Fantastic Fest 2022 reviews: Satanic Hispanics, Everyone Will Burn, A Life on the Farm

Austin’s beloved genre film festival Fantastic Fest is back this year, with a robust in-person lineup at the Alamo Drafthouse and a selection of titles available via the Fantastic Fest at Home option.

Read on for reviews of three films playing at the festival; the “Latino AF” horror anthology Satanic Hispanics, the Spanish supernatural thriller Everyone Will Burn, and the hilarious (if quietly devastating) documentary A Life on the Farm.

Fantastic Fest runs in person from September 22-29, and from September 29  through October 4 online. Tickets and the complete schedule are available via the official Fantastic Fest site.

Satanic Hispanics – Fantastic Fest Review

Horror anthologies have a pretty weak track record, which is a shame given that when they’re done right, they’re a perfect vehicle for horror. Thankfully, Satanic Hispanics delivers the goods. A horror anthology featuring “5 stories from 5 Latino AF Directors” (according to the amazing poster), the segments here run the gamut from a vampire comedy to a gory Evil Dead-style homage.

The segments are tied together by a narrative structure featuring a mysterious character known as The Traveler (Efren Ramirez, Napolean Dynamite), the lone survivor of a recent massacre. While in an interrogation room with two befuddled cops, he begins to tell wild tales from his inconceivably long life, which we see as a series of stylistically and tonally diverse horror shorts.

Directors Mike Mendez, Demian Rugna, Eduardo Sánchez, Gigi Saul Guerrero, and Alejandro Brugues each bring a unique vision to their installments, which hang together remarkably well. The whole film has a knowing wink about using a series of horror clichés but turning them on their heads, and the end result is a seriously fun (and bloody) good time. With just the right mix of comedy and eye-covering violence, Satanic Hispanics is one of the best horror anthologies in years.

Everyone Will Burn – Fantastic Fest Review

Small-town superstitions and dark secrets lie at the heart of David Hebrero’s Everyone Will Burn (Y Todos Arderan), a riveting Spanish supernatural thriller making its North American debut at Fantastic Fest.

María José (Macarena Gómez, 30 Coins) is a heartbroken mother haunted by the death of her child when she encounters a strange young girl named Lucía (Sofía García) and brings her home with her. María José tells the members of the small town that Lucía is a relative, but the villagers soon come to believe the arrival of the child is tied to a legend about the end of the world. That suspicion leads to a series of mysterious deaths as Lucía tries to implant herself in her new life, while María José begins to grapple with the chaos she has unwillingly brought to her town.

With a strong visual flair and a pair of absorbing lead performances at its center, Everyone Will Burn is a memorable and unsettling supernatural thriller about small-town group-think and the darkest secrets we try to bury at all costs.

A Life on the Farm – Fantastic Fest Review

A Life on the Farm is simultaneously one of the most life-affirming and quietly devastating films of the year. Oscar Harding’s moving documentary follows the story behind a mysterious VHS tape that made the rounds in the underground found footage world. Created by full-time farmer and aspiring filmmaker Charles Carson (and one-time neighbour of the film’s director), the strange tape features Carson’s direct-to-camera stories about life on his UK farm, including slapstick sequences involving tractor-riding skeletons.

While there are plenty of moments of absurd comedy in the tape, there are also tragic sequences involving the deceased bodies of Carson’s parents, who remain characters in his film even after they’ve passed away.

What starts off as a story of a quirky elderly man and his strange home videos turns into an unexpectedly profound exploration of how we treat death and the power of creativity. We may start by laughing at Carson’s goofy narration and his countless dad jokes, but it’s impossible to come away from this remarkable documentary without a sincere admiration for a man who truly lived life on his own terms.

Fantastic Fest runs in person from September 22-29, and from September 29  through October 4 online. Tickets and the complete schedule are available via the official Fantastic Fest site.