While most families are gearing up for vacations this time of year, painstakingly going through every detail about where they will eat, what sites to see, who they will visit (should they know anyone in the area), etc -  Mark and I aren’t planning out vacations for our respective families, but rather planning our viewing experiences for this year’s Fantasia Festival. Fantasia Festival is Canada’s premiere film festival for genre films, bringing forth talent from all over to show the world a glimpse at this glorious experience. Every year we eagerly anticipate the films in this festival’s lineup. We are excited to bring coverage again for this year’s festival, happening July 20th to August 9th, 2023. 

Mark and I are the hosts of our horror podcast, Abyss Gazing, and will be doing a podcast on some of these titles. Here are the films we are most excited about in this year’s lineup.

Josh:

Sympathy for the Devil

While I am the co-host of the horror podcast here at Victims and Villains, I am also the co-host of our Nicolas Cage podcast, That’s High Praise. At this point in my cinephile life, there isn’t anything with Cage that I won’t watch. Here is the only actor alive that I still actively keep up on and make sure that I’m in the theater for his movies as they are becoming available. The idea of him playing the Devil himself just has me taking a page out of Fry, from Futurama,’s book, and saying “take my money”. I have yet to see a movie with Joel Kinnaman that I haven’t liked. Even though the 2016 Suicide Squad wasn’t great, he was great in it. These two actors together have me giddy to see this film nonetheless.

Red Rooms

I feel like I have only started watching films with subtitles within the last few years. I’ve called myself a cinephile for a good portion of my life, yet I steered away from foreign film marketing until recently. I have been missing out on some truly great films. The more I dive into these movies the more I learn that I really love French cinema. Mix that with some true crime and I’m hooked. Red Rooms sounds like it has the potential to be a gripping true crime thriller that may or may not be based on a true story. I love biopics and I don’t know enough about foreign history. So whether it is true or not, sign me up please.

Suitable Flesh

This entry honestly feels on par with our content plans for the month of July. This July, Abyss Gazing is doing Lovecraft July, with podcasts discussing both new and old takes on works by the famous author and his contemporaries.  Now, we are on the verge of yet another Lovecraft adaptation. Joe Lynch’s latest film is said to be a love letter to Stuart Gordon, the director of Re-Animator, and we couldn’t be more excited to see what Lynch can do and what actress Heather Graham brings to this role.

Mark:

Vincent Must Die

I have always had an interest in the All v One movies. An “against the odds” movie, so to speak. I see that it is a multi genre film that has some decent hype coming into the festival. I am curious to see how well they blend the various genres they claim it falls into.

Restore Point

Being a fan of Minority Report, and Restore Point being compared to it, means this falls in my wheelhouse of SciFi. Add to that my fondness for foreign SciFi, Murder Mysteries, and Horror, and it checks 2 of the 3 boxes to be enjoyable for me. I’m really looking forward to it.The idea of being able to essentially be rebooted is fascinating and a cool concept for this style movie.

Late Night with the Devil

A concept I have seen in the past but it’s always interesting to see a new take on it. Evil unleashed on the unsuspecting masses via TV. I’m interested in seeing David Dastmalchian in a new role after seeing him in various films like The Belko Experiment, Dune, Antman, and others. He has come a long way since being a side character in The Dark Knight.

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