Harpoon
Written by Rob Grant and Mike Kovac
Directed by Rob Grant
Cast: Christopher Gray, Emily Tyra, Munro Chambers, Brett Gelman
Epic Pictures
83 minutes
Release date: October 3-11 U.S. theater tour
October 8, 2019 (Blu-ray & VOD, Amazon Prime Video)

At last year’s NYC Horror Film Festival I saw a really good modern take on the Frankenstein story with Rob Grant‘s Alive. So it’s no surprise to me that a year later I am again intrigued by one of the Canadian filmmaker’s projects, in this case it’s minimalist thriller Harpoon. Shot almost entirely on a small yacht during a fishing trip and featuring a cast of literally three on-screen actors with a voiceover narration from Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman on Stranger Things), Harpoon somehow evokes tension, terror, and laughs. With the small setting and smaller cast, Grant’s film plays out like a stage play: imagine Open Water, only you’re on the boat with the sharks.

Turbo Kid
Directors: Anouk Whissell, François Simard, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Writers: Anouk Whissell, François Simard, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Cast: Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, Michael Ironside, Aaron Jeffery, Edwin Wright, Romano Orzari, Tyler Hall, Jason Eisener
Epic Pictures Group | Timpson Films
Unrated | 89 Minutes
Release Date: March 17, 2005 (SXSW)

“This is the future. The world as we know it is gone. Acid rain has left the land barren and the water toxic. Scarred by endless wars, humanity struggles to survive in the ruins of the old world, frozen in an everlasting nuclear winter. This is the future. This is the year 1997.”

Turbo Kid is directed by The RKSS (Road Kill Super Stars), a collective of three filmmakers: Anouk Whissell, François Simard, and Yoann-Karl Whissel. In a post-apocalyptic future, The Kid (Munro Chambers), a young scavenger obsessed with comic books, must face his fears and become a hero when he meets a peculiar girl with cyan-colored hair named Apple (Laurence Leboeuf).

This is one of those moments where I am kicking myself for not being at the Sundance Film Festival, where the nostalgic action-splatter flick Turbo Kid made its world premiere. While there is no denying the quality and variety of films that are screened in Park City, UT, this time of year, watching the first trailer for Turbo Kid will certainly bring back some memories of classic 80s films, especially since its villain is played by Michael Ironside!

Set in a retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic 1997, an orphan boy named The Kid (Munro Chambers, currently on TV’s Degrassi) uses his skills to find scraps to trade for water. When his pink-haired new best friend Apple is kidnapped by a minion of evil overlord Zeus, Kid travels across the winter wasteland on his BMX bike to save her.

Hit the jump to check out the first trailer from Epic Pictures.