Other Worlds Austin 2019

Other Worlds is one of the premier SciFi Film Festivals in the US, championing filmmakers and writers and bringing the best films to the Geek Capital of the World. With a diverse and approachable team of programmers, we are building a network of SciFi fans and filmmakers, leading a loyal community, and launching SciFi films into the wider world.

Running from December 5-8, it's the festival's sixth year, and the lineup looks even more impressive than its did in the previous five. 

This is without a doubt my favorite film festival.  I love covering it, and will post updates on my Twitter feed.  I hope to see you there.

Thursday, December 57:42PM Dreamscape (35TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING) 
LAUNCH FILM
Joseph Ruben | USA | 99 min | 1984
Writer: David Loughery, Chuck Russell, Joseph Ruben
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, David Patrick Kelly, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer
Psychic Alex Gardner escapes his life of petty crime to join a government research project in which he uses powers to enter dreams of those with sleep disorders. However, as his talents develop and he delves deeper into the experiment, he discovers not everyone on the team shares the same motives and he may be the only one who can stop a plot against the project.
Featuring a great cast and the perfect mix of SciFi, Horror, and Action, DREAMSCAPE was only the second film to receive a PG-13 rating. We are very proud to bring together Director and co-writer Joseph Ruben, Producer and co-writer Chuck Russell and Screenwriter David Loughery for this exclusive 35th Anniversary Screening care of 20th Century Fox.
David Loughery broke into television with a story for HART TO HART. After the success of DREAMSCAPE, Loughery wrote STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER. He teamed up with Rubin again for Wesley Snipes/Woody Harrelson buddy cop film MONEY TRAIN.

Joseph Ruben broke into film with sexploitation films like THE SISTER IN LAW and teensploitation films like THE POM POM GIRLS before achieving cult status with DREAMSCAPE and THE STEPFATHER. His greatest success came with the 1991 Julia Roberts thriller SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY and 1993 Macauley Culkin thriller THE GOOD SON.

Friday, December 6

4:15PM The Final Land (North American Premiere)
(screens again Sunday, 7:40PM)
Marcel Barion | Germany | 113 min
Writer: Marcel Barion
Cast: Milan Pešl, Torben Föllmer
A runaway convict and his pursuer escape a prison planet in an old spaceship in search of a new home. As they search for a place to go, their separate paths to this moment become a point ofconflict, as well as the strange history of this derelict ship that they now drive. Then a strange signal gives them hope of a new future. In the grand tradition of 2001 and SOLARIS, THE FINAL LAND plays off the mystery of vastness of space and our still miniscule understanding of our place inside it.

4:30 Under World Shorts: Dark Nights & Dark Thoughts

4:40PM Afterlife (Texas Premiere)
(screens again Saturday, 7:20PM)
Willem Bosch | The Netherlands | 93 min
Writer: Willem Bosch
Cast: Sanaa Giwa, Romana Vrede, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Jan-Paul Buijs 
After her mother’s passing, teenage Sam takes up most of the household responsibilities. When she, too, ends up in the afterlife and finds out she can get a do-over, Sam gives life another try with the sole mission of saving her mother. A fantasy science fiction film, Afterlife tugs on the heart strings and deals with the hard realities of life and death.

7:10PM Time After Time (40TH ANNIVER. SCREENING)
Defender of the Universe Film
Nicholas Meyer | USA | 112 min | 1979
Writer: Nicholas Meyer
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen
Serial murderer Jack the Ripper escapes Victorian England using a time machine built by SciFi writer H.G. Wells. Pursing the criminal to 1979 San Francisco, Wells fails to find the socialist utopia he expects, instead landing in a world more suited for Jack the Ripper’s tastes. After reading an unpublished early draft of his friend’s novella, Meyer optioned the work and developed in into a charming comedy of two men, out of time, and the woman who gets caught between them, as well as a not so subtle dig at modern times.
Nicholas Meyer is often referred to as the man who saved the STAR TREK Franchise, his STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) setting a world record for its first-day box office gross and overcoming a perceived lackluster response to the first film. He went on to co-write STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986), and write and direct STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, as well as write for STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. Other major films include VOLUNTEERS (1985), THE DECEIVERS (1988), SOMMERSBY (1993), the television event film THE DAY AFTER (1983), which set a record as the highest-rated television film and the two-part History channel HOUDINI (2014) starring Adrien Brody. An accomplished fiction writer as well, Meyer adopted his first novel, THE SEVENPER-CENT SOLUTION, into an Academy-Award nominated screenplay. The Sherlock Holmes story was followed by three more, including THE ADVENTURE OF THE PECULIAR PROTOCOLS released this year.

