It’s that time of year again. io9 is about to head down to Austin, Texas for a week of fun, fucked-up films at Fantastic Fest, one of the coolest, most unique genre film festivals in the entire world. For a full week, the fest shows only the weirdest, most out-there, totally badass films that are coming soon to theaters, and we’re excited to jump right in.
The hard part about attending Fantastic Fest though is that every single movie sounds awesome. It was curated that way. So how do you choose what to see? Well, a few movies have names you’ve heard of—stuff like Gareth Edwards’ The Creator and the remake of The Toxic Avenger. But beyond that, you just gotta go with your gut.
What I do is go through the entire list of feature films, read about each and every one, and then rank them based on a) what I think the readers of io9 will be interested in, and b) what I want to watch. Then, I start at the top of the nearly 100-film list and attempt to work my way down it.
What follows are the 15 films currently at the top of that list which also happen to be a great example of just how weird and wonderful Fantastic Fest can be. The festival runs from September 21-28 in Austin, Texas. Click here for more. And stay tuned to io9 for our coverage from the festival.