Fantasia 2026: 'Matapanki' Movie Review

We’ve all had too much to drink and thought we had super powers, right? What Chilean writer/director Diego “Mapache” Fuentes supposes is: what if those powers were real? The resulting film is Matapanki, a frenetic blast of gritty punk vibes and chaos overflowing with hardscrabble energy and breakneck pace. This is not for everyone, or even most people, but hot damn is this ever a movie for me.

Fantasia 2026: 'Our Effed Up World' Movie Review

At this point, it wouldn’t feel like Fantasia without an offering from Alice Maio Mackay. The prolific Australian filmmaker has dropped vampires, ancient parasites, cult murders, and even a Christmas movie, among others delightful genre goodies. She’s back once again with the world premiere of Our Effed Up World, tackling a neon-soaked ‘80s throwback sci-fi horror with her roguish, lo-fi, deep-baked queer sensibilities, and the result is a damn fine time.

Fantasia 2026: 'Attack On Paradise' Movie Review

“This is really bad timing, babe.” For Suleyman (Said Boumazoughe), the protagonist of Bob Colares's new action-thriller, Attack on Paradise, this is easily the understatement of a lifetime, considering he’s about to embark on a day that plays out like a mix of The Raid and Walking Tall. 

Fantasia 2026: 15 Movies To See

Every year I scale back a little more and a little more on reviews and movie coverage. At this point, I barely cover wide, mainstream releases, and I’ve scaled film festival coverage down to a bare minimum. But like clockwork, when this time of year rolls around, I can’t escape the allure of Fantasia. 

'Man Of War' (2026) Movie Review

In writer/director William Kaufman’s new action film, Man of War, we meet our protagonist, Connor (LaMonica Garret), an elite spec-ops veteran, like we always meet this character in movies. He’s shirtless, so we can see both his muscles and his scars from a lifetime of combat, drinking straight from a bottle of booze, staring at a photo of a lost or distant loved one, a loaded gun on the table in front of him. He’s a man lost, adrift, uncertain of how to live in a world beyond the bounds of warfare. 

'Kraken' (2026) Movie Review

A remote Norwegian fjord. A legacy of strange occurrences. Disappearing tourists. Environmental degradation. A corrupt business using questionable technology with unexpected side effects. All of this adds up to a big old mess in director Pal Oie’s new creature feature, Kraken, with mixed results. On one hand, it can be a thrilling adventure about human meddling waking up an unforeseen natural threat from the chilly depths of the ocean. On the other, it’s awash in cliches and a slow burn to the point where the fuse almost goes entirely out.

'Chum' (2026) Movie Review

I’m almost always game for a cheapo, nature-gone-wild movie, especially one involving sharks. This year has already seen a wild amount of animal-attack films. In the first six months we’ve had Primate, Thrash, Deep Water, Killer Whale, and just this week the hippo-rampage adventure Hungry. I feel like I’m even forgetting a few, but you get the point. And there are at least a handful more still scheduled to release in 2026. All of this brings us to Chum, which is dire, nonsensical, and borderline competent.

'Hungry' (2026) Movie Review

When we think about hippos, a lot of us think of them as big, cute, cuddly goofs. They make excellent stuffed animals for a reason, after all. The reality, however, is they are actually ornery, territorial, startlingly fast on land and in water, and dangerous as all hell. There is no shortage of terrifying hippo videos on the internet; they are straight up scary. And now they are getting their due in the fun new hippos-on-a-rampage movie, Hungry. 

'Speed Demon' (2026) Movie Review

Let’s be honest, you know what you’re getting into when you put on a movie called Speed Demon, about a hot nun performing an exorcism on a high-speed train. And director Jon Keeyes and writer Domenico Salvaggio deliver exactly what is advertised in what is mostly a dull thud of a film.

SIFF 2026: 'Lady' Movie Review

When a young documentarian, Sam (Laurie Kynaston) takes a paid gig to shoot a portrait of the obscure noble Lady Isabella (Sian Clifford, Fleabag), what initially appears to be a vanity project for an entitled aristocrat quickly morphs into something much, much stranger and more off the wall. The mockumentary format is a hit-and-miss affair, for me at least, but Samuel Abrahams’s Lady makes excellent use of this stylistic approach and delivers something both hilarious and truly unusual, all anchored by an incredible, unhinged performance from Clifford. Think Absolutely Fabulous meets Grey Gardens by way of the Invisible Man.

SIFF 2026: 'Fifteen' Movie Review

As we all know, growing up is a horror show with no equal. Such is the case for BFFs Ligia (Greta Marti) and Mayte (Macarena Oz). Outcasts, the poor kids at their hoity-toity private school, they’re bullied and mocked and picked on. All they want is to stage the perfect joint quinceanera and show up their priggish classmates, a plan that goes awry when Ligia’s ne’er-do-well boyfriend is bitten by a sewer monster and knocks her up. An unwanted teen pregnancy is tough enough, but in writer/director/brother duo Jack Zagha Kababie and Yossy Zagha’s Fifteen (Quince), it is much more monstrous than that. 

