Monday, August 10, 2015

Fantasia 2015: Borning and A Christmas Horror Story Mini Reviews

Emilie Noetzel jumps back into the Fantasia International Film Festival 2015 coverage with a report of her Day 3 adventures.

Day 3 started early.... really.. really early. My mom was scheduled to come and get me at 9am so we could go walk around other cities and I could take photos. My brother was our driver for the day... fun was had by all. I will skip on the family time details as they are not part of the team here and may not wish to have their lives up for reading.




Once back in town, after a quick stop by the grandparents', I inhaled some dinner and headed to my first movie of the night...

Borning:
My first movie at 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival on day 3 was Borning, which did not have special guests but was definitely worth it. It follows a man named Roy who has been racing cars for his whole life, sometimes even doing jail time for this. As a mature man, his daughter is dropped off to stay with him when her mom and mom's new family go to Spain. The daughter wants to spend time with her dad, but he is too busy with an upcoming race. Once he loses the race, another racer he's known his whole life teases him and they challenge each other to race across Norway, end to end. The daughter sneaks into another car and eventually climbs into Roy's passenger seat/ The two bond while crossing the country at high speeds.
Borning is a great time. While the characters bond, we bond with them as the film makers weave a tight web of charisma you'll quickly get caught up in. Acting performances are actually very strong across the board, from leads to supporting roles. The cars are gorgeous, the action breath taking at times, and the humor is right on point. It's a must see for car chase lovers!

A Christmas Horror Story:
For the second movie of my night, I got to go freeze my behind off in the smaller screening room which, for some reason, is always North Pole cold. This turned out to be perfect for A Christmas Horror Story, as it was not hard to feel like you were in the movie as your toes are slowly turning blue. The movie is an anthology where all the stories intertwine as opposed to each being stand alone tales, which works to the movie's benefit. The stories are all Christmas related (naturally) with the highlights involving the Krampus and Santa (respectively), which eventually cross over when both meet for a showdown. All the proceedings, except for the North Pole scenes, are set in Bailey Downs, the town made famous in "Ginger Snaps", with events connected via radio host "Wiked" William Shatner, giving the best performance I've seen him deliver in quite some time.
I will not give away anything else about the stories involved here as I do think it is best to go in as unknowing as you can. All I'll say is that all of the stories are remarkably effective and a couple were even better than expected. I had high hopes for the great team involved in this project and they delivered.








My night at Fantasia ended with taking photos of the cast and crew for A Christmas Horror Story and the Krampus head they brought along for the ride, then heading off to the Irish Embassy, the official post Fantasia hang out of the last few years. There I had tons of fun with cool peeps who will remain nameless, as our conversations veered into the odd, unusual, and inappropriate... so basically the best late night conversations possible.

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