Managed to catch two more movies at Fantasia before having to flee back across provincial borders back to the Ontario homeland. As I said, would have loved to have seen a few dozen more, but the schedule simply did not permit it this time around. Flipping through the giant program schedule magazine, pretty much everything listed is something I wanna see. Getting to see four festival movies is better than none though.

On Friday watched a documentary titled My Amityville Horror, a real life account of one of the survivor's of the event that inspired the fictionalized Amityville Horror in 1979 and it's many sequels, spin-off's and rip off's. Despite it's interesting and controversial inspiration, this doc kind of fell flat for me. There were no big twists or shocking revelations unearthed by the filmmakers. It didn't end with proof that ghosts exist, or oppositely that it was all a big scam of a hoax. Hence, by the time the credits roll, I was left with a feeling that even though far from an expert on the subject at hand, I knew all of the stuff in there already.

When that one was over, we ran across the street for Doomsday Book, a sci-fi / horror anthology from South Korea. Chapter 1 was a mad cow disease zombie tale titled The New Generation. Chapter 3 was a bizarre end of the world epic involving unseen aliens and an incoming asteroid sized Magic 8 Ball titled Happy Birthday.

The stand-out from the two hour three part anthology was the middle chapter, Heaven's Creation. It's a haunting sci-fi commentary on capitalism vs Buddhism, featuring one of the most impressive robots I've seen in a movie in an age. I kept second guessing myself as to whether it was a practical effect of cg...I think it might have been both.

The best part about Doomsday Book, and other such anthologies that I've seen in the past at Fantasia, is the seeming randomness to them. One could argue that there was a doom quotient involved in all three of these chapters, but really they seemed all over the map stylistically. Especially the middle chapter which was slow and intense and thought provoking, compared to the rather insane somewhat goofyness of the bookending chapters.

If you get a chance to attend Fantasia, do not hesitate. If you are a movie fan, and who isn't, you don't even have to look at the schedule. Just show up and you'll more than likely luck out and see something rare and original and likely relatively insane.