2026 marked the 21st edition of Fantastic Fest, a film festival that’s long been at the forefront of defining what a “genre movie” means for the North American market. Like everybody, the festival had a bit of a rebuilding period after COVID shut down festivities in 2020 and 2021. This year, however, Fantastic Fest really found its footing, with the strongest lineup of films in recent memory and a variety of well-run, inclusive events designed to cater to all types of fest-goers, from early risers to karaoke vampires. (Inverse’s Katie Rife had to leave before the GWAR show, which was very sad.)
Highlights included secret screenings Alpha Gang and In A Violent Nature 2, as well as Wild Horse Nine and a special screening of Primetime. Beyond the big-name titles, however, this year’s festival also included a number of excellent under-the-radar movies worth seeking out. Some of them are already scheduled for release, while others will be traveling the festival circuit for the foreseeable future. We’ve rounded up our five favorites below.
The Cycle
Based on his resume — the director first rose to fame with the slasher parody ThanksKilling in 2008 — you might not expect Jordan Downey to make a movie as deathly serious as The Cycle. But he’s done exactly that, and quite successfully so, with this grim and gruesome blend of serial-killer thriller and supernatural horror, the best straightforward horror movie to come out of this year’s Fantastic Fest. Deborah Ann Woll (Daredevil, True Blood) plays an especially clear-eyed version of the morbid savant common in TV procedurals, a forensic examiner in the grey and rainy Pacific Northwest who’s called in to consult on a bizarre case involving three corpses found at the same crime scene decomposing at dramatically different rates.
Where her investigation goes from there is truly surprising: If you think the setup is shocking, just wait for the conclusion. That’s all we can really say without ruining it, because this is one of those films where it’s best to go in blind. But if you’ve got a taste for graphic autopsy scenes and nightmarish creature effects, be sure to catch this one soon.
The Cycle hits Shudder on October 23.
Ghost in the Cell
Speaking of grotesque, Indonesian horror master Joko Anwar has come up with something completely unique — not just in his filmography, but in horror in general — with Ghost in the Cell. Where his 2017 remake of Satan’s Slaves found terror in the shadows, every one of the outrageously gory kills in his latest movie is brightly lit and takes place in full view, if not of the other characters, but of the audience. (Hannibal wishes it could be this creative.)
Anwar’s approach to the movie’s tone is similarly bold, mixing up slapstick comedy, political satire, heartfelt character work, dance numbers, and martial-arts inspired action, putting it in a bag, and shaking it up with wildly mobile camerawork and homoerotic sight gags. The audacity is jaw-dropping, and the giddy WTF-ery begins early and does not let up throughout. A cast of likable convicts further up the entertainment value, making this the most fun Indonesian horror-comedy set in a haunted prison you’ll see this year. And you won’t have to wait long.
Ghost in the Cell opens in select North American theaters this weekend.
Gimme Truth
Conspiracy theories and the people who believe in them are well-trod territory in the documentary world. But no one approaches the topic like Gimme Truth directors Brad Abrahams and Simon Ennis, whose open-hearted approach to their subjects allows them to go places and see things that most filmmakers don’t have access to. Of course, some conspiracy theorists are more dangerous than others. The five subjects profiled in Abrahams and Ennis’ new movie represent a full range of unorthodox belief systems, from harmless hippie “Starseeds” and a good old-fashioned alien crackpot to the more politically charged worlds of Qanon and COVID conspiracy theorists.
Combining revealing interviews with bonkers AI art (generated by the subjects, not the filmmakers) and fly-on-the-wall footage taken at fringe events like the Conscious Life Expo and the world premiere of Plandemic: The Musical, Gimme Truth maintains a distance from these colorful characters without mocking them. It’s more interested in figuring out how these people got to this point in their lives and where they might go from here, as with a former 9/11 truther profiled in the doc who now helps other people climb out of the conspiracy rabbit hole. Her story is gutting, not least because she now knows the beliefs that alienated from her friends and family were all lies. But it’s also hopeful, a rare quality in coverage of this increasingly (and distressingly) common phenomenon.
Following its premiere at Hot Docs and screenings at Fantastic Fest, Gimme Truth is scheduled to play at New/Next Festival in Baltimore on October 4.
Godmother
Godmother is another pleasant surprise out of this year’s Fantastic Fest from first-time feature director John Veron, who effectively sets up one kind of horror movie before pivoting into another. The basic setup involves a boring couple on vacation and the annoying party girl who insists on tagging along, creating one of those movie Rorschach tests where everyone thinks that a different character is being the a-hole here. It all seems to be leading up to a typical, if vicious, slasher movie shot at an Airbnb in Joshua Tree…until it doesn’t.
The film’s musings on gender and relationships take a wild and goopy turn in the second half, taking elements of Get Out, Rosemary’s Baby, Cocoon, and a half-dozen other influences and bathing them in bright red Dario Argento lighting. The bodily autonomy theme, which Veron credits to co-writer Alanah Pearce, is evident. But underneath there’s also some very relevant commentary here on how older generations suck the life out of younger ones for their own selfish benefit. We’ll leave it up to you to find out whether or not we mean that literally — hopefully sooner rather than later.
Godmother is currently looking for a distributor.
Pathetic Fallacy
Name a genre. Go ahead, any genre. Why? Because whatever it is, there are probably elements of it in Pathetic Fallacy. Starring Fantastic Fest favorite Jessica Rothe — who stars in three films from this year’s lineup — and Scott Mescudi, also known as Kid Cudi, Adam Egypt Mortimer’s third feature is a rollercoaster ride of storytelling and emotion, shifting between devastating drama to stylish and sexy musical numbers to bloody horror kills with surprising deftness and ease.
The operative word here is “psychedelic,” as Pathetic Fallacy sends Mescudi — a recent widower looking for meaning in the wake of his wife’s (Rothe) devastating death — through an acid-trip tunnel into a magical forest full of what the director calls “evil Disney” talking cartoon animals before the halfway mark of the story. The movie is transcendental in some less tangible ways as well, exploring not only the rawer aspects of grief but also mental illness, meditation, and the nature of consciousness itself. It’s a lot to put on Macudi, who stars here in his first major movie role. But he pulls it off, one of many miracles in this strange and wonderful genre-bender shot in gorgeous, tactile 35mm.
Pathetic Fallacy is still searching for distribution.
