fantastic fest Archives - The Spool

Fantastic Fest 2023: Baby Assassins 2 Babies offers sublime action and glorious goofiness

Stuntwoman Saori Izawa anchors an often hysterical, occasionally pointed action comedy about surviving the soul-killing grind of modern work—whether mascotting or assassination. Yugo Sakamoto’s Baby Assassins 2 Babies is a glorious hat trick of a movie. It’s a reliably funny, sometimes downright hysterical character comedy. It’s a thrilling action film, proof that Kensue Sonomura (director ... Fantastic Fest 2023: Baby Assassins 2 Babies offers sublime action and glorious goofiness

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Fantastic Fest 2022: Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle is more microbudget bad-movie idiocy

James Nguyen hammers down the end of his bad-movie trilogy with a true stinker of birdemic proportions… and not in a fun way. (This review is part of our coverage of Fantastic Fest 2022.) With its stilted acting, incompetent screenplay and direction, and special effects that looked like someone puttering around with After Effects for ... Fantastic Fest 2022: Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle is more microbudget bad-movie idiocy

Iké Boys mixes its sentai charms with a heaping helping of sincerity

Eric McEver’s scrappy ode to tokusatsu and kaiju pictures wears its heart on its magically-armored sleeve. I’m a proud member of the Power Rangers Generation, growing up in that perfect ’90s-kids age where the teenagers with attitude absolutely dominated our TVs and playgrounds for a solid half a decade. I’ve got a great deal of ... Iké Boys mixes its sentai charms with a heaping helping of sincerity