Fantasia 2023 Reviews: #Manhole, Devils, and Mother Land

The 27th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is still happening and ComicBook.com is covering this year's events and the many genre films that are making their world premiere. We've got three more reviews from this year's event, focusing on the International part of the festival's namesake. Ranging from the Japanese thriller #Mahole (the hashtag is important) to the South Korean thriller Devils and the South Korean animated movie Mother Land. Here are three quick reviews of some of the films from this year's Fantasia.  

#Manhole

Thrillers about a person stuck in a single place for the entire run time require a major buy-in from the audience, if only to keep things interesting for the entire time. Typically this can be achieved quickly with the lingering questions of "How?" and "Why?" but with #Manhole, filmmaker Kazuyoshi Kumakiri not only makes one consider those questions, but tacks on escalating plot twists that make its biggest lingering question, "What the hell is going on?"

Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, #Manhole is a film that manages to keep your attention at every turn. Even though its first hour is built on a unique situation and the tensions surrounding it, the movie is able to find new ways to keep your attention, in part because you're going to keep wondering if you missed a key detail due to how many revelations compound on top of each other. It's not confusing for the sake of being obtuse, but the story finds itself building twist upon twist until its final moments culminate in a major reveal. Even with other movies existing in this style, you'll never guess where it goes, and even by me telling you there are a lot of twists, that can't prepare you for what you'll see.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Devils

This South Korean thriller from director Kim Jae-hoon is a unique spin on the body-swap movie, pitting a sadistic killer and a cop in a game against each other, while they also happen to be in each other's bodies. The biggest hurdle for Devils is buying into its premise for the first half of the film, something that even its other characters can't quite seem to get a grasp on, but there's a moment where things click and, from that point to the end, Devils is a roller coaster that was worth the build-up. Devils does have some shaky foundation, however, as it fails to find a use for any characters that aren't men, treating women as either frantic beings that can't be soothed or props for the killer to find joy in dismembering. One thing you can absolutely say about it, though, is that you've never seen a movie quite like it.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Mother Land

Billed as the first feature-length stop-motion animated movie out of South Korea in decades, Mother Land is an interesting watch, but also one that stretches itself a little thin. Set in the tundra of Siberia, its story is one worth telling as it follows the nomadic tribes of the area and how they butt up against Russian officials that are eager to displace them from their lands. Writer/director Park Jae-beom delivers a fun use of this animation style, one that feels a little closer to classic Rankin-Bass animation than what the kind you might expect from Laika. Even though the movie only clocks in at 68 minutes, it still feels like it's working overtime to get to that point. Animation fans will find something to like here, but most audiences will get lost in its tedium.