7:15PM Z (Texas Premiere)
Brandon Christensen | Canada | 83 min
Writers: Brandon Christensen, Colin Minihan
Cast: Keegan Connor Tracy, Jett Klyne, Sean Rogerson
Cynical Beth feels trapped by her status as mom. She takes care of others before taking care of herself. She doesn’t think anything of it when her son, Josh, brings Z, an Imaginary Friend, into the house, ignoring small signs that her son’s new friendship may not be a healthy one. After a particularly tragic play date, Beth drugs Josh, leaving Z without a friend to play with. And he turns to Beth.

7:20PM Alien Addiction (US Premiere)
(Screens again Sunday 5PM)
Shae Sterling | New Zealand | 96 min
Writer: Shae Sterling, Melanie Price and Ricky Silvester
Cast: Jimi Jackson, Thomas Sainsbury, Harry Summerfield, Jojo Waaka, Ayham Ghalayini
Riko lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere (well, Waikato, New Zealand). Life is pretty normal, that is until two aliens crash-land near his house. Fortunately for Riko, the aliens like to get high and chill as much as he does and they develop an intergalactic friendship of epic proportions, as well as a strange relationship to human feces. However, unknown to the happy go-lucky visitors, alientologist Peter Mackintosh is hot on their trail and plans to capture them and reveal them to the world.

9:55 PM Enhanced (US Premiere)
OPENING NIGHT FILM
James Mark | Canada | 97 min
Writer: James Mark, Matthew Nayman, Peter Van Horne
Cast: Alanna Bale, George Tchortov, Adrian Holmes
A secret task force hunts down a group of enhanced mutant outcasts, until their team leader begins to question if he is on the right side. When forced to capture a young girl just learning how to use her powers, he instead joins her to fight the government that is after her. But they are not the only ones on the tail of the mutants, as a super powerful enhanced serial killer seems intent to take down others of his kind.
Other Worlds 2019 gets a jump start with the action packed, high tension ENHANCED as its Opening Night Film. The programming team selected this film to set the tone as to what to expect from this year’s line-up. This is the superhero genre that has taken over the cineplex, but told in a fresh, indie way. James Mark utilizes his experience as a stunt man and fight choreographer to fill the screen with intense action scenes. He combines this with a strong narrative and real characters with heart and drive.

9:45PM Spiral (Texas Premiere)
Kurtis David Harder | Canada | 90 min
Writers: Colin Minihan, John Poliquin
Cast: Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Ari Cohen, Jennifer Laporte
In the mid-nineties, same-sex couple, Aaron and Malik, move to a small town so they can enjoy a better quality of life and raise their 16-year-old daughter, Kayla, with the best social values. However, nothing is as it seems in their picturesque neighborhood. At first, Malik holds back his suspicions and covers up bigoted vandalism in their home. Nevertheless, when Malik witnesses the folks next door throwing a very strange party, his suspicions become a Lovecraftian reality.
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10:05PM Lake Michigan Monster (Texas Premiere)
​Ryland Brickson Cole Tews | USA | 78 min
Writer: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
Cast: Ryland Tews, Erick West, Beulah Peters
The eccentric Captain Seafield hires a crew of specialists in his revenge plot against the creature that killed his father. After several failed attempts, Seafield is forced to take matters into his own drunken hands. What began as a simple case of man versus beast soon plunges down a rabbit hole of mysterious unknowns and Lovecraftian hijinks.

