This year’s gathering of fantasy, horror, and cult cinema was marked by recurring themes of rebellious pets, visceral shocks, and breathtaking action sequences. From the coast near Barcelona, the festival presented a diverse lineup where familiar tropes were reimagined with fresh intensity.
A surprising number of features unleashed ferocious dogs as central antagonists. One standout, a slow-burning Argentine drama set against early 2000s economic strife, builds toward a brutal climax involving a pack of wild canines. Elsewhere, a Chilean period piece reveals a family’s grim history intertwined with vicious hounds, while an investigation into a sibling’s disappearance leads a protagonist into an abandoned prison guarded by aggressive dogs. Perhaps the most symbolic use appeared in a Balearic Islands-set fable, where working-class youths are cornered in a swimming pool by menacing Belgian malinois, oblivious to the wealthy elites ignoring a nearby wildfire.
Not all canine portrayals were negative. One ghost story is told entirely from the perspective of a loyal retriever who senses a sinister presence in his new home that his ailing owner cannot perceive. The theme of pets turning dangerous extended beyond dogs. A clever French remake of a classic sci-fi tale features a miniature hero menaced by his own house cat, with filmmakers opting for practical effects over digital ones, though they do include a now-commonplace vomiting scene.
Indeed, on-screen vomiting has evolved from rarity to established convention, appearing across genres. It featured in a Spanish vampire series and a Scottish period adventure about a puppeteer’s daughter seizing stolen gold from a gang of outlaws. An Australian zombie film offered a novel premise—a military accident decimates Tasmania’s population, prompting a volunteer to handle the dead while hoping her missing husband is among the few corpses reanimating—though its final act failed to fully deliver on its intriguing setup. The undead were not confined to screens, as the festival’s streets filled with participants in the annual Zombie Walk.
Audience enthusiasm peaked during the action offerings. A mafia-meets-martial-arts story includes a spectacular kitchen brawl that makes inventive use of cookware in a sequence worthy of genre legends. Even more impressive was a pan-Asian thriller whose straightforward kidnapping plot and simple dialogue are secondary to its relentless, brilliantly choreographed fight sequences, arguably the most exhilarating since The Raid. One hero’s pursuit of a truck—while wearing flip-flops—offers a new benchmark for on-screen sprints.
The festival’s most compelling entry, however, was a Japanese film that begins with a simple schoolyard human pyramid and spirals into a bizarre, funny, and unsettling critique of conformity and fascism. Its surreal and disturbing imagery channels the spirit of legendary horror manga, providing a thought-provoking close to an event celebrated for its bold and imaginative storytelling.
