Last year was my first Fantastic Fest and I'll go ahead and admit it: mistakes were made. In my defense, I have a hard time believing that anyone, let alone little 'ol me, can attend the world's largest genre film festival for the first time and walk away feeling like they did everything perfectly. That's just not how the world works. Heck, that's just not how film festivals work.
However, I learned a lot over those eight days, seeing five movies a day at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar (the best theater in the best theater chain in the world, if you'll allow me to be so bold) and managing to live to tell the tale. Now, I'm a returning veteran. I'm a champion of Fantastic Fest, ready to return for another 192 hours of the best horror, science fiction, fantasy and action films the world has to offer. While I'm by no means an expert—some of my friends and colleagues have braved the fest six times and are returning for round seven—I do think that I've learned a thing or two about how to do Fantastic Fest right. Grab a pen and some some paper, film buffs… you're going to want to take notes.
1. Eating Right
One of the benefits of Fantastic Fest being held at the Alamo Drafthouse is the food: delicious, often fried and always artery-wrecking—food that will be brought straight to you as you watch a film. After all, nothing compliments a Korean revenge drama more than a basket of hot wings.
But be warned! There are serious side effects to subsisting entirely on Drafthouse cuisine for a week straight (aside from those extra five pounds you'll take home as a nasty little souvenir). The food on the menu may be tasty, but it's heavy and it has the nasty habit of making even the toughest festival-goer sleepy and bloated when too much is consumed. Sure, buy a meal every so often, but don't be afraid to brown bag it, preferably with something light and healthy. Your stamina—and your wallet—will thank you.
2. Regulating Your Caffeine
On a related note, you will need caffeine. I repeat: You. Will. Need. Caffeine. This really isn't an option. If you want to do Fantastic Fest right, you're going to need to pump your slowly weakening body full of brain-slapping chemicals. Here's my secret caffeine schedule, which I gladly pass onto you, grasshopper:
Begin with tea (I'm a fan of the orange dulce with two sugars, lemon and one honey), consumed during the evening shows. Around day three, you'll need to start consuming tea during the day and coffee in the evening. You may be tempted to start with coffee, but you need to work toward that. Too much too soon and you'll crash and burn. Around day five, coffee during the day becomes an option and you'll be needing espresso at night. Days seven and eight? Espresso, all day and every day.
3. Don't Be Shy!
If you're attending Fantastic Fest, it's because you're a movie fan, a hobby that requires you to silently sit in the dark and shun others for two hours while you watch imaginary things projected onto a screen in front of you. This is not a hobby that trains you to be sociable, so many of us movie buffs are shy, soft spoken and afraid of crowds and meeting new people.
Lose this mentality. Now.
Fantastic Fest is a celebration of eclectic cinema, most of which belongs on the opposite end of the spectrum from the mainstream and appeals to the tiniest of niche audiences, AKA, you! Do you know what this means? The guy standing in line in front of you and the guy behind you all belong to the same niche! This is a gathering of people who like the same things you do. Don't look at your feet. Don't ignore others. Say hello. Make new friends. Strike up conversations. If you're one of those people who always has trouble in social situations because all you can talk about is movies, then you're finally in the right place. Embrace that.
4. Be Adventurous
Don't get attached to your schedule, folks. No matter how meticulously you plan your week, there will always be a few screenings you can't get into. Or you'll hear great buzz about another film that wasn't on your radar. Or you'll decide to forgo a movie and attend one of Fantastic Fest's nutty and amazing special events (the Fantastic Feud and the Fantastic Debates should not be missed). If you won't be malleable, if you try to stick to your carefully diagrammed schedule no matter what, you may miss something that you'll regret. Over-planning and fretting over your schedule is no way to have fun. Make your priorities and have a rough outline of what you want to do, but keep it loose and ready to change at a moment's notice. Let Fantastic Fest happen to you. Shake things up. Try things that are outside your normal comfort zone.
If you're not the party type, attend a party anyway. If you came for the horror films, give the French hitman comedy a shot. This week is a celebration of cinema and a celebration of being a fan of cinema. You can stick to routine any other week of the year. Try something special. Try something different. Try something dangerous. But not literally dangerous. Because that would be dangerous.
