Imagine Fantastic Film Festival 2025 has begun! This year, the cosmic-dread-infused oeuvre of writer H.P. Lovecraft forms the backbone of the Imagine programme. But in Retreat, the film that opened the festival last night, humans once again prove scarier than monsters. The film is set in a deaf community with unsettlingly sectarian overtones.
Interestingly, director Ted Evans and his cast are Deaf themselves. In the post-screening talk, which was accompanied by a sign language interpreter, Evans told our general director Chris Oosterom that his own childhood served as an inspiration for the film: as a kid, he attended a school exclusively for Deaf pupils and found that environment to be occasionally found oppressive. Thematically related films such as The Village and The Master were also influential. To be clear: Retreat is not a silent film. The chilling atmosphere is created through both image and sound. Chris then asked if it was true that his next film would be a horror movie. Perhaps, Evans replied. But the twinkle in his eye said it all; we’ll definitely be seeing him again at Imagine.
For the afterparty, we went to Hal West, the new location for our VR programme, Imagine Expanded: Rites of Passage. The silent disco complemented the opening film, which can still be seen today and on November 4th.
