This is where the wild ones come out to play
Altered States’ Class of 2024 is a particularly wild bunch, serving up weird science, oversexed espionage, uncanny outbreaks, freaky folk horror, expressive fairytales, prog rock odysseys, macabre transformations, and chilling encounters at the end of the world. Running roughshod over genre conventions and audience expectations, these films employ an array of aesthetic approaches, including rotoscope animation, degraded video, and experimental cinematography. All told, these are the most spellbinding films of the festival season.
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Rita
Based on a real tragedy, this magical realist fantasy from the acclaimed director of La Llorona follows Rita, a thirteen-year-old Guatemalan runaway determined to escape from her abusive home life and the inhumane conditions of a children’s shelter.
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She Loved Blossoms More
Three brothers unleash cosmic horror when they build a time machine out of their mother's wardrobe to bring her back from the dead. Veslemes’ surreal body horror is a hallucinatory freak show with a pitch-black sense of humour and skin-crawling visuals.
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Presence
When a family moves into a new home, tensions simmer, melancholy takes a stranglehold, and things go bump in the night... Steven Soderbergh re-imagines the haunted house film by shooting every eerie scene from a spectre's viewpoint.
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Rock Bottom
Inspired by the musician Robert Wyatt and the recording of his 1974 classic of the same name, Rock Bottom is a psychedelic, animated musical odyssey about a drummer reinventing himself after an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down.
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Timestalker
Inspired by old Hollywood’s grand romantic epics and paying homage to costume dramas, speculative fantasies, swashbuckling adventures, and 80s music videos, Timestalker is both a giddy genre confection and a heartfelt tale of hard-won empowerment.
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Dream Team
Two Interpol agents investigate mysterious deaths caused by poisonous gas-emitting coral in this campy homage to 90s basic cable. It unfolds as a bleary-eyed binge of a six-episode season, complete with ever-changing title sequences.
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Párvulos
Years after a viral zombie outbreak, three young brothers are forced to fend for themselves in a remote cabin in the woods. Isaac Ezban (The Similars) presents a gory, coming-of-age fable with a warm heart and a dark twist, destined to be a cult classic.
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Else
Anx and Cass are forced into lockdown together in Anx’s apartment to avoid a mysterious virus which causes people’s bodies to painfully fuse with whatever they are touching. Else is a grotesque, apocalyptic body horror that's bound to get under your skin.
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40 Acres
A band of bloodthirsty cannibals threatens a family of farmers living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland in rural Canada. R.T. Thorne’s feature debut is a thrilling, crowd-pleasing genre gem with a standout cast of Black and Indigenous actors.
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Fréwaka
A Dublin nurse is sent to a remote Irish village to care for a reclusive woman. Haunted by a dark past, her night terrors invade her reality. Aislinn Clarke delivers a chilling, feminist folk horror that favours atmosphere over jump scares.
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