by Mo Moshaty
We’re looking forward to heading back to The Floating City for the 81st Venice Film Festival and let’s just say that last year’s small but mighty horror slate gave us much to hope for this year! We’re getting Keaton back as one of his most vibrant characters, new Kurosawa (YAAAAASSS), and hopefully a redemptive new offering to my “SHEEESH” of Harmony Korrine’s 2023 eyeball ache of “Aggro Dr1ft”.
Let’s cast this Top 5 for Venice shall we?
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.
To say I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time, is at best, an understatement. Since the murmurings of “is it real or a fan made?” swirled around, so did the possible disappointment. The fact that Keaton might just grace our screens again as the titular tormentor was all too much to hope for…yet here we are.
As the trailer suggests, we’re missing Mr. Deetz which really is fine. IYKYK. But I’m most excited to see Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Delia (Katherine O’ Hara) in this new incantation due to their tenuous relationship in part one. They’re grown women now and it’ll be nice to see some camaraderie or some fireworks if the rude murmurings have turned into face scratchin’ and weave snatchin’. Jenna Ortega joins us as Lydia’s daughter Astrid, taking many queues from her mother’s teenage malaise (ripped clothes, anti-establishment angst, moody-Judy attitude), based the levity of this film, I’m very much hoping they give her much more to so than sulk in an awesome wardrobe. If the cast wasn’t stacked already, enter Monica Belluci as the jilted Dolores and Willem DaFoe as Wolf Jackson, who’s had a bit of a…scrape.
Any of us who were grateful the story continued in the Beetlejuice cartoons, getting a live action crack at it, fills our horror hearts to the tune of Banana Boat (Day-O)!
Cloud (2024)
Ryosuke Yoshii is an ordinary person, who supports himself by reselling things on the internet. He carelessly earns grudges by people around him and, in the end, he is dragged into a desperate struggle that risks his life.
Seeing a new Kurosawa at another film festival? Pinch me! CHIME, Kurosawa 2023 film of a singular tone disrupting the sanctity and reason of one’s reality hit Berlinale’s 73rd year with a sledgehammer, and Cloud looks to be just as disturbing. Ryosuke Yoshii, an internet flipper (we see you eBay hounds!) that’s interactions seem to go from bad to worse, pulling him into a strange web spun by an even stranger presence.
At twice the length of CHIME, we know we’re in for quite the uncomfortable ride!
L’Orto Americano (The American Garden) (2024)
A troubled young man falls for an American military auxiliary after a single glance. A year later, he moves to the American Midwest to write his novel, next to the auxiliary’s elderly mother’s house, separated by a grim garden.
Based upon Pupi Avati’s novel of the same name finds a troubled young writer falling for an American army auxiliary. One year later, he finds himself living in the American Midwest, living next to his girlfriend’s worried mother, separated by a cursed garden. The daughter disappeared after the war, and the last known correspondence was that she would marry an Italian, although she has not been heard from. He then embarks on an intense search that leads him through dramatic twists back to Italy.
Long distance love story are never easy, but we’re keen to know the origins of the cursed garden and the journey of the vanished.
Planète B (2024)
The film follows Julia, one of the activists who mysteriously disappeared after participating in a violent protest. After being shot in the eye by a flash-ball gun, Julia fainted and woke up in an unknown world, known as Planet B.
With activism at an all time high due to (gestures wildly around the room) our entire world being a mess, I’m eager to watch a Sci-Fi spin on “what if they’re trying to find a way to silence us via alien tech” – I’m hoping!
Set in France, 2039, where activists are pursued by the state, it’s frightening to know that those malicious manoeuvres might not that be too far off.
Baby Invasion (2024)
Baby-faced home invaders captured using six body cams, one worn by the director, raid a house from a first-person shooter perspective in this unsettling footage.
I’m gonna be straight up on main, Korrine’s work has never really been my thing. Aggro Dr1ft was horrific on my spirit, my eyeballs and my love for decent dialogue, and while it found it’s avid fans and lovers, I sat that camp out.
Baby Invasion looks to be a lateral move but with six simple words added: baby-faced assassins, first-person shooter. It’s seems like two great tastes that taste great together but we will see. With a soundtrack by Burial (if you’re curious, do click here) its bound to be an amalgamation of sadboi electronica-fueled atmosphere and infantile incitement, and we’ll be seated!
Venezia 81 takes place between Wed, 28 Aug 2024 – Sat, 7 Sept 2024 – Stay Tuned For Our Daily Coverage!
Mo Moshaty is a horror writer, lecturer and producer. As a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist and life long horror fan, Mo has lectured with Prairie View A&M Film & TV Program as a Keynote, BAFSS Horror Studies Sig and The University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Mo has partnered with horror giant, Shudder Channel, to co-produce the 13 Minutes of Horror Film Festival 2021 and 2022 with Nyx Horror Collective and her literary work “Love the Sinner” was published with Brigid’s Gate Press in July of 2023 and her two volume collection, “Clairviolence: Tales of Tarot and Torment will be published in 2024.
Mo is the creator and Editor-in-Chief of NightTide Magazine and the Founder of Mourning Manor Media.
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