Report From Fantastic Fest Days Three And Four!

Hello again from the frontlines of Fantastic Fest, where we're halfway through the craziest, weirdest and most dangerously fun film festival known to man. We miss you guys! Thanks for your patience in receiving almost entirely FF-related coverage on BAD this week. We promise to make it up to you with quadruple coverage of everything NOT related to Fantastic Fest as soon as this wacky festival is over. 

Read about Days One and Two here. 

So Saturday and Sunday brought us a bucketload of kick-ass movies, and the varying degrees of awkwardness associated with both Air Sex and the Fantastic Debates. Here's what's up:

We screened the horror anthology THE ABCs OF DEATH from Drafthouse Films (photo by Arnold Wells, video by Arts + Labor):

As well as UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING 3D. (photo by Arnold Wells, video by Arts + Labor)

And PUSHER with director Luis Prieto and actor Agyness Deyn in attendance. (photo by Jack Plunkett, video by Arts + Labor)

And we had an incredibly well-received screening of the re-released Australian masterpiece WAKE IN FRIGHT from Drafthouse Films with director Ted Kotcheff in attendance. (photo by Arnold Wells, video by Arts + Labor)

We also hosted the annual Fantastic Fest Filmmakers Shotgun Adventure, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Filmmakers and movie nerds shooting shit up because we like to embrace stereotypes here in Texas! 

We had an amazing night of Air Sex at The Highball, where Fantastic Fest fans and other contestants showed us their rowdiest lovemaking sessions with invisible partners. I don't want to oversell it too much, but it was pretty freaking hot. (photo by Arnold Wells)

And we capped off the night with one of our most contentious Fantastic Debates ever! For the uninitiated, the Fantastic Debates are an annual event where two combatants debate a topic, and after they're done duking it out with words, they duke it out with fists in a real boxing ring. This year's pugilists were AMERICAN MARY's Twisted Twins debating the relative merits of remakes, Fantastic Fest founder Tim League fighting martial arts maestro Grandmaster YK Kim, and of course our very own badass-in-chief Devin Faraci getting himself pretty solidly pummeled by filmmaker Joe Swanberg over mumblecore. It was brutal, y'all. But it was also pretty great because Brian Collins, Phil Nobile Jr, Sam Strange, Henri Mazza, Film Crit Hulk and I were Devin's fight posse! You can read Devin's hilarious and accurate recount of the event here.  (photos by David Hill, video by Arts + Labor)

We'll do a whole post in another day or two about the debates, because we have SO many more amazing pictures and videos to share from this seriously dramatic event.

Then yesterday we took the filmmakers on a barbecue outing to Smitty's, because many of these poor, starved souls have never even had real barbecue. Oh, the humanity! (photos by Jack Plunkett)

We were lucky enough to have director Rian Johnson and star Noah Segan, among other castmembers, attend the red carpet and Q&A for the absolutely spectacular LOOPER. (photos by Jack Plunkett)

We screened the charming haunted house documentary AMERICAN SCREAM and threw a haunted house party in its honor! (photos by David Hill)

We held the annual Fantastic Arcade awards, hosted by Arcade Creative Director Wiley Wiggins. (photos by Arnold Wells)

And finally we closed the night down with the annual Nerd Rap Throw Down followed by Hip Hop Karaoke hosted by our own Henri Mazza at the Highball! Contestants flowed lyrics about THE PRINCESS BRIDE, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY, STAR WARS and more. Things got hot, they got weird, they got super fun. Rian Johnson and Aaron Hillis destroyed with Weird Al's "Yoda." 

Check back in every day for more daily reports from the frontlines, and don't forget to stop by the Fantastic Fest Facebook for photo albums with the best pictures from each day!