Before you go into fits of apoplexy thinking that this is a review of the Tom Berenger film from 1996, rest assured that this The Substitute is a Danish film by director Ole Bornedal that just happens to have the same name (it’s Vikaren in Denmark). Fantastic Fest does choose their films with a bit more taste, although they are both about hard-assed subtitute teachers. One of them just happens to be an alien, and sadly we don’t mean Tom Berenger. Although that might have improved that movie.

In this Danish film, Paprika Steen plays a chicken farmer’s wife who gets inhabited by a spark of light from a planet far away. Her alien races lives without love, and she’s been sent as an envoy to try and find out what it is so that her race will stop destroying one another. Sounds noble enough, it’s just too bad she’d rather kill people and eat chickens whole than stay on course.

…Read more