Canada, Ireland, New Zealand
2019 94 mins OV English
''Ant Timpson's directorial debut is a sentimental story about death and rediscovery that explodes into violent mayhem. Elijah Wood is Hilarious.''
Eric Kohn, INDIEWIRE''Savagely inventive, wonderfully macabre and bitingly funny''
Kristy Strouse, FILM INQUIRY''A true crowd-pleaser? A genre bending poster child of a thrill ride''
Meagan Navarro, BLOODY DISGUSTINGThirty-five-year-old Norval (Elijah Wood) journeys to the middle of nowhere to visit his father (Stephen McHattie) after receiving a letter begging him to come. Having not seen his dad since he was five, it's all a little mysterious and vaguely emotional for him. He arrives at his father's distinctly UFO-shaped home and almost immediately gets off on the wrong foot with him. Awkward unpleasantries abound, and soon, let's just say, the unexpected happens. A number of times. Things proceed to get a little strange and a lot violent as Norval funds himself plunged into circumstances on the shiftier side of outright lunacy.
What begins as an intimately quirky comedy about estranged family attempting a reconnection soon shifts lanes onto freakier and far, far bloodier side roads than you'll ever see coming, twisting from one inventively gonzo situation to the next. While
COME TO DADDY may be his long-awaited feature directorial debut, New Zealand genre superforce Ant Timpson ain?t new to this. Co-founder of the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in the late '90s and now a core programmer at the NZ International Film Festival, Timpson's eccentric tastes have long shaped the filmic universe by way of his many endeavors as a producer -
DEATHGASM,
TURBO KID,
GREASY STRANGLER,
THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL,
ABCs OF DEATH and
THE DEVIL DARED ME TO. He's also a longstanding member of the Fantasia Family, having screened his early 35mm short, CRAB BOY, here way back in 1998. Now, teaming up with
STRANGLER scribe Toby Harvard, and working with a cast that not only includes top-of-their-game Wood and McHattie (also on this year's Fantasia screen with
DREAMLAND and a special retro showing of
LOOK WHAT?S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY?S BABY) but also throws in Martin Donovan (!), Simon Chin and Raresh DiMofte, he's delivered one of 2019's most hilariously jaw-dropping joyrides.
- Mitch Davis