5. When In Doubt, Walk Out
Sometimes, being adventurous means you walk into a fetishistic Japanese gore comedy featuring a climactic battle between a mutant schoolgirl and a ten foot tall monster who shoots acidic milk from her breasts. There is an audience for this, but if you're like me, you do not belong to this very specific niche. Don't sit there and suffer: just stand up and walk out (unless you're a paid writer and you have to review it, you poor sucker).
Outside of that theater, there is plenty more to do, plenty more to see and plenty more people to meet. If you're not having fun, just leave... even if it means catching the disappointed glare of the attending filmmaker. You've learned something about your personal tastes and now you're a stronger person for it. Well done. Pat yourself on the back and dash across the street for a treat at Gourdough's. You've earned it.
local releases
Burgeoning troubadour Dylan Gossett keeps Austin on the country music map with warm new EP
Austin may not fully be "country" after all this urbanization, but its place in country music is undeniable. It's not just the blues out here. This city is home to Willie Nelson, of course, and is hosting the CMT Music Awards for the second year this April. And it's artists like Dylan Gossett who are keeping the genre going locally.
The 25-year-old singer-songwriter, whose name is always accompanied by his Austin birthplace, has added another EP to his new, but growing catalog. Called Songs in the Gravel, this short four-song collection settles warmly into the contemporary country canon without being overly referential.
Led on acoustic guitar and supported by fiddle and banjo, these folksy tracks further solidify Gossett's troubadour status that he built on songs like "Coal" — his most popular so far since his first release in June of 2023. The opening track, "If I Had a Lover," is an excellent setup for this campfire-ready collection, sliding into the EP with twangy three-part vocal harmonies and a barely-there guitar accompaniment.
“It was really important for me to get my new EP, Songs in the Gravel, out as soon as possible for this first headline tour," said Gossett in a press release, looking ahead to an international jaunt from Texas to Ireland, France, and more. "I wanted to make sure that the audience could have some more songs to sing with me."
Album cover courtesy of Big Loud Texas / Mercury Records
"The cover art and the EP are super special to me because this is where my massive love for music grew: with my feet in the gravel at my family's lake house, just singing around the campfire with family and friends," Gosset continued. "The four songs on the EP now are going to be sung around that same campfire for as long as I live.”
Although this acoustic record is relatively pared down in instrumentation and production, the progression from one song to the next is not at all one-note. After the easy singalong of the first track comes an even folksier living will, in which Gossett belts emotionally about an intent to dream restlessly until death ("Finally Stop Dreaming").
Next up is an banjo-heavy, stomping Americana track about alighting on the railroad ("Somewhere Between"), followed by a sudden drop into fingerstyle guitar and brooding vocals ("Bitter Winds"). By this closing track, we've traveled quite far from the communal campfire crooning and instead are looking onto it through Gossett's point of view:
"I see your breath while I'm holdin' mine
Your face lit up by the moon, my face lit up by your eyes
I'm singin' songs, the family sings along
With my feet buried in the gravel, my heart buried in my wrongs"
Although the songwriter is still early enough in his career that he's working on getting a full headlining tour set together, it sounds like he'll have plenty of people singing along. This mature, if fanciful EP is a strong effort at establishing a base before branching out into LPs.
Stream the new EP, Songs in the Gravel, via Spotify, Apple Music, or other platforms listed at dylangossett.com.
Gosset's upcoming international tour includes eight Texas cities:
- April 12 — Lubbock, Texas — Cooks Garage~
- April 13 — El Paso, Texas — Cowtown Event Center~
- April 16 — Houston, Texas — Bronze Peacock at House Of Blues ^ - SOLD OUT
- April 17 — Dallas, Texas — Cambridge Room at House Of Blues ^ - SOLD OUT
- April 19 — College Station, Texas — The Tap
- April 20 — Georgetown, Texas — Two Step Inn
- April 26 — Midland, Texas — La Hacienda Event Center~
- April 27 — Nacogdoches, Texas — Banita Creek Hall (Outdoors)~
^ Headline Date
~ Supporting Midland