[Fantastic Fest 2024] APARTMENT 7A Review: A Well-Made Prequel with Few Surprises

By: Paul Farrell

Bodies move gracefully with intense and immaculate precision. Dance, after all, is a discipline, its craft dictated by strategic maneuver. Terry Gionoffrio is nothing if not a dancer. But accompanying such a contract is the high-risk, high-reward possibilities of success and failure — a dream realized or a future destroyed.

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[Fantastic Fest 2024] CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING Review: A Gooey and Chaotic Musical Gorefest

By: Paul Farrell

Love is an odyssey, fraught with all manner of earthly obstacles — including chainsaws.

Sander Maran’s Chainsaws Were Singing is a wildly chaotic musical gorefest, harvesting energy from both the gloriously gooey work of a young Peter Jackson and the emotive sensibilities of the Broadway stage. A charming amalgam of a later Texas Chain Saw Massacre sequel and Cannibal! The Musical (1993), the film spends its runtime reveling in the harmonic dissonance created by the many competing tones that flit across the ever-swirling, blood-soaked frame.

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