Over the next three weeks you may feel a sudden sense of foreboding, a guttural malaise or a tingling excitement in your lower abdomen. It may be due to heightened case of H1N1, or it may be due to one of over 120 visual feasts offered by Fantasia, the premiere genre film festival in North American and certainly in Montreal's top tier of film events. It all begins tonight and runs until July 29th. Midnight Poutine is all about the bilingualism, so don't forget to read Eve-Lyn's recommendations before continuing on to my anglophone skew of the first five days.

Opening up the festival tonight is the live-action adaptation of 1970s anime Yatterman, which looks something like an amalgam of Power Rangers and Pokémon (see below). The central premise is a battle between good and evil for pieces of the skull stone, but the real draw are the colorfully costumed characters, mid-fight dance routines and oddities like attack sushi and giant mecha lovers. Fans of last year's Sukiyaki Western Django, also directed by Miike, should feel at home amidst the colorful insanity. Also premiering tonight is a biopic about the man who trained Bruce Lee. Ip Man is one part martial arts film and one part history lesson.

Friday night is when Fantasia goes into full swing, with screenings from 1pm to midnight. Camp fans will fall for British horror/comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers, whose title describes the premise and full extent of the storyline. Thai film Queens of Langkasuka, which opts for a more serious storyline (epic ala Troy or Lord of the Rings) may be inadvertent camp with its mix in of Avatar-like elemental powers. Daytime Drinking is an acclaimed dramedy from South Korea about a man wandering, drinking and encountering other people wandering and drinking. My personal recommendations would be Thirst (below) and The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. The former is the new film by Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) and is the latest in a recent trend of serious vampire movies. The latter is a documentary - a familial portrait of rude, crude and violent white folk from the south. The trailer shows just a glimpse of their good old family values.

On Saturday: Nazi zombies in Dead Snow (below)- 'nuff said. You could also opt for Love Exposure, which is all about the dichotomy of sin and faith in its characters. This goes on for about four hours, but don't let its length dissuade you. I may opt out, in lieu of catching a two-for... and due to my fear of blood clots. If watching ex-strippers or prostitutes beating up on the men who abused them is your style, watch Toronto film Sweet Karma.

Many of the above films repeat over the weekend, so you'll want to schedule accordingly. Otherwise, newbies on Sunday include Power Kids, a good companion to Karate Kid or The 3 Ninjas. This film from Thailand features kids protecting their own and laying the smackdown on the big bad adults of this world. On the more horrific side, Sundance audience pleaser Grace is about a yuppie couple about to give birth to a child, that in Cronenberg style turns out to be the pregnancy from hell. Lastly, on Monday there is a feature-length adaptation of Clive Barker stories: Book of Blood. The surprisingly good-looking production value and adult feel of this adaptation should please filmgoers who like their horror in the vein of Lovecraft over Romero.

Feel free to leave your recommendations or reviews of any films showing at Fantasia in the comments section below, and make sure to keep up with Eve-Lyn's posts. Check back here on Tuesday for more of ye olde angolophone preview, part deux.

Images courtesy the DVD insert for the Fantasia Film Festival guide.