 Don't be fooled by the marketing campaign that promises a fun and whimsical vampire film with a mix of action and adventure thrown in because, frankly, that's not the Vampire's Assistant. The Vampire's Assistant tells the frightening tale of a boy named Darren who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Pulled into a fantastic life of misunderstood sideshow freaks and grotesque creatures of the night, Darren must choose a side and rise up to be the vampire he was foretold to be. Unfortunately, by the time Darren does rise up, it's only in time to set up the hopeful sequel, and not even the super celebrity cast of John C. Reily, Orlando Jones, Salma Hayek, Ken Watanabe, Ray Stevenson, and Willem Dafoe can save this thing. More after the jump... Fantastic Fest Review: Bronson 10/12/2009
 When the culture of celebrity is discussed today, images of vapid blondes carrying dogs in their purses and “forgetting” their panties as they migrate from their Lamborghini to the paparazzi line is inevitable. But in 1974 a young Englishman named Michael Peterson wanted to be famous more than anything. The problem is he couldn't sing, dance or act. Actually, he wasn't particularly talented at anything. So, he decided that fame would come to him if he didn't respect any societal conventions and lived without fear of pain or retribution. Naturally, Michael Peterson became the most violent person in English history. Read more after the jump! Fantastic Fest Review: Metropia 10/12/2009
 Disclosure: I'm over the dystopian future being juiced dry by the massive global bad guy/corporation storyline. Not that there is anything wrong with the concept, and perhaps it is more prophesy than fiction. But unless you can do it better than Robocop, I would rather just wait for my robot/alien/corporate overlord in peace while watching a movie about a college road trip gone wacky. But to its credit, Metropia, does bring something new--at least visually, and, in this case, that might be enough. Read more after the jump!  "Auteur" is a big word that gets thrown around a lot and is quickly turning cliché. But the word literally means "author" and is meant to categorize certain filmmakers whose style is so manifested on screen that it points as much to the director as it does to the story that's being told. Terry Gilliam can easily be called an auteur, and the signature, fantastical Gilliam point of view is as evident in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as ever. More after the jump... Fantastic Fest Review: Rampage 10/07/2009
 Uwe Boll is quite the prolific director. He has made several video game adaptations, as well as shot some original visions of his own. He writes, he produces, he directs, and no matter how gigantic the failures of his productions (both critically and commercially), he always has another movie coming out. For a guy who's made 18 movies now, none of which have broeken $10 mil at the domestic box office or even garner more than a 10% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, it is astounding. But as they say, every dog has his day, and today is Uwe Boll's day. Rampage is the director's latest effort that tells the story of Bill, a mild mannered suburban-dwelling twentysomething who works at a mechanic shop and lives with his parents. Bill goes about his life like most of us, dealing with everyday struggles and frustrations--from the guy who can't make our coffee right to having to go out on our own and make it in the world. Only difference is, where you or I would sink or swim in the world, Bill decides to create and bulletproof steel suit of armor and go on a killing spree across his town, murdering indiscriminately. Sounds like a blast right? more after the jump... Fantastic Fest Review: Antichrist 10/07/2009
 The film opens on a tight shot of a shoulder in a shower in high speed slow motion, cut to: an intimate embrace between two lovers, cut to: close ups of various body parts that are difficult to distinguish, cut to: graphic money shot of Willem Dafoe's penis sliding into Charlotte Gainsbourg's vagina. Somebody read that opening and actually thought, "I'm going to finance this film." Amongst the chaos of the extremely long, ultra slow motion 10 minute opening of Lars von Trier's Antichrist we see an intercutting of the couple's young son exiting his room and leaping to his demise from a second story window while his parents are in the throes of passion. The result of this child neglect leaves us with the child's hospitalized grief-stricken mother (Gainsbourg) and her detached therapist of a husband (Dafoe). The husband decides to take his wife to their cabin in the woods and treat her to deal with the grief in each stage. Along the way, we will see clitorides (that's plural for clitoris, folks) being cut, penises ejaculating blood, talking foxes, and a whole lot of pretentious, self indulgent BS. Fantastic Fest Review: Zombieland 10/01/2009
 A plague has swept the world over, and people have turned into zombies--everyone, that is, except a select few who have somehow managed to find a way to survive living by their own rules for keeping alive. We start on a young man named Columbus (after where he is from, people are identified by locations so no one gets too attached) who is on his way back home from Austin (represent!) to see if his parents are still alive. Along the way he fights some zombies and happens upon a bad ass, take no prisoners, Twinkie hunter named Tallahassee (guess where he's from?). Together the two set out for Ohio until they happen upon two con girls who steal their car and weapons. It's no-holds-barred when you're living in Zombieland. MORE after the jump... | Archives
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