Perhaps all anyone needs to know about Amer before they see it is a glimpse at the movie’s poster: a creepy hand reaches forward, out of a vertiginous spiral, grasping at the figure of a nude woman. This evocative fantasia doesn’t reveal much, but grabs attention. Sit down to watch the flick, by French-born, Belgium-based filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, and you’re hooked from the opening title sequence. There’s an intriguing bit of acoustic guitar, suddenly overwhelmedby the menacing gurgle of some weird 1960s Italian electronica that turns out …

Originally published at Green Cine Daily, whose hyperlinks are left intact here.
Most film festivals are just film festivals. Fantastic Fest is a different beast. The premier American outpost on the global “fantastic cinema” circuit of festivals—devoted to all things action, horror, sci-fi and cult—FF spurts forth like a bottomless fountain of arterial spray for a week every autumn. This mutant brainchild of gonzo exhibitor Tim League and Ain’t It Cool News geek guru Harry Knowles has evolved over the past five years into a singular cinematic freak magnet.
What other major …

Every year at the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic in Sitges, Spain, there’s one movie that generates instant notoriety. In previous years, gore-drenched European shockers like Inside and Martyrs have prompted more than gasps from audiences. People flee the theater, get sick to their stomachs, even require a trip to the emergency room. Or so goes the legend.
This year’s barf-bag classic was, hands-down, The Human Centipede. The warped brainchild of affable Dutch filmmaker Tom Six is equal parts The Breed-era Cronenberg, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Vanishing, and some …