The opening night party featured the return of festival favorites Itchy-O, a Denver-based group whose act can be imperfectly described as a combination of a second line parade, an occult ritual, and a heavy-metal drum circle. Itchy-O’s 57 members infiltrated the party in snaking lines, sneaking up behind festival-goers and crawling between their feet. Once they reached the Highball stage, the Satanic laser light show began. (I missed the other rowdiest event of opening weekend, the Fantastic Debates, where filmmakers face off in the boxing ring. But according to sources, the beer was still free, and the air conditioning actually worked this year.)
The crowds felt familiar, but the behind-the-scenes faces were new. Under new festival director Lisa Dreyer and Director of Programming Annick Mahnert, the Fantastic Fest programming team is three-quarters female, a sea change for a festival that was one of the first to face a #MeToo reckoning in the late 2010s. In a podcast recording for “Letterboxd,” programmer and restorationist Liz Purchell noted that the vibe at the festival was much less masculine than in years past—a welcome change I’d chalk up both to the programming team and the noticeable uptick in the number of female directors on this year’s schedule.
Fantastic Fest still covers your classic nerd bases: Gore-driven horror for dudes in black T-shirts (the abysmal “Terrifier 2”), the latest otaku must-see (the uplifting “Shin Ultraman”). It’s just doing so with a less aggressively male, alpha-nerd type of energy. And trust me, the men still came out in numbers. Things have changed at Fantastic Fest, but the line for the men’s bathroom is still longer than for the women’s.
The big events on opening weekend were the world premiere of “Smile,” which I’ve already covered for this site. Critical reception for the wide-release Paramount horror film was colder here than at subsequent press screenings: This crowd really knows, and cherishes, its horror. And considering that “Smile’s” biggest weakness is its similarities to other horror movies, that may have hurt it here more than elsewhere. Kevin Bacon, who’s no stranger to horror himself, and Kyra Sedgwick turned out to support their daughter Sosie Bacon, who stars in the film as a psychiatrist dogged by an unkillable entity that feeds on trauma. (That’s not a metaphor, which is itself an interesting variation on a theme.)