2022.09.12
Here you'll find some of the feature films that will participate this year at the Official Selection of the 33rd Horror & Fantasy Film Festival, that will take place between October 28 and November 4.
Life in Riverside becomes a nightmare for undocumented immigrants when a governmental order decrees their immediate arrest. Their only chance to escape and remain in the country lies in their children born in the USA, who will have to work in old people's homes in order to be reunited with their families. Juan Pablo, along with other youngsters of Latino origin, is sent to the Owl Cove centre, where they soon discover that things are not as they seem. A horror film inspired by immigrant detention centres, filmed in Spain by the Mexican brothers Diego and Julio Hallivis.
Royal Air Force pilot Kate Sinclair is shot down over Afghanistan. Pursued by enemy troops, she takes shelter in an apparently abandoned underground bunker, but is attacked by powerful, monstrous beings that have just awoken from a long slumber. A group of British soldiers rescue her and take her to their camp. But the creatures are still hungry. Neil Marshall returns to the realm of his early films, Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005), with this thrilling action and horror movie.
The young Heidi lives in the Alps, in a dystopic Switzerland which has for twenty years been governed by the dictatorial president and cheese manufacturer Meili (Casper Van Dien). Heidi lives a happy life, cut off from the situation in the country, with her grandfather and her boyfriend, Peter the goatherd, who sells his own cheese on the black market. One day he is found out and executed. Heidi must fight to free her country from the fascist yoke of the dictator and his cheese. A zany horror-tinged reinvention of the characters created by Johanna Spyri, popularised by the legendary 1970s Japanese TV series directed by Isao Takahata.
A cargo ship sets sail from Manila to Busan with 19 Korean prisoners on board. Following a previous failed extradition attempt by plane, during which a bomb was set off at the airport, the authorities have now decided to return the convicts to their homeland by sea. It is a 3-day crossing. On board are some of Korea's most dangerous criminals, watched over by 23 highly experienced police officers, headed by Captain Suk-woo. All is plain sailing for the first few hours, until… A thrilling and brutal example of the very finest Korean action cinema.
Veteran film-makers Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno (producer and scriptwriter), the directors of Shin Godzilla (2016), are behind this big-screen version of the legendary character Ultraman, who started out on TV in 1966. The continuous (and never explained) emergence of all manner of giant monsters known as the S-Class Species (Kaiju) in Japan has prompted the authorities to set up a special unit to combat them. During the new attack by one of these Kaiju, a previously unknown silver giant appears in the sky. One of the elite team's analysts writes in her report: “Ultraman (tentative), identity unknown”.
Following a pitched battle against a demonic turtle, five vigilantes known as "Tabac Force" are ordered to go on a spiritual retreat to strengthen their team spirit. All is going wonderfully in an idyllic setting, until Lézardin, Emperor of Evil, decides to annihilate Planet Earth. Quentin Dupieux –Deerskin (2019), Mandibles (2020)– continues to surpass himself with each new film.
Following the collapse of the Earth's ecosystem, 13-year-old Vespa cares for her sick father, surviving as best she can in a hostile and dangerous world. When one day she meets the mysterious young Camellia, dazed following an aeroplane accident, she sees for the first time in her life the possibility of a better future. In exchange for helping her find her fellow passenger from the plane, Camellia promises Vesper that she will take her to the Citadel, where society's upper classes live in comfort.
Manuel is forced to move in with his son Mario's family after his wife dies in a terrible event. Gradually, reality takes hold: something incomprehensible is happening to Manuel. The voices he says he can hear, the presences he claims to speak to. Mario's wife, Lena, wants to throw him out of the house: she is convinced that something dreadful could happen. Only their teenage daughter, Naia, takes his side, but even she begins to doubt as her grandfather becomes the increasingly perturbed focus for strange phenomena. In what is the hottest summer in history, a countdown has begun, and it is too late to stop it. Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez return to the Festival following the screening last year of La pasajera (2021).
Single mother Elaine watches on with concern as her son Martin begins to behave strangely as adolescence approaches. When he bites one of his classmates, Elaine decides to head off in search of answers to see his paternal grandparents, who have never seen the boy, and do not even know of his existence. Once at their mansion, she discovers the true nature of the family, and of her son. She will have to decide whether to accept it, or try to fight in an attempt to change Martin's future.