ATTACK ON PARADISE

If the likes of The Raid and Dredd have proven anything, it’s that you can’t go wrong with setting your action flick practically in one location - especially one as enclosed as an apartment building. Director Bob Colaers and star / co-writer Saïd Boumazoughe look to put their own Belgian spin on that formula with Attack on Paradise, which follows a formerly incarcerated citizen who has to fight his way through his gang-infested flat block in order to save his ailing mother. It’s promised by Fantasia programmers to be “one of the most pulverizing action films in ages”, and I can’t wait to see how much it lives up to that sentence. - Bode

BUDDY

Buddy is seemingly your average children's program - think Barney & Friends – until Buddy (Keegan-Michael Key) shows his dark nature. There’s something about the seldom-used sub-genre of children’s television shows that turn evil that I always get a kick out of. Season One of Channel Zero is the prime example, but Mr. Crocket is a more recent example. The creepy teaser doesn’t give much away, but I’m very curious to see Key in a more nefarious role. If you can blend that with some of his Key & Peele-style comedy, his take on this twisted unicorn should be highly entertaining. Add to that a strong supporting cast featuring the likes of Cristin Milioti, Patton Oswalt, and Topher Grace, and I think this has every chance to be a sleeper horror hit of the festival. - Nick

DANCE FREAK

The spirit of Adult Swim is alive at Fantasia this year, as a handful of filmmakers who've honed their humorously surreal skills creating shorts for the network bring their feature film debuts to the festival. Wham City Comedy members Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff are one such example with Dance Freak, a black-and-white dark comedy that comes equipped with a wild premise (a literal dance freak - played by Rackleff - wreaking havoc throughout the city) and some serious alt-comedy star power, including the likes of Connor O’Malley (Friendship), Sarah Sherman (Saturday Night Live), and Stavros Halkias (Bugonia). I don’t know how Wham City’s formula translates to a larger canvas, but I do know that I’m intrigued to find out. - Bode

THE FOX

Jai Courtney speaking in an American accent and Jai Courtney speaking in his native Australian accent are two very different actors. Luckily, The Fox features the latter. When Courtney isn’t tasked with putting on an accent, he oozes charisma (see: Dangerous Animals) and can display an almost Nicolas Cage-style offbeat energy. Here, he gets to use that while playing off of realistic talking animals, and I expect him to have a blast doing so. That said, Courtney isn’t all that drew me to this film, as the title character is voiced by one of our top working actors, Olivia Colman. Having her bring her comedy chops to this role - not to mention what looks to be a scene-stealing performance from Sam Neill as The Magpie in one of his final films - should only enhance what I predict will be a very strange, yet hilarious, feature film. - Nick

RUBBERHEAD: THE LIFE & MONSTERS OF STEVE JOHNSON

Documentaries about industry figures can be hit-or-miss; they tend to become a little too sentimental and forgo actual exploration in favour of mythologizing the subject. But if the description of Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson is honest, then we have something truly special on our hands. Instead of a womb-to-tomb narrative, the documentary promises something of a rise and fall, showing off not just his creature work in films like Ghostbusters or Videodrome, but apparently, his self-destruction alongside studios' reliance on digital creature work. An entertaining documentary that sheds light on an aspect of the industry that deserves a parade? Sounds pretty enticing to me. - Adriano

THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER 

The goal of my Fantasia journey is exploration. I don’t know a lot of these filmmakers, and for the most part, I’m just seeing what vaguely interests me and giving it a shot. With that in mind, I see Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s new film, The Samurai and the Prisoner, in the lineup, and I must make an exception. Given that he’s the director of Cure, one of my all-time favourite films, and the fact that it premiered at Cannes to really solid reviews, that’s enough to get me excited. And then I find out it's a samurai mystery film? It seems like the possibility of this being bad is highly unlikely, and I can’t help but get excited for what Kurosawa has in store. - Adriano