A Night of Horror and Fantastic Planet Film Festivals

Overview

Steel your nerves and open your mind, for a double dose of cinematic madness. Returning Thursday, November 20 to the Dendy Cinemas in Newtown, two genre-centric film festivals are uniting with a single common cause.

As the name might suggest, the Fantastic Planet Film Festival is your launching pad to a world of fantasy and science fiction. Temporal thriller Time Lapse offers audiences a glimpse into the future, while sci-fi comedy Science Team is described in the program as resembling the love child of Wes Anderson and H.P. Lovecraft. The Future Frontiers stream features nine international short films, and should complement two galas worth of local productions quite nicely.

But there's nothing nice about A Night of Horror, Fantastic Planet's blood-soaked alter ego. Gun Woman demonstrates the extremes of Japanese cinema in all its gory glory, even as How To Save Us transports viewers to a demon-infested Tasmania. Fans of the Canadian filmmaking collective Astron 6 can spend an evening with two of its members, who'll also be on hand to introduce The Editor — their ludicrous Italian horror spoof that needs to be seen to be believed.

For the full Night of Horror and Fantastic Planet lineups, head on over here.