Saturday, December 7

11:30AM SciFi Shorts 1: Love in the Time of Robots

11:30AM Dementer (Texas Premiere)
Chad Crawford Kinkle | USA | 80 min
Writer: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Cast: Larry Fessenden, Katie Groshong, Stephanie Kinkle, Scott Hodges
Katie begins to put her life back together after escaping a backwoods cult by taking a job in a home for special needs adults. Then the dark messages of her past tell her one of the sick patients needs more than just medicine. Dementer is an art house horror passion project that came to life when director, Chad Crawford Kinkle wanted to make a film with his special needs sister. Shot in an almost documentary style, the film embraces and properly represents the developmentally disabled, both in the script and in the actual casting, while still being both thrilling and disturbing.

11:45AM I Am Human (Texas Premiere)
Taryn Southern, Elena Gaby | USA | 90 min
I AM HUMAN explores the co-evolution of humans and technology, focusing on a small group of people with different ailments that choose to use robotic implants to cure themselves. Diving deep into the current technology and where science could take us in the future, I AM HUMAN fills its frames with heart-warming stories of real people and their process of deciding to accept technology as a part of their bodies.

1:50PM 1BR (Texas Premiere) 
David Marmor | USA | 90 min
Writer: David Marmor
Cast: Nicole Brydon Bloom, Taylor Nichols, Giles Matthey 
After leaving behind a painful past to follow her dreams, Sarah scores the perfect Hollywood apartment. But something is not right. Unable to sleep, tormented by strange noises and threatening notes, her new life quickly starts to unravel. By the time she learns the horrifying truth, it’s too late. Caught in a waking nightmare, Sarah must find the strength to hold onto her crumbling sanity…or be trapped forever in an existential hell. 

2PM SciFi Shorts 2: Crossing Over to the Future

2:15PM LIVE FROM OTHER WORLDS FILM FEST – IT’S “SCIENCE VS FICTION”
Scott Weinberg is a veteran film critic. Steven DeGennaro is a doctor of astrophysics. Every week they compare and contrast two noteworthy SciFi films on their popular podcast “Science vs Fiction,” where they discuss the artistic quality of the films, whether they get the science right, and whether or not that even matters. Past pairings have included ARMAGEDDON vs DEEP IMPACT, ALIENS vs STARSHIP TROOPERS, and JASON X vs LEPRECHAUN IN SPACE IN SPACE.

Other Worlds, they will open the massive can of worms that is cinematic time travel when they turn their talents on the 1979 classic (and Opening Night Film!) TIME AFTER TIME.

4:20PM The SciFi Lecture: The Old Dark Trope
“It was a dark and stormy night.” The couple’s car breaks down, blows a tire, crashes into a tree and runs out of gas. Yes, all at the same time. An ominous Victorian house at the top of the hill is the only refuge for miles and miles. They have nowhere to go and must seek refuge in THE OLD DARK HOUSE.

This year at Other Worlds, we are exploring the trope of the Old Dark House, how it originated, other tropes and stories that appear in within the Old Dark House, and how the trope has evolved and continues to be used today. Join Other Worlds Programmer and Screenwriting Director Eric Harrelson for a discussion and curated clip show curated by Other Worlds newest Programmer Wyatt Walker. Find out why old tropes never die, they just get subverted.

4:25PM Long Shorts: Lingering Visions

4:35PM Dead Dicks (US Premiere) 
Chris Bavota, Lee Paula Springer | Canada | 83 min
Writers: Chris Bavota, Lee Paula Springer
Cast: Heston Horwin, Jillian Harris, Matt Keye
When a young nursing student named Becca receives a series of panicked messages from her older brother Richie, she rushes over to check on him. Following a seemingly successful suicide attempt, Richie, who suffers from mental illness, discovers what appears to be his own dead body. When Becca gets to his apartment, they find more dead versions of Richie as well as a strange hole in his bedroom wall. Together, they must figure why his suicide just won’t keep.

