Pull on your good lounging pants, hang that lanyard around your neck, and get yourself a latte, because I was lucky enough to go to this year’s Fantastic Fest with my (remote) press credentials and I am taking you with me. Well, I am taking you with me in the sense that I’m telling you about six movies I saw at Fantastic Fest! I still have one more longer review to write and possibly one more film to see, if my sad, squeezed out brain can recover enough to think more thoughts. But the Cultural Gutter schedule and you, our beloved readers, will not be denied.

Asih: The Warrior (Indonesia, 2023) directed by Upi; co-written by Upi and Joko Anwar

While America’s first superhero was Superman, Japan had Golden Bat, and the Philippines had Darna, Indonesia’s first superhero was Sri Asih, created in 1954 to stand up for the downtrodden and protect the people—with a strong traditional Indonesian storytelling flavor—by R. A. Kosasih in 1953. The Sri Asih comics were tremendously popular and Sri Asih had her first movie by 1954. (The film sadly appears lost). Starring Pevita Pearce as Alana, the woman who powers of the goddess Sri Asih, Upi’s updated Sri Asih: The Warrior is the second entry into exectuive producer and co-writer Joko Anwar’s BumiLangit Cinematic Universe of Indonesian comic book heroes. What Sri Asih—and Gundala before it—adds to the mix is good action. We are awash in superhero movies now. They make up most of the action movies in theaters and while the digital effects are state-of-the-art, the action is, well, often bland and repetitive. I prefer good fights and shaky effects to current state-of-the-art digital effects and listless action, because effects always age, but a good fight is a good fight forever. Sri Asih very much follows the forms of contemporary Hollywood franchises, particularly Kevin Feige’s MCU. It’s a little over 2 hours long. There’s an end credits scene hinting at a future team up with another superhero. It’s a part of a series of interlocking films that lead to a team up in a final film, in this case the project film, Patriot. And it explores a superhero origin story. But if you are in the mood for a superhero movie, Sri Asih is a good choice. It has good quality fights, a great hero who confronts corrupt cops and wealthy malefactors. It has punchable villains, and is a fun time.

Enter The Clones Of Bruce (USA, 2023) directed by David Gregory

After Bruce Lee’s death in 1973, the international appetite for Bruce Lee films didn’t wane and the Hong Kong film industry delivered more with films starring Bruce Lee imitators and films about Lee’s life and death. David Gregory’s documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce covers these Bruceploitation films, Lee’s global influence, and not only the Hong Kong film business, but the American, French and German grindhouse film business. The documentary‘s strength is in its interviews. Interviewers for Enter The Clones Of Bruce traveled to at least 5 countries to talk to actors, directors, distributors, film critics and journalists. As a sign of things to come, the documentary opens with an interview with Shaw Bros. Superstar, David Chiang. There are interviews with, among myriad others, Lo Meng; rarely interviewed (in English at least) directors Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai; martial arts superstar and New York restaurateur Angela Mao Ying; and even Sammo Hung Kam-Bo offers a few of his precious minutes.* There are also fascinating interviews with American, French and German distributors talking about the world of 1970s grindhouse cinema. But the heart of the documentary is in the interviews with some of the men who portrayed Bruce Lee: Ho Chung-Tao / Bruce Li; Moon Kyoung-seok / Dragon Lee; Huang Kin-Lung / Bruce Le; and Bruce Leung Siu-Lung. Each feels differently about their time as “Bruce.” Huang says frankly, “You can call me whatever you want as long as you pay me.” But Ho’s experience is sadder. He expresses a wish that he could have had a chance to have his own career as himself. Leung had a long career post-Brucesploitation and even some excellent films like Gallants (2010) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004) in his late career. In the present, Ho, Moon and Leung seem most content with their current lives. Huang has been more frustrated with his cinematic opportunities, leading to one of my favorite quotes from the film, “You couldn’t find a film professional because of the snakes everywhere.”

Enter The Clones of Bruce‘s only weakness is that it could have used more diverse film critics and journalists commenting outside of the interviews. I was happy to see film scholar Valerie Soe, but she was underutilized. I think she and Angela Mao were the only women interviewed in the film. And I can think of any number of Asian film critics, scholars, historians and academics who would have interesting contributions. I would have loved to see Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park, for instance, discussing Bruce Lee and his global appeal. But overall Enter The Clones Of Bruce is an excellent look at a unique phenomenon, a bittersweet salute to the Hong Kong film industry in particular, and a lovely look at a particular time in film history.

