Here for the Horror Legends: John Carpenter, Brazilian Thriller Bacurau, and Udo Kier at Cannes

Honeysuckle’s adventures at the 72nd edition of the Cannes Film Festival continued this week with Bacurau, a fascinating genre film by Brazilian filmmakers Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles, starring Barbara Colen, Sonia Braga, and Udo Kier. A small town descends into madness and chaos upon the death of its 94-year-old matriarch, and the epic violent strangeness that ensues feels like the love child of classic westerns and Hostel-esque thrillers.

Like at Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables, we were blown away by the cast and crew of Bacurau‘s impassioned reactions to seeing their finished film for the first time. Kier, an icon known for his performances in over 250 films including Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), Blood for Dracula (1974), Suspiria (1977), and Blade (1998), described being his feelings of overcome with emotion as “a moment you can’t explain.”

The middle of the day found us at Quinzaine des Realisateurs (Directors’ Fortnight), a program celebrating significant filmmakers and screening classic and new shorts, features, and documentaries. This time the spotlight was on horror master John Carpenter, who won the Carrosse d’Or prize, awarded annually for innovative, courageous, and independent-minded work in the medium. Carpenter’s internationally-renowned classic The Thing (1982) was screened, and we were then lucky enough to hear him speak for an hour and a half in a wonderful Q and A. He reflected on his passion as a filmmaker, saying “It’s basically like [my] breath,” recalled working with famed composer Ennio Morricone on The Thing’s unique musical score, and named some of his own favorite filmmakers including Dario Argento. John Carpenter was a treat for sure, a living legend.

Next week sees us with Quentin Tarantino, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Brad Pitt for the epic Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young series; Gaspar Noe; and Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in Robert Eggers’s fantasy-horror The Lighthouse.

Given the edgy content, groundbreaking films, cool filmmakers, zombies and horror, we’d say it’s a very Honeysuckle Cannes already. Allons-y!

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See more from our Cannes coverage here, with spotlights on Jim Jarmusch’s THE DEAD DON’T DIE and Ladj Ly’s LES MISERABLES.

Have questions about Cannes? Keep checking the site for our extended diary notes, and tag one of our posts on Instagram with #canneshoney to hit us up!