¡its here, its arrived! The new edition —specifically the 55th— of the Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, better known as Sitge 2022, It is just around the corner; and this year promises to more than compensate for all the limitations imposed due to the pandemic with an assortment to remember feature films, short films and big names in the industry guests.
To warm up engines for next Thursday 6, the date on which the event will kick off, I have made this selection with 21 essential films that will pass through the screens of Sitges during the ten days of festival magic that lie ahead.
Quentin Dupieux twice
Nothing better to start this review of some of the essential titles of Sitges 2022 than with one of the regular patrons of the event. This is none other than Quentin Dupieux; the unclassifiable French filmmaker who, in addition to coming to the Catalan coast for the first time to receive an award, will present his latest two follies entitled ‘Fumar provokes cough’ and ‘Incroyable mais vrai’; two new comedies that promise a new dose of surrealism and trademark nonsense.
‘little pig’
As it could not be less, the Spanish horror phenomenon of the year had to have a place in our selection. I am referring to ‘Cerdita’, the feature film with which Carlota Pereda expands on her Goya-winning short film and which reaches the screens of Sitges after causing a sensation at the Fantastic Fest of Austin, where it has won the award for the best film of its genre. National pride.
‘Pearly’
Ti West, who is undoubtedly one of the great names in international terror today, returns to Sitges after making us squirm in our seats with his spectacular ‘The Sacrament’ and having fun with his fantastic western ‘The Valley of Vengeance’ ‘. This year will delight us with ‘Pearl’the secret prequel to ‘X’ that promises to leave us with one of the most intense experiences of 2022.
‘Halloween Ends’
Everything that has a beginning has an end, and in this 55th edition of Sitges we can enjoy the closing of the ‘Halloween’ trilogy directed by David Gordon Green. After leaving us half-hearted with ‘Halloween Night’ and upping the ante with the electrifying ‘Halloween Kills’, Michael Myers returns to the fray in what promises to be his definitive confrontation with Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode .
‘To the bone: Bones and All’
Luca Guadagnino seems to have taken a liking to terror and, after raising passions and hatred in equal parts with his remake of the eternal ‘Suspiria’ by Dario Argento, he returns to the screens of Sitges with ‘Hasta los Huesos: Bones and All’; a cannibalistic horror drama in which he collaborates again with Timothée Chalamet after ‘Call Me by Your Name’.
‘V/H/S/99’
The quintessential horror anthology —with permission from ‘Southbound’— returns in style after the enjoyable ‘V/H/S/94’ with a new batch of short films directed by names of the stature of Johannes Roberts, Vanessa Winter, Tyler MacIntyre or the always interesting Flying Lotus. It remains to be seen if it will maintain the level of its predecessors, but the trip to 99 promises to be quite eventful.
‘Christmas Bloody Christmas’
Another of the regular patrons of the Sitges Festival is Joe Begos, who in 2019 delighted us with two proposals as disparate and tremendously satisfying as the nostalgic ‘VFW’ and the magnificent experimental orgy of ‘Bliss’. This time he changes register to turn the Midnight X-Trteme section upside down with ‘Christmas Bloody Christmas’, a Christmas madness that has as its protagonist a robotic Santa Claus with a desire for blood and shot in 16mm. We don’t deserve Begos.
‘The Lair’
Another of the great references of terror in recent decades, Neil Marshall, will stop by Sitges to receive a well-deserved award and, by the way, to show the respectable ‘The Lair’; a festival of action and gore in which an RAF pilot stationed in Afghanistan takes refuge in a bunker full of mutant monsters resulting from experimentation with alien DNA. Extremely appetizing.
‘Something in the Dirt’
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead arrived at the Sitges Festival for the first time with their charming feature film ‘Spring’, and have ended up becoming, on their own merits, the most beloved filmmaking duo of the contest. After blowing our minds with ‘El infinity’ and raising their bet with ‘Synchronic’, they return to their roots to tell a story shot with what they were wearing cosmic horror and conspiracy unexpectedly come together.