Fishmonger (USA, 2023) written and directed by Neil Ferron

Neil Ferron’s Fishmonger (USA / Ireland, 2023) has fun with folk and fairy tales. And it demonstrates a tremendous love of the gross. The film revels in the crude and the vulgar in its practical effect pustules, leeches, organs and unusual appendages as well as in its gloriously crude language. I think both Rick Baker and Samuel Beckett would be proud. It’s a dark comedic fairy tale with cinematography and blocking reminiscent of 1930s and 1940s Universal horror. And it might be my favorite film of this year’s Fantastic Fest–even though I was often grossed out. There are lovely and adorable miniatures. The trailer lets you know what you are in for, but not all of what you are in for, because there is a certain unexpected sweetness in Fishmonger: a celebration of brokenness, vulnerability and even love. Fishmonger is a darkly funny folk tale about a hapless and helpless fishmonger, Christie Mallaghan (Dominic Burgess), who faces a choice between marriage and suicide. His mother Kathleen (Mari Weiss) is dying. An angry seaman declares that he has “seen his share of honest Christian diarrhea” and that Kathleen has been stricken by the Bloat of St. Moira, an extremely gross malady with a similarly unpleasant cause. If Kathleen dies with an unmarried son, she will be consigned to the fires of Hell for eternity. His only hope to save his mother and himself is to convince a local fishmonster (Donnla Hughes) to grant him a wish—the hand of the island’s only single woman, Penny O’Brien (Penny O’Brien) in marriage. But the fishmonster isn’t doing that anymore. “The world of Christian men is too messy,” she tells him. “Everything gets weird.” And then everything does get messy and weird. Well, messier.

Fishmonger is part of a resurgence of interesting and fun black and white film, sea lore, old horror and folk tales. And Fishmonger accomplishes everything it sets out to do in less than 30 minutes without feeling either rushed or stretched out, which is remarkable. The film is a tribute to filth, in the John Waters sense. It reminds me of how I love many of the same things Guy Maddin loves, but I love them differently. In this case, I love many of the films, film conventions, styles and fairy tales that Fishmonger does, but I sometimes must cover my eyes. But this is in no way a criticism. I do not think Fishmonger would be better movie without the curdled bodily fluids, the spurting, the vomiting and the pulsating pustules.** I appreciate and respect Fishmonger‘s reveling in Filth. And it serves the film well. It underscores the tragic messiness of Christie, his life and his underlying vulnerability as he feels disgusting, useless and unlovable. I kind of love Fishmonger, even if I can’t always look at it.

River (Japan, 2023) directed by Junta Yamaguchi, written by Makoto Ueda

I’ve been thinking about what exactly it is that I like so much about Junta Yamaguchi’s River and Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Japan, 2020), Yamaguchi and Ueda’s previous science fiction time travel comedy. I like the humor and the creativity. I like the ideas and their execution. But there’s something else I have a hard time articulating. While both films have conceits that might be used in an episode of Black Mirror–people discover a monitor that sees two minutes into the future–or The Twilight Zone–people are caught in a two minute time loop–the background is not dystopian or misanthropic. It’s just a thing happening to people in their daily lives and most of the problems that arise and are solved are everyday problems between people. The characters reject being caught up in galactic level time travel narratives. It’s part of how the comedy works in both films, but it’s also refreshing. And it is especially refreshing in River, a quiet, even tender science fiction time travel comedy.

In River, a neighborhood in Kibune, a small resort town near a mountain shrine, is experiencing a two minute time loop. The employees and guests of the riverside inn Kibune Fujiya find themselves not so much repeating the same two minutes of their lives over and over, but returned to wherever they were two minutes before. Mikoto (Riko Fujitani) takes a break by the river. A writer struggles in his room with writer’s block. His publisher panics about deadlines. Two friends enjoy a hot pot lunch. And Taku (Yūki Torigoe), a chef trainee, takes a break in an unoccupied room. River does have some serious situations, including suicide, but all the problems are at a relatable, usually mundane level, even the cause of the time loop. The limitation the characters face is not only how much they can say or do in two minutes, but how far they can physically travel in two minutes. There is a lot of fun as the time loop happens in a service industry context, characters try to assemble to discuss the situation, and admit their own reasons for wanting time to stand still for a while. The time loop, while relentlessly reminding characters of time by repositioning them, also provides them with a liminal seemingly timeless space to figure their own desires out and, at least for the novelist, to play. It was nice to see Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes‘ Yoshifumi Sakai back and once more providing scientific exposition, this time as chef and science major Eiji. There aren’t many science fiction movies, let alone time travel movies, that offer a chill, relaxing and tender vibe, but River very much is. It’s a lovely, charming and funny follow-up to Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes. (Be warned that there is a suicide in the film, but everything works out okay).

