What is Fantastic Fest? Is it a week of the craziest films the world can offer? Yes. Is it a place where the most eagerly awaited future blockbusters and award winners get their world premiere? Absolutely. But for festival director Lisa Dreyer, there’s one aspect of the Austin-based celebration of horror, sci-fi, thrillers, and more that truly defines it: “More than anything, it’s a community.”
This year, it’s a community that celebrates its 20th anniversary. “It’s amazing,” Dreyer said, “especially in this age in which so many film festivals are struggling or shuttering, that we’re surviving and thriving.”
Maybe that sense of belonging comes from the unique environment of Fantastic Fest. Every September, genre film fans converge at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar for eight days of premieres, retrospective screenings, and general chaos. It’s a festival to which filmmakers and fans – dubbed the Fantastic Fiends – return year after year. Dreyer knows about that sense of unity, having started off as a volunteer on the screening team in 2018, “and I still to this day am friends with some of the people I met at the festival. I actually even hired some of the people who I met to be on the Fantastic Fest team.”
It’s amazing, especially in this age in which so many film festivals are struggling or shuttering, that we’re surviving and thriving.” – Fantastic Fest Director Lisa Dreyer
Alongside the “glitzy, glamorous world premieres with celebrities,” Dreyer explained, “we have these independent filmmakers who made a movie in Iowa on a hundred bucks and we’re their first exposure to the film world at large.” That diversity of programming is reflected in the Austin cohort in this year’s lineup. On the big-budget side, there’s Black Phone 2, written by local author C. Robert Cargill, and closing night selection Whistle, penned by former Austinite Owen Egerton – both FF veterans as guests and fans. At the other end of the spectrum are micro-budget titles like culinary queer horror Dinner to Die For, and docs like John Spottswood Moore’s history of Austin Public Access, When We Were Live. Another local FF alum, Catechism Cataclysm director Todd Rohal, brings his adaptation of underground comic Fuck My Son!. Dreyer described the gonzo comedy shocker as representative of “so many bizarre hidden gems that our audience is going to go crazy over.”
The festival will also help films yet-to-be-made with the Fantastic Pitches, a new initiative between Fantastic Fest and Chroma, the distribution house headed by festival programmer Ahbra Perry. Five projects have been selected from hundreds of submissions, and the final winner will receive $100,000 to make their movie. Dreyer said, “[Perry’s] a huge champion of independent film, so when she founded her own genre label she was like, ‘I wanna put my money where my mouth is and fund weird, wild independent movies.’”
Maybe what really defines Fantastic Fest is its ability to sneak oddball filmmakers into the mainstream. This year, writer/director Steven Kostanski (FF vet for Manborg, The Void, and Frankie Freako) brings his remake of sword-and sorcery-classic Deathstalker to the festival for its American debut after a world premiere at Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival. “The idea of his movies playing at Locarno and Fantastic Fest really cracks me up,” Dreyer said.
However, returning friends of the fest like Kostanski will actually be in the minority. For their 2025 booking philosophy, Dreyer noted the FF team emphasized world premieres – many of them from first-time filmmakers. With 46 world premieres, these account for over half of all titles screening and almost double last year’s total. “We’ve been focused on giving films that haven’t played a festival a chance,” Dreyer said. “Exciting new filmmakers, exciting new films, and films that haven’t had their chance to shine.”
Fantastic Fest
Thursday 18 – Thursday 25, Alamo South Lamar
This article appears in September 12 • 2025.