Fantasia Festival: Second wave of announcements for virtual edition

In-person film festivals may be delayed until 2021, but Fantasia soldiers on with the second wave of exciting title announcements for its virtual edition.

The Fantasia Festival recently delighted genre fans with the first-wave titles for its upcoming virtual edition. Now, the second wave of films has been announced, holding even more exciting offerings in store for horror fans up North.

Fantasia, always ground zero for new and intriguing genre fare, continues this tradition with these second-wave announcements, which run the gamut from horror and sci-fi, and all points in between. Here are some offerings that seem too good to pass up.

Writer-director Bryan Bertino, who gave us The Strangers and The Monster, returns with The Dark and the Wicked, which the press release summarizes as:

"“On a secluded farm…a man is slowly dying. His family gathers to mourn, and soon a darkness grows, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over the household.“"

Bertino has proven adept at stretching simple conceits, limited locations, and minimal casts to suspenseful effect. The Strangers and The Monster established the real-world conflicts of their flawed characters before introducing outside adversaries, and The Dark and the Wicked seems in a similar mold, using the timeless fear of mortality as a catalyst for something malevolent to take hold.

For those looking for a bit of satire and social commentary in their horror, Dutch filmmaker Ivo van Aart offers up The Columnist.

"“Columnist and author Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) is endlessly taunted with abusive posts and death threats via social media. Becoming obsessed by these hateful messages…she spends every moment checking her Twitter feed… until one day, she steps back from her keyboard to take brutal, in-the-flesh action.“"

Other films have danced around the issue of online abuse, and how the anonymity of the Internet has given rise to individuals who view it as open season on whomever they see fit. I’ve been on Twitter since 2011, and to use that platform is to bear witness to trolling comments,  manufactured controversies, and cavalier attitudes toward dismissing people. Based on the premise alone, I think many will find catharsis with The Columnist, which sounds like a dark-comic Ms. 45 for the social-media age.

But if neither of those appeal, there is a fine roster of diverse cinema for those who like to get their horror on. Below is a partial list of highlights.

• Alone (John Hyams)
• The Block Island Sound (Kevin and Matthew McManus)
• Me and Me (Jung Jin-young)
• Detention (John Hsu)
• Slaxx (Elza Kephart)
• For the Sake of Vicious (Gabriel Carrer and Reese Eveneshen)
• La Dosis (Martin Kraut)
• Beauty Water (Cho Kyung-hun)

The full list of second-wave titles can be found here.

What films are you looking forward to seeing at Fantasia Festival? Let us know in the comments.