VISITORS (COMPLETE EDITION) (2023) Fantastic Fest 2023

Kenichi Ugana’s kick ass VISITORS (COMPLETE EDITION) is the expansion of his kick ass short film which played around the world last year. The film was such a jaw dropping experience that I said almost nothing about it other than to call it a delight. My lack of words was not because it was bad but because Ugana’s plotting in the few minutes it ran was such I didn’t want to spoil anything. I was left simply calling it a delight.

My feelings toward this feature version is that it’s even more of a delight.  Seriously, Ugana’s expansion of his story is just even more good stuff, and like the earlier film he takes his tale of a “zombies” into all sorts of unexpected places.

The plot of the film has a bunch of friends traveling to see what is going on with one of their number. It seems their friend has fallen off the face of the earth.  When they arrive they find their friend isn’t quite…normal and it only gets worse.

I remember when I saw the original short I was wondering where this was going to go if it was expanded… and now I found out, and it is delightfully not what I expected. Mixing blood, gore, horror and humor Ugana has fashioned a pretty little monster machine. This is a film that will have you staring at the screen in disbelief as  the slowly building insanity over takes the people on screen and the people in the audience. I was locked and loaded and when the end credits began I just stared at the screen wanting to know where it was going next. I want things to keep going because I was enjoying the thrill ride so much.

This is one of the few expansions of a short that not only is good, but better than the original.

What an absolute blood soaked joy.

If you are a horror fan you need to see this.