The Wait / La Espera (Spain, 2023) written and directed by F. Javier Gutiérrez

The Wait / La Espera is a well-crafted Neo-Western/ folk horror-ish film that does not quite make it for me. And I really wish it did, because I love Westerns and folk horror. In early 1970s Spain, Eladio (Victor Clavijo) moves his family to rural Andalusia to take up a post managing the hunting on the estate of local rural gentleman, Don Francisco (Manuel Morón). There is tension between Eladio and his wife Marcia (Ruth Díaz), but most of it is unspoken. The film makes all the use it can of the desert setting. The golden landscape fills the screen as Eladio teaches his son Floren (Moisés Ruiz) to shoot a rifle. And we see the smaller details of the land, too, ants crawling on a tomato torn open by birds, clothespins littering the rocky ground, dire remains in a pot of beans. As in other Westerns shot in Spain, characters’ expressions fill the screen, landscapes of resentment, grief, innocence, or indifferent malignancy. The visual story telling is excellent and assured, but sometimes a film needs to tell as well as show and I needed The Wait to do some telling when the folk horror and rural witchcraft elements begin to crop up on Don Francisco’s estate and Eladio’s life and dreams.

For such a slow burn, and I love a slow burn, The Wait‘s ending feels rushed. It is not the final revelation of dreadful horror that a film this well-crafted deserves. And though I am willing to love a movie, especially a Western for its cinematography alone, I think The Wait suffers from not weaving in more folk horror elements sooner. As an aside, I wish The Wait had made more use of Don Francisco because Morón has such big Adolfo Celi energy. Both Marcia and Floren’s presence feel almost entirely symbolic—to spur Eladio to action–but Don Francisco, while still very much serving the narrative machinery of the film, transcended that role in the plot. None of this is to say that The Wait is a bad film. The acting is excellent. The cinematography and visual storytelling are fantastic. If you like Neo-Westerns, slow pacing that gives you time to appreciate everything on the screen, and actors acting their hearts out as tormented men, The Wait delivers all of that. It’s just that The Wait had such potential to be so much more.

So you know, there is a dog death, a child’s death and a suicide in The Wait. Unlike River, nothing is okay.

Visitors (The Complete Edition) written/directed by Kenichi Ugana

When you get right down to it, peering through milky demonic eyes, passing through the fountains of viscous green vomit, enduring the eye violence, and then running straight into the embrace of chainsaw-bladed arms, Kenichi Ugana’s Visitors (The Complete Edition) is at its heart a celebration of friendship, embracing differences, getting along, and the power of music. The film starts with three friends checking on a fourth–who looks amazingly like Joey Ramone–after he has been out of touch too long. And then there’s the possession or monsterification or who really knows precisely what people are transforming into or how, because the friends are in a band and are not Monster Scientists. And after that it’s all gibbering, vomit, splatter, maniacal laughter, gore, screaming, intestines, and chainsaws.** But that’s just where Visitors starts, not where Visitors ends.

Visitors runs just over an hour and is divided into three interconnected chapters, each focusing on a few people who are impacted by the spreading monsterification, but are not central to it. There’s no headquarters, no task force, no people walking briskly through halls or telling an elected official this is more important than their poll numbers. This is just people checking on a friend, or waking up to find themselves tied up shibari style in a bar or taking a road trip and making music during what might be the end of the world. And as we watch, the focus expands from the humans to include the monsters, who are also more than they seem. By the end, we see humans and monsters trying to live their lives in peace. This is, of course, once you get past the gleefully gross exterior, to the film’s tenderly gross heart. And there is a lot of grossness to get through—all reminiscent of both Sam Raimi’s horror and Troma Entertainment movies. Visitors presents a love of gore, kink, and punk fucking rock, with a sympathy for outsiders, weirdos and monsters. And I am a complete sucker for that. Not everyone wants to participate in the War of the Humans vs. The Monsters. Some people and monsters just want to hang out and dance. I know I do. So if you need me, I’ll be dancing with the monsters. I’m just not drinking that green vomit tea.

I received screeners of all theses films. These reviews appeared in slightly different forms at Monstrous Industry. You can see them here.

*Sammo is the best Bruce Lee impersonator.

**If you are sensitive to vomiting, be aware that there is Exorcist level vomiting in this and Kenichi Ugana’s Visitors (The Complete Edition), the film it precedes at Fantastic Fest screenings. The Ghost of William Friedkin hovers beneficently over this year’s Fantastic Fest.

~~~

Carol Borden has seen fishmonsters wooing Christian men off the coast of Connamarragagh and watched green vomit tea glitter in cups at sorta Joey Ramone’s house. All those moments have been preserved in time–like pixels on a screen…