4:20 UW Shorts: Dark Nights & Dark Thoughts

7:20PM Afterlife 
Willem Bosch | The Netherlands | 93 min
Writer: Willem Bosch
Cast: Sanaa Giwa, Romana Vrede, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Jan-Paul Buijs 
After her mother’s passing, teenage Sam takes up most of the household responsibilities. When she, too, ends up in the afterlife and finds out she can get a do-over, Sam gives life another try with the sole mission of saving her mother. A fantasy science fiction film, Afterlife tugs on the heart strings and deals with the hard realities of life and death.

7:30PM The Ascent (North American Premiere)
(screens again Sunday, 2:15PM) Tom Paton | UK | 100 min
Writer: Tom Paton
Cast: Rachel Warren, Simon Meacock, Bentley Kalu
Special ops squad “Hell’s Bastards” are sent to infiltrate a civil war to retrieve intel. The unit soon find themselves trapped on a never-ending stairwell forced to climb or die. To survive, they must revisit their past sins if they ever want to get off. 

9:45PM Doppelganger 
(Founder’s Choice)

10PM Volition (Texas Premiere) 
Tony Dean Smith | USA | 91 min
Writers: Tony Dean Smith, Ryan W. Smith
Cast: Adrian Glynn McMorran, Magda Apanowicz, John Cassini
On a rain-soaked night in 1991, two cars collide, leaving all drivers dead on the scene, including the mother of the lone survivor – a child – James Odin. Seven-year-old James foresaw the accident happening two days prior and tried to prevent it, but who’s going to believe a kid who claims to see the future? Twenty-plus years later, James is a product of the failed foster care system, using his ability for petty crime and cheap thrills. But when a pre-sentient vision reveals to him his own imminent murder, James must go on the run and change a fate he knows is fixed.

10:15PM Scare Package (Texas Premiere)
Under Worlds Centerpiece Film 
​USA | 103 min
Directors: Emily Hagins, Baron Vaughn, Noah Segan, Chris McInroy, Anthony Cousins, Hillary & Courtney Andujar, Aaron B. Koontz
Cast: Toni Trucks, Joe Bob Briggs, Dustin Rhodes, Chase Williamson, Baron Vaughn, Noah Segan
A meta Horror-comedy anthology film where each segment subverts a different set of Horror tropes, SCARE PACKAGE intertwines its components around the on-boarding of a mysterious new employee at a struggling genre video store: Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium.
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This year’s Under Worlds Centerpiece film is very special for our programming team for many reasons. It’s an intelligent, creative look at the Horror genre that is both hilarious and scary. Furthermore, three of the segments were shot here in Austin by local filmmakers, one of whom is an Other Worlds alumni. The producing team for the film does a great job managing the tone of the anthology while still maintaining each director’s vision. It is rare to see an anthology film where connecting material is just as compelling as the individual parts, but the team has done it here.

Sunday, December 8

11:15AM Around the Sun (Texas Premiere)
Chad Crawford Kinkle | USA | 80 min
Writer: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Oliver Krimpas | UK | 78 min
Writer: Jonathan Kiefer
Cast: Cara Theobold, Gethin Anthony
A film location finder is shown around a repossessed, crumbling French château. Over the course of the afternoon, he slowly falls for both the place and the owner’s flirtatious representative, as she recounts the story of a famous book set there. But is their present-day connection for real, or just a projection of the book’s 17th Century characters? As the scene plays over in different variations, the two almost lovers orbit around each other like a binary star system, forever circling but never quite reaching each other.

11:45AM SciFi Shorts 1: Love in the Time of Robots

12:00PM The Old Dark House
(World Premiere of New Score)
Chad Crawford Kinkle | USA | 80 min
James Whale | USA | 73 min | 1932
Writer: J.B. Priestley (from the novel by) (as J.B. Priestly), Benn W. Levy (screenplay)
Cast: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart
A precursor to the genre of renegade young people getting stranded among older (and far more degenerate) adults in a remote location, THE OLD DARK HOUSE is a “pre-code” film and features some language and sexually suggestive material that would be banned from American screens until the 1960s. Boundaries will be crossed, reality will fail, and mayhem will ensue. The family our kids come across, this time, can also be seen as the grandparents of THE ADAMS FAMILY. THE OLD DARK HOUSE, is FRANKENSTEIN director, James Whale’s follow up horror film that also stars the previously unknown Boris Karloff and is a precursor to their final film together, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Like many films of the day, it was released with a “library score,” music not specifically composed for the title. Award-winning composer Jay Woelfel has composed a brand new 52-minute music score, the first ever done for the film.