SIFF 2026: 'Again Again' Movie Review

So you’ve been stuck in a time loop, cursed to relive the same day over and over and over again for ten years. But one morning you wake up and it’s tomorrow. What now? Tons of films deal with what it’s like to be endlessly stuck in the same day, some funny, some horrific, but not many, if any, deal with the aftermath. What do you do when you can finally move on? How do you cope? What does that do to your mind and your heart? This is the core idea that drives Mia Moore and Heather Ballish’s feature Again Again.

SIFF 2026: WTF Nightmare Fuel Shorts

I don’t typically watch a lot of short films. While I respect the passion, effort, and craft, they tend to be more miss than hit for me. I recognize that’s a me problem, but it’s the truth. That said, the Seattle International Film Festival always has a robust shorts program, so I thought what the hell, why not check out the eight films in the WTF! Nightmare Fuel package. There is certainly some weird and wild things to behold.

SIFF 2026: 'Body Blow' Capsule Review

Imagine if Greg Araki or Alice Maio Mackay made Cruising and you have an idea of Dean Francis’s Body Blow. Lo-fi and neon-drenched, it follows a sex-addicted, non-masturbating cop (Tim Pocock) as he gets in too deep with a ruthless drag queen crime boss.

SIFF 2026: 'Marama' Movie Review

Set in 1859, Marama, the debut feature from writer/director Taratoa Stappard, follows Mary Stevens (Ariana Osborne), a young orphaned Māori woman. When she receives a mysterious letter claiming to have information about her parents, she travels around the globe to England, searching for answers to questions about her family and her ancestry. Upon her arrival, she becomes governess to a spooky young girl, the granddaughter of shipping magnate and benefactor Nathanial Cole (Toby Stephens). What begins as an unsettling feeling that all is not quite right quickly spirals into a fight for physical and spiritual survival.

'Fuze' (2025) Movie Review

A massive, unexploded bomb left over from World War II is discovered at a construction site in the middle of a busy London neighborhood. The authorities evacuate the area and call in a bomb disposal unit. A crew of thieves use this cover to stage a daring heist. So goes Fuze, the new thriller from director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water). What unfolds is a taut, fast-paced ticking-clock thriller full of twists and turns, with a few more twists and a handful of extra turns thrown in for good measure.

'Normal' (2025) Movie Review

Because it’s an action movie starring Bob Odenkirk as a seemingly regular guy pushed to extreme violence and was written by Derek Kolstad, Normal is going to get compared to 2021's Nobody, for good and ill. (Honestly, the similar title doesn’t help in that regard.) While there are definite parallels, Ben Wheatley’s new movie is more average-Joe-in-extraordinary-circumstances than it is secret-badass-hiding-in-plain-sight. Quite a bit of Normal is a total blast, but just as much, if not more, sags under curious, often baffling choices. It’s a weird, mixed bag of a film.

The BoneBat Comedy Of Horrors 2026 Lineup Is Here And As Wild As Ever

It’s springtime in Seattle, which means it’s either sunny and glorious outside or rainy as all hell. Either way, it’s the perfect time to spend a Saturday in a dark movie theater watching  horror movies. And let’s be honest, probably drinking. That’s right, the annual BoneBat Comedy of Horrors film festival is once again upon us.

'The Well' (2025) Movie Review

Working within specific, well-worn genre or subgenre frameworks can make it difficult to do something wholly new. How many rehashed slashers have we all sat through? But that doesn’t mean there aren’t worthwhile stories to tell. We still occasionally see exciting, fresh zombie tales, for instance. Post-apocalyptic movies are another example, illustrated nicely by The Well. Documentarian Hubert Davis (Black Ice), in his first narrative feature, uses these familiar trappings to tell a tense, brooding, slow-burn tale of life past the collapse of civilization.

'The Forbidden City' (2025) Movie Review

Gabriele Mainetti’s The Forbidden City is a strange movie. It presents as a throwback martial arts actioner about a Chinese woman, Mei (badass stunt performer Yaxi Liu), single-mindedly battling her way through Rome’s criminal underworld in search of her missing sister. And it is that. The Italian picture comes out swinging and plays like a kung-fu movie greatest hits collection: Mei fights her way up many flights of stairs; there’s a kitchen fight, complete with using pots and pans as improvised weapons, boiling oil, and flaming stovetops; and even a red-light brothel fight. This all happens in the first few minutes. From there, it’s an odd assemblage of a face-pummeling action movie, gangster saga, melodramatic rom-com, operatic tragedy, and more. It’s an unexpected mixture and doesn’t seem like it should work, but it does, combining into something singular and unique.