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Explosive births, talking foxes and the devil in a trenchcoat – the Sitges fantastic film festival in all its creepy glory

20 October 2026 at 15:10

Olivia Colman goes vulpine, Rupert Grint’s newborn is a monster and Joko Anwar makes a warmhearted violent ghost story set in an Indonesian prison

If I’d ever wanted children, the films showing at the 59th edition of the International Fantastic film festival of Catalonia in the coastal town of Sitges, south of Barcelona, would have soon set me straight. This year’s recurring themes were explosive parturition, chewed-up nipples and the fruit of the womb turning out to be at best sociopathic, at worst inhuman.

The theme was celebrated in an evil-kiddy exhibition at the Miramar Cultural Centre, marking the 50th anniversary of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s “fantaterror” classic Who Can Kill a Child?, some of which was filmed in Sitges itself. The expo traced the subgenre from 1956’s The Bad Seed, via Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, to this year’s Nightborn, in which poor Rupert Grint, as the hapless husband, is no match for the developing folk-horror bond between his depressed wife, their newborn “child”, and the spooky forest surrounding their house. Finnish director Hanna Bergholm, in her introduction, confessed it was inspired by her experiences of motherhood. Only up to a point, one hopes.

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© Photograph: Andrea Miconi

© Photograph: Andrea Miconi

© Photograph: Andrea Miconi

There’s Something Dangerous About Sam Rockwell

18 August 2026 at 18:00

Kevin Dupzyk’s profile of Sam Rockwell, a “legendary scene-stealer” now in his fourth decade of work, is a crisp and entertaining one-act, with journalist and actor holed up in a spare Manhattan greenroom. Dupzyk studies Rockwell while Rockwell studies the room, testing the durability of his own idiosyncratic observations—about Red Bull and loss and rain—to see what they might yield in a conversation with a stranger. Dupzyk had wanted to “gin up some action for this story,” but it’s strangely compelling to watch Rockwell’s gaze prowl the room, to see what lodges in the filter of his creative process.

Rockwell is a good tennis player. And like any good athlete, he trains. For as much as he appears to get by on natural charm and charisma, he is an actor’s actor, a true believer, in his words, an “acting nerd.” Research. Running lines. Exerci—

“Do you know what a gibbon is?” Rockwell asks.

“Like, a monkey?” I say, confused.

Thank This Retired Projectionist for Those 3 a.m. Odyssey 70-mm. Imax Showings

13 August 2026 at 16:00

Pat Caldwell is 69 years old and, as Chris Stanton gushes in this uproarious Q&A, “a legend to IMAX nerds.” Caldwell loves Vision3 film stock, hates Joker: Folie à Deux, and has discovered more than one dead body in a movie theater. His decades-long career as a projectionist includes a stint at a Tennessee porn theater with “very good equipment,” and he once spent half a year screening Lawrence of Arabia four times daily. When Stanton reached out to Caldwell on the occasion of The Odyssey, he may have landed the year’s most entertaining interview.

So Sam taught me how to run the projectors, and he got drunk, passed out on the couch. And after the concession stand in the box office closed, I would go up and run the rest of the movies for him. This went very nicely until one night there’s a knock at the door. I opened the door and here’s this old man standing there. And I said, “Well, who are you?” He says, “I could ask the same question. Who are you? I’m the business agent of the local projectionists’ union.” I explained what was going on. He woke up Sam, chewed him out. And the next day they made me an apprentice. I trained for a year with no pay at all the local theaters in Nashville.

Johnny Knoxville, America’s God of Mischief

28 July 2026 at 12:00

What moves the star of Jackass to risk his life for our entertainment? This “very serious investigation” involves interviews with friends and family, a surf trip to Malibu, a gag with a fake raccoon, and a stop at In-N-Out:

He nosed the car into the drive-through line, drawing stares as he nosed—some for the vehicle, some for the driver. Mostly male stares. A teen-age boy stepped up to the passenger window and leaned in to take his order.

“One hamburger with tomato, lettuce, and mustard,” Knoxville said. “Fries, please. And a cup of water.”

“Onion?”

“No, sir.”

The teen-ager squinted. “You look familiar. Are you famous, by any chance?”

“Actually, completely by chance!” Knoxville improvised.

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