The Fantasy Filmfest Nights will take place in April this year as a four-day event in seven German cities. You can already buy season tickets for the festival here – for these dates:
- April 20 to 23 in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart
- April 27 to 30 in Frankfurt
Today we can already tell you the first five titles for the 2023 line-up – and they really turn out:
The Best Horror Movie of 2023 So Far: “Talk To Me”
When YouTube influencers make a horror movie, there are good reasons to flee immediately. But not so with Australians Danny and Michael Philippou, who with “Talk To Me” delivered no less than the best horror film of 2023 so far, which was celebrated at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlinale a few weeks later. Just a simple demon horror on paper, in which teenagers with a cursed hand make contact with the dead as a kind of parlor game, “Talk To Me” is It’s so incredibly intense mainly because it takes no prisoners, either emotionally or in terms of depicting violence – that really hurts to watch in the best sense of the word!
Sadly, there’s still no trailer for “Talk To Me” – but you can find our detailed 4.5-star review of the film here.
Nazi Battle Plate: “Sisu”
The Finnish contribution “Sisu” is already on its way titled “hard force grenade” to Germany: In the closing days of World War II, lonely prospector Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) faces off against the Nazis in Northern Finland, who are stealing his precious metal. Like John Wick and his dog, there’s nothing in “Sisu” that can come between Aatami and his gold without being brutally mowed down…
Retro Superheroes: “Smoking Causes Coughing”
In the new wacky movie from the master of surrealism Quentin Dupieux (“A Fly Rarely Comes Alone”), members of the Power Rangers-like Tabac Force must fight an oversized (rubber) turtle on the beach. However, they work so badly together that they are sentenced to a team building retreat by their green, slime-slobbering rat boss (= the Turtles-Sensei Splinter, but much more sexually violent)…
We’ve already seen “Smoking Causes Caughing” at its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and write in the conclusion of the movie’s official FILMSTARTS review: “As angry as bloody episodic comedy with a superhero twist, with which Quentin Dupieux seamlessly continues his earlier genre grotesques such as ‘Rubber’ and ‘Monsieur Killerstyle’.”
Opening Movie: “Evil Dead Rise”
Last week it was already announced that the latest part of the series “Evil Dead” will open the Fantasy Filmfest Nights. “Evil Dead Rise” had its world premiere at the South By Southwest Festival a few days ago – and was there Not only classified as the nastiest and most brutal installment of the franchise to date, but has also garnered phenomenally good reviews (currently: 95 percent positive vote on Rotten Tomatoes).
When Beth (Lily Sullivan) visits her older sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) in LA, she not only finds her three neglected children, but also a strange book hidden in the walls of the building. Since we are dealing with an “Evil Dead” movie here, it is of course about the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis or, to put it in an understandable way for mere mortals: the Book of the Dead!
World Premiere: “Blood & Gold”
It was also already known that the German adventure film “Blood & Gold” will have its world premiere at the Fantasy Filmfest Night: With his vampire-in-a-plane carnage “Blood Red Sky”, director Peter Thorwarth has created one of the most successful international Netflix films. productions ever delivered – and so it’s no wonder he’s now shot his next movie back for the streaming service.
As in “Sisu”, “Blood & Gold” is also about Nazis and precious metals – only here the adventurous aspect is apparently more important than the degree of violence: A German deserter, fleeing the front lines, involuntarily joins a small SS force in search of a mysterious Jewish treasure of gold…