Fantastic fest breaks the rules

Festival kicked off last Thursday in Austin

By PETER DEBRUGE

Fantastic Fest director Tim League practices target shooting at a fest- sponsored event.

'Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle' helmer Takanori Tsujimoto used a flamethrower to cook meat onstage after the film screened.

These days, it's standard practice in the fest world for programmers to get up before a screening and offer a glowing introduction, but only Fantastic Fest director Tim League would strip down to a sumo diaper and run through the auditorium with cult Japanese director Noboru Iguchi as the credits are rolling on the world premiere of "Robo-Geisha."

Most festivals wouldn't have anything to do with a film like that, but the Fantastic Fest, which kicked off last Thursday in Austin, Texas, is rooted in the idea that horror, sci-fi and gonzo exploitation films deserve a spot alongside the most high-minded cinema.

No wonder League and his co-founders (including Ain't It Cool News honcho Harry Knowles) have forged such strong ties to the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson and Simon Pegg over the years.

The fest, which runs through Thursday, is a cross between Comic-Con and Telluride -- an eight-day geek retreat that is unique in the U.S., which lags behind Europe and the rest of the world in organizing festivals devoted to genre cinema.

Five years ago, director Tim McCanlies approached League and Knowles about doing a fest in the vein of Spain's popular Sitges fest in Austin, and now, the event is the largest of its kind in the U.S.

In that time, Fantastic Fest has developed a reputation for unveiling high-profile sneaks and throwing killer parties. With the exception of the big Hollywood galas, which take place at Austin's historic Paramount movie palace, all films screen at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a unique dinner-and-a-movie establishment known for high-concept tie-ins and special programming year-round.

This year's lineup features 70 films from 26 countries, including world premieres of fanboy-friendly studio pics "Gentlemen Broncos," "Zombieland" and "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant," as well as surprise sneaks of Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and "The Men Who Stare at Goats" (which clearly broadens the fest's range beyond genre fare).

"Any film that makes either of us say 'fantastic' can also be in the festival," explained Knowles, who insists he was all set to debut Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" this year until Paramount moved the release date. Studio reps say it isn't so, although two years ago, Par was the last to know Paul Thomas Anderson had decided to world premiere "There Will Be Blood" at the fest. The year before, Mel Gibson personally shared a work-in-progress print of "Apocalypto" with the die-hard crowd several months early.

While the Fantastic Fest programmers sometimes call on such well-placed friends, League looks at the event as an opportunity to champion lesser-known helmers, selecting at least eight emerging directors for its Next Wave lineup, then giving them the full Texas treatment.

"We show them the town, we take them over to (Robert Rodriguez's) Troublemaker Studios, and we spend a leisurely afternoon doing Texas things -- drinking beer, eating barbecue and shooting shotguns," said League, a card-carrying NRA member.

On Friday afternoon and again on Monday, at a skeet range outside town, the directors of some of the year's most violent films learn just how hard it is to hit a moving target.

For certain genre releases, studios are eager to align themselves with the fest. Par ran sneak previews of "Paranormal Activity" around the country last Thursday under the Fantastic Fest banner, and Knowles coordinated similar screenings for "District 9" a month earlier.

However, just as gauging Comic-Con crowds can be misleading, an enthusiastic reception at Fantastic Fest is a questionable barometer of popular success. If anything, the event reflects the geek fringe (the crowd raucously embraced controversial director Uwe Boll's killing-spree pic "Rampage" on Sunday night, for example), though positive word of mouth could help films such as Ti West's "The House of the Devil," one of the fest's more popular titles.