If your tastes stray more toward the mild than the wild, never fear: Anomaly’s got’cha covered! We’re not exclusively a horror festival, so here are four of this year’s films that might be for you, as they avoid excessive blood, guts, gore, and explicit terror.
Note that tastes and sensitivities vary wildly, so please read the Content Warnings for more details. The short films the precede the features are paired thematically; their Content Warnings may differ.
Battle Beyond the Stars
Wednesday, Nov. 6 • 8:45pm
A gem of the 1980’s post-Star Wars space boom in B-movie filmmaking.
With art direction by a young James Cameron, an early score by James Horner (Aliens, Titanic), a screenplay by John Sayles (Lone Star) and co-directed by Roger Corman himself, Battle Beyond the Stars features a game cast — including Richard Thomas, John Saxon, Robert Vaughn, and Sybil Danning — and fun set-pieces, as our heroes scour the cosmos to recruit interplanetary mercenaries to save a peaceful home world from the evil Sador.
Don’t miss the chance to see this cult-classic space opera on the big screen!
USA / 1980 / 1 hr 45 mins
Content Warnings: Rated PG. Torture, minor blood, sexual assault (implied, offscreen).
PRECEDED BY | The Stain | Content Warnings: blood and more blood
Flow
Saturday, Nov. 9 • 2:00pm
A fantastical post-apocalyptic adventure for all ages.
A wondrous journey, through realms natural and mystical, Flow follows a courageous cat after its home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land, they must rely on trust, courage, and wits to survive the perils of a newly aquatic planet. Steeped in the soaring possibilities of visual storytelling, Flow is a feast for the senses.
Latvia, Belgium, France / 2024 / 1 hr 29 mins
No spoken dialogue
Content Warnings: animal endangerment, themes of abandonment
PRECEDED BY | bitter/sweet | Content Warnings: grieving a deceased parent
A Samurai in Time
Sunday, Nov. 10 • 4:15pm
A sweet, heartfelt love letter to Japanese period dramas and finding one’s purpose - even across space and time.
A dark and stormy night in Edo-period Japan: samurai Kosaka Shinzaemon prepares to face off against his enemy when a lightning strike knocks him unconscious. Kosaka awakens to find he’s been transported to the present day film set of a samurai “jidaigeki” (period drama). Mistaken for an extra, his natural abilities get him work on more productions as a “kirareyaku,” a swordsman who specializes in being killed spectacularly on screen, while off-screen he navigates the strange world of the 21st century.
Japan / 2024 / 2 hrs 11 mins
In Japanese with English subtitles
Content Warnings: violence, blood
PRECEDED BY | VHX | Content Warnings: N/A
Universal Language
Sunday, Nov. 10 • 7:00pm
A touching alternate reality, cultural fusion fable.
In a mysterious and surreal interzone — somewhere between Tehran, Iran and Winnipeg, Canada — characters try to free money from an ice block, lead tourists through local historic sites, quit theirs jobs to visit their mothers, reunite with old friends and new acquaintances at a Tim Hortons, and — yes — even visit the finest turkey butcher in town. Space, time and identities interweave in this incredibly unique and surreal comedy of misdirection from director Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century, Anomaly 2020).
Canada / 2024 / 1 hr 27 mins
Content Warnings: coarse language, mature themes, off-screen animal death
PRECEDED BY | Reciprocity Failure | Content Warnings: blood