EVERY HEAVY THING is a Must-See Mindfuck for Mickey Reece Fans [Fantasia 2025 Review]

It simply wouldn’t be the Fantasia Film Festival without a new film from Oklahoma filmmaker Mickey Reece, and it simply wouldn’t be a Mickey Reece film if it weren’t weird as all hell. Making its World Premiere at the festival, EVERY HEAVY THING (written and directed by Reece) combines future-tech thrills with vintage vibes while staying true to Reece’s unique brand of absurdist cinema. 

In the film, Josh Fadem (TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN) stars as Joe, an ad salesman for a small alt-weekly publication. His life in Hightown City, Oklahoma, with his longtime nurse-girlfriend, Lux (Tipper Newton), is simple and predictable. That is, until a spontaneous night out to a concert with a co-worker upends his comfy routine. After a post-show encounter with singer Whitney Bluewill (Barbara Crampton), Joe becomes the unwitting pawn in a chilling mystery involving five local women who have vanished. As Big Tech’s shadow looms over the city, Joe’s reality fractures under mounting paranoia and corrupt memories. Think, a 70s-era conspiracy thriller with a dash of Giallo and hint of neon 80s cyber dust, transmitted through an Oklahoma red-dirt haze.

Where many of Reece’s films leave ample room for interpretation with ambiguous narratives, EVERY HEAVY THING wears its heart on its sleeve, for the most part. An exploration and, at times, condemnation of technology’s impact on humanity and our ability to think independently, Joe’s character bridges the gap between tech beneficiary and victim. Like many of us, technology is a significant asset to Joe’s daily life, but he quickly learns how essential it is to keep one skeptical eye open to its ability to quietly manipulate and gain access to what we think, see, and feel, so as not to lose sight of what’s real and what matters. And yeah, while this may sound a little heavy and perhaps even a little eye-roll inducing to those just wanting a movie and not a lecture, Reece keeps his signature dark humor and knack for quirky characters firmly intact.   

As Joe, Josh Fadem delivers a killer performance of a reasonable guy experiencing some very unreasonable things. One minute, his life is peachy keen; the next, there’s a motorcycle helmet-wearing psycho in his back seat, kicking off a genuine mindfuck of a mess that quickly spirals out of control. Along with Fadem, EVERY HEAVY THING adds some other notable names to the cast, including James Urbaniak (OPPENHEIMER), Vera Drew (THE PEOPLE’S JOKER), John Ennis (ZODIAC), and of course, the incomparable Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR). But lest one worry that Reece has forgotten the face of his father (sorry, that’s my Constant Reader bleeding through a bit), there are still many returning Reece-faves present to appreciate, including Ginger Gilmartin, Mary Buss, Ben Hall, Cheryl McConnell, and Chris Freihofer.

Easily the slickest of Reece’s cinematic outings, EVERY HEAVY THING juxtaposes visual elements from varying decades, providing a look that feels like a dreamy memory tape replay of Joe’s harrowing adventure. Infused with elements of Brian