Mary, the Twisted Twins, as they've dubbed themselves, seem to have capitalized on all of that promise.

Word out of the recent Fright Fest and Fantastia film fests position American Mary as one of the year's best horror movies, one anchored by star Katharine Isabelle's (Ginger Snaps) lauded performance as a cash-strapped medical student who starts earning paychecks in an underground world of unsanctioned, and gory, surgeries. Most exciting of all is the fact that the Soska sisters ignored the allure of CGI effects and staged all of the film's grosses sights with practical, real-looking makeup and effects.

Considering that the horror community is predominantly a boys' club, in terms of its most acclaimed filmmakers, it's about time for some ladies to show and prove, and the Twisted Twins just might be at the forefront of the burgeoning feminine movement.

Director: Ted Kotcheff
Stars: Gary Bond, Donald Pleasance, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay, John Meillon

Thanks to Drafthouse Films, an overlooked Australian classic will finally get the stateside respect and attention it deserves. Previously unavailable on any home video platforms, Wake in Fright, director Ted Kotcheff's (First Blood) controversial Palme D'Or nominee (the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival), will screen this Saturday night as part of Fantastic Fest, and, despite the fact that it was made way back in 1971, it'll no doubt match the craziest new Fantastic Fest movie with its timeless insanity and no-holds-barred storytelling.

Recently praised by the likes of Martin Scorsese as a slept-on classic, Wake in Fright follows an unfortunate schoolteacher (Gary Bond) as he gets stuck in an Australian outback mining community and, with ample amounts of booze and firearms, has to survive through a series of troublesome encounters. One moment involving a kangaroo is worth the price of admission alone.

Director: Michael Paul Stephenson

Every Halloween, millions of homeowners decorate their property with tombstones, monsters, and other seasonal accessories in hopes of scaring the crap out of neighbors and trick-or-treaters alike.

Yet, outsiders rarely, if ever, think about all of the hard work, dedication, and attention to the littlest details it takes to be a legitimate "home haunter." In his latest documentary, filmmaker Michael Paul Stephenson (Best Worst Movie) playfully but also respectfully examines how three families, all living in the same area of Fairhaven, MA, sacrifice their finances, time, and energy in order to assemble the creepiest suburban resting place turned domestic house of horrors imaginable.

In addition to presenting viewers with an ensemble of passionate and immensely likable subjects, The American Scream also reinvigorates one's love for Halloween; it's impossible not to relive the magic, excitement, and unabashed fun of wearing costumes and celebrating all things ghoulish while seeing the Fairhaven residents' efforts through Stephenson's observational lens.

Director: Peter Strickland
Stars: Toby Jones, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Cosimo Fusco, Susanna Capellaro, Antonio Mancino

Old-school Italian giallo horror meets the deranged strangeness of David Lynch's movies? Hell yes. Especially if the combination in question stars the exceptional character actor Toby Jones and features a nutty plot that's steeped in cinephile goodness.

Jones plays Gilderoy, an audio technician brought in to handle the sounds heard in a gruesome flick called The Equestrian Vortex. While having to watch the film over and over, with all of its blood-drenched scenes of murder and mayhem, Gilderoy slowly but surely begins to lose his mind, and, if the early, emphatically positive reviews are to be trusted, Berberian Sound Studio wickedly flies off the rails during its third act, which is where the Lynchian vibes take over.

Director: Eric Walter

No matter how many subpar sequels arise from The Amityville Horror's beloved legacy, no movie based on those horrific 1975 incidents will match the authenticity and effortless unease of director Eric Walter's intimate documentary My Amityville Horror. Why? Because it's all told through the words and memories of one of the people who lived through the nightmare.

That person is Daniel Lutz, stepson of George Lutz, the man (played by James Brolin in the 1979 film) who claimed to have been possessed by demonic forces while living in the supposedly haunted Long Island home.

Based on early reviews, My Amityville Horror is powerfully dark, centering on a shattered, mentally tortured guy who's overwhelmed by resentment and uncompromising cynicism. Which, oddly enough, were the same emotions experienced by anyone who paid to see the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, starring a poorly miscast Ryan Reynolds. Hopefully, for his sake, Daniel Lutz has never seen that. He's been through enough already.

Director: Brandon Cronenberg
Stars: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell, Douglas Smith

Now that David Cronenberg has all but abandoned the icky body horror that he once mastered in films like The Brood, The Fly, and Videodrome, it's only right that the iconic filmmaker's own son carries on the tradition. With Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg's directorial debut, the heir to the throne has imagined a bizarre concept right out of his father's playbook.

Pushing our celebrity-obsessed culture to its sickest limits, Antiviral depicts a world where doctors inject willing patients with their favorite celebs' diseases, as a means to feeling that much closer to the stars. But when doc Syd March (X-Men: First Class actor Caleb Landry Jones) poisons himself with the illness of a starlet (Sarah Gadon) who suddenly dies, all kinds of freaky things begin happening to him, and that's where the quintessential Cronenbergian touches and imagery really kick into gear.

Director: Rodney Ascher

Any self-respecting horror movie fan would cite Stanley Kubrick's 1980 classic The Shining as one of their favorite films of all time. But how many people can claim to be so obsessed with the Stephen King adaptation that they can, with detailed evidence, prove The Shining's connections to the Apollo 11 moon landing? Or how about the hidden numerical codes in the film that link it to the Holocaust?

That's the level of intense fascination documentarian Rodney Ascher brilliantly captures in the excellent, engrossing, and truly unique Room 237, in which five Shining enthusiasts deliver voiceovers explaining their elaborate conspiracy theories backed by dissected film footage. Once it's over, Room 237 just might convince viewers that Kubrick was more concerned with the genocide of Native Americans than he was telling a frightening story.

Crackpot or not, the views expressed throughout Ascher's film are bewildering, insightful, and incredibly strange.

Directors: Kaare Andrews, Angela Bettis, Ernesto Diaz Espinosa, Jason Eisener, Bruno Forzani, Héléne Cattet, Adrián García Bogliano, Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, Jorge Michel Grau, Noboru Iguchi, Thomas Malling, Anders Morgenthaler, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisathanakun, Simon Rumley, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Nacho Vigalando, Jake West, Ti West, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, Yudai Yamaguchi

It doesn't get more gleefully sadistic than this. Made by 26 directors, each one assigned a different letter of the alphabet to use as inspiration for a four-minutes-or-less, demented short film about one kind of fatal demise, The ABC's of Death sounds like a short film program straight out of Hell. In other words, it's tailor-made for Fantastic Fest, and promises to be a depraved, sickening blast of morbid curiosities.

And you can't be mad at the filmmakers who've taken part in the project, a who's who of international genre craftsmanship including Canada's Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), England's Simon Rumley (Red, White & Blue), fellow Brit Ben Wheatley (Kill List), America's Ti West (The Innkeepers), and Mexico's Jorge Michel Grau (We are What We Are). Said to feature flat-lines triggered by everything from Bigfoot to Nazis and even a toilet, The ABC's of Death will show no shame whatsoever. Thank the cinematic gods for that.