‘Speak no Evil’
Those who have been able to see this Danish thriller do not hesitate to describe it as one of the most overwhelming, unpleasant and devastating titles of 2022. The actor, director and screenwriter Christian Tafdrup simmers a family’s descent into hell in one of those exercises that do not leave indifferent.
‘Irati’
The Sitges Festival lives not only international cinema; This 55th edition will also have representation from different corners of the Spanish state, and ‘Irati’ is one of the most interesting proposals, a priori. It is directed by Paul Urkijo, responsible for the celebrated ‘Errementari: The Devil’s Blacksmith’, and will take us to a sinister hidden forest in the Pyrenees of the 8th century.
‘Manticore’
Carlos Vermut, one of the great figures in recent Spanish cinema who brought his script for ‘La granny’ directed by Paco Plaza to Sitges last year, returns to the Catalan coast as director with ‘Mantícora’; a drama centered around a video game designer haunted by a dark secret that promises a new 100% Vermouth experience.
‘Shin Ultraman’
After making half the world fall in love with his lucid ‘Shin Godzilla’ in 2016, Shinji Higuchi has gone behind the scenes in ‘Shin Ultraman’; a new realistic vision in a sociopolitical key of the mythical Japanese character that promises to turn the Kaiju-Eiga subgenre upside down again with giant-scale action and top-notch political-military tensions.
‘Kids vs. Aliens’
It has been more than a decade since Jason Esener directed that delightful grindhouse-esque macaroni entitled ‘Hobo With a Shotgun‘. Now, the short filmmaker also returns to feature films with ‘Kids vs Aliens’; an action-packed horror adventure in which a group of teenagers will have to face bloodthirsty aliens to rescue one of their abducted friends.
‘Project Wolf Hunting’
You can be calm, because being a server who writes this article, there was going to be a good portion of South Korean cinema. To begin with, I will mention one of the titles that will be part of the Official Selection; a ‘Project Wolf Hunting’ with which Kim Hong Seon, director of ‘Traffickers’, puts us aboard a freighter bound for Busan loaded with jailed criminals. The look that he has is really spectacular.
‘alienoid’
Choi Dong-hoon, director of ‘Assassins’ or ‘The Big Hit’, will appear in the Official Section out of competition with ‘Alienoid’, a science fiction adventure with a premise as crazy as it is promising that will tell us how a guard and a robot travel 631 years into the past to prevent the escape of an alien imprisoned inside a human brain. Magic, sorcery and alien creatures in one of the most unusual titles of the year.
‘A Man of Reason’
The return in style of the Orbit section will allow us to enjoy the best thriller from South Korea. Among the offer we find ‘A Man of Reason’; Jung Woo-sung’s feature film debut starring Kim Jun-han and Kim Nam-gil in which assassins, revenge and unfinished business promise to unleash a spiral of dry violence that is hard to forget.
‘hunt’
Also within the framework of Órbita will be ‘Hunt’, one of the South Korean phenomena of the year directed and starring Lee Jung-jae, known for his leading role in ‘The Squid Game’ —although he has a professional career as extensive as it is brilliant —. Suspense with a political background, a trademark of the house set in the crisis with North Korea in 1980.
‘The Roundup’
Lee Sang-yong, known for his role as producer on Kim Jee-woon’s brilliant ‘The Good, the Bad and the Weird’, takes the director’s seat in this sequel to the South Korean action hit ‘Lawless City’ which promises to reclaim Ma Dong-seok as the quintessential South Korean action-hero. Little more than half an hour that, according to what they say, brings out the colors of the Hollywood blockbusters again.
‘Emergency Declaration’
And, finally, more cane from South Korea. On this occasion, Han Jae-rimwhose most celebrated titles include ‘Gwansang’ and ‘Rules of Dating’, firm a thriller bottled up on a plane in which terrorist threats, unexpected deaths and high-flying emergencies are mixed in a couple of hours of those that, hopefully, keep you sitting on the edge of your seat.