Tie Man is a true ode to the VHS era of action cinema like you’ve never seen, playing at Fantastic Fest 2025.
Where does one start with Tie Man? An overcaffeinated homage to the yesteryear of the Wild WTF was that VHS titles with great cover art.
The revenge film is as though one took Robocop, Escape from New York, The Warriors, Street Trash, Italian knock-off cinema, put it into a blender, adding ample amounts of VHS-era style, 80s Cannon Film street gang movies, synth-core/Overdrive score, and a healthy amount of gore. That is the sort of feeling you get with Tie Man. A film that isn’t as much a story as it is an entire vibe and style.
Co-writer/director Rémi Fréchette’s film (which started life as a TV serial for Montreal Broadcast) tells the tale of a good cop, Marjolaine (Catherine Beauchemin), and her search for justice versus those who killed her family, and how Tie Man (Jérémie Earp) helps her get that justice. Yes, Tie Man is a simple A-B-C genre film, but done with so much style and dense visual references, it defies that simple genre labelling and plot mechanics.
Fréchette, along with co-writer Jerome Cloutier and cinematographer Vincent Allard, goes beyond simple gags. The trio, with Art Director Audrey Loiselle builds a world that is filled with detail, both harkening back to other films, TV, and comic books, but also with their own personal touches, creating something altogether new. Their world is storytelling in and of itself. One of decay and rotting corruption within the city. One that recalls the analog filmmaking of the 1980s without too much kitsch.
Tie Man is the kind of genre film that is uniquely its own story while standing on the shoulders of the filmmakers and films that came before it. Those attuned to its wavelength will find much to obsess over and love.
Tie Man plays Fantastic Fest 2025 on September 23rd
Tie Man is a true ode to the VHS era of action cinema like you’ve never seen, playing at Fantastic Fest 2025.
Where does one start with Tie Man? An overcaffeinated homage to the yesteryear of the Wild WTF was that VHS titles with great cover art.
The revenge film is as though one took Robocop, Escape from New York, The Warriors, Street Trash, Italian knock-off cinema, put it into a blender, adding ample amounts of VHS-era style, 80s Cannon Film street gang movies, synth-core/Overdrive score, and a healthy amount of gore. That is the sort of feeling you get with Tie Man. A film that isn’t as much a story as it is an entire vibe and style.
Co-writer/director Rémi Fréchette’s film (which started life as a TV serial for Montreal Broadcast) tells the tale of a good cop, Marjolaine (Catherine Beauchemin), and her search for justice versus those who killed her family, and how Tie Man (Jérémie Earp) helps her get that justice. Yes, Tie Man is a simple A-B-C genre film, but done with so much style and dense visual references, it defies that simple genre labelling and plot mechanics.
Fréchette, along with co-writer Jerome Cloutier and cinematographer Vincent Allard, goes beyond simple gags. The trio, with Art Director Audrey Loiselle builds a world that is filled with detail, both harkening back to other films, TV, and comic books, but also with their own personal touches, creating something altogether new. Their world is storytelling in and of itself. One of decay and rotting corruption within the city. One that recalls the analog filmmaking of the 1980s without too much kitsch.
Tie Man is the kind of genre film that is uniquely its own story while standing on the shoulders of the filmmakers and films that came before it. Those attuned to its wavelength will find much to obsess over and love.
Tie Man plays Fantastic Fest 2025 on September 23rd
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