It’s SIFF season, baby! Seattle’s favorite film fest returns this month with 262 films over 11 days (April 14–24) screening both in-person and online. We’re rounding up some of our favorites. Every day, expect two more recommendations on Slog.
Belgium, 2022, 105 min, Dir. Michael Van Ostade
Stranger Things meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Ghostbusters in this delightful kid-friendly romp about ghost-hunters at a boarding school. Lively humor and puppets are a hoot (and often quite gross), and ghosts are a neat metaphor for wrestling with emotional demons of impending adolescence. Copious Dutch puns are valiantly localized with varying levels of success. (Haunted bird: “Poultrygeist.” Haunted refrigerator: “Frightdge.”) Young viewers may balk at having to read subtitles, and parents at the occasional profanity.
The Ghastly Brothers screens at Shoreline Community College on Sunday, April 17, and at SIFF Uptown on Sunday, April 24. It also streams online throughout the festival.