2:15PM SciFi Shorts 2: Crossing Over to the Future

2:15PM The Ascent (North American Premiere)
Tom Paton | UK | 100 min
Writer: Tom Paton
Cast: Rachel Warren, Simon Meacock, Bentley Kalu
Special ops squad "Hell's Bastards" are sent to infiltrate a civil war to retrieve intel. The unit soon find themselves trapped on a never-ending stairwell forced to climb or die. To survive, they must revisit their past sins if they ever want to get off. 

5:00PM Alien Addiction (US Premiere) 
Shae Sterling | New Zealand | 96 min
Writer: Shae Sterling, Melanie Price and Ricky Silvester
Cast: Jimi Jackson, Thomas Sainsbury, Harry Summerfield, Jojo Waaka, Ayham Ghalayini
Riko lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere (well, Waikato, New Zealand). Life is pretty normal, that is until two aliens crash-land near his house. Fortunately for Riko, the aliens like to get high and chill as much as he does and they develop an intergalactic friendship of epic proportions, as well as a strange relationship to human feces. However, unknown to the happygo-lucky visitors, alientologist Peter Mackintosh is hot on their trail and plans to capture them and reveal them to the world.

5:05PM After We Leave (North American Premiere) 

Aleem Hossain | USA | 82 min
Writer: Aleem Hossain
Cast: Brian Silverman, Clay Wilcox, Anita Leman Torres, Anslem Richardson
Jack returns to a bleak Los Angeles after abandoning his wife six years ago. There’s only one way to escape this high crime, dystopian world – getting a visa to an off-world colony, but it’s a couples’ visa and Jack needs his wife to use it. Jack dives back into the world of crime that he left behind in search of his wife and a way off the planet. Is Jack back because he wants to make things right or because he needs his wife to use this “lottery ticket” to a better life?

5:10PM Long Shorts: Lingering Visions

7:40PM The Final Land (North American Premiere)
Marcel Barion | Germany | 113 min
Writer: Marcel Barion
Cast: Milan Pešl, Torben Föllmer
A runaway convict and his pursuer escape a prison planet in an old spaceship in search of a new home. As they search for a place to go, their separate paths to this moment become a point ofconflict, as well as the strange history of this derelict ship that they now drive. Then a strange signal gives them hope of a new future. In the grand tradition of 2001 and SOLARIS, THE FINAL LAND plays off the mystery of vastness of space and our still miniscule understanding of our place inside it.

7:40PM A Good Woman Is Hard to Find (Texas Premiere)
Abner Pastoll | UK/Belgium/Ireland | 113 min
Writer: Ronan Blaney
Cast: Sarah Bolger, Edward Hogg, Andrew Simpson
Recently widowed mother of two, Sarah, is desperate to know who murdered her husband in front of her young son, rendering him mute. Coerced into helping a low-life drug dealer stash narcotics stolen from the local Mr. Big, she’s forced into taking drastic action to protect her children, evolving from downtrodden submissive to take-charge vigilante.

4:35PM The Honeymoon Phase (Texas Premiere) 
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
​Phillip G. Carroll Jr. | USA | 88 minWriter: Phillip G. Carroll Jr
Cast: Chloe Carroll, Jim Schubin, François Chau, Tara Westwood
Struggling young couple Tom and Eve lie about being married so they can enter “The Millennium Project.” Paying $50,000, this 30-day scientific study analyzes couples’ relationships while they reside in futuristic smart homes secluded in the woods. Run by a mysterious researcher and his associate, the experiment finds Eve descending into violent madness, questioning her lover’s trust and whether he is the man she thinks he is.
THE HONEYMOON PHASE caps off the 2019 Other Worlds Program with a love story covered in tension and drama. On top of the thrilling relationship ride, the film will leave the audience with plenty to contemplate and discuss until Other Worlds 2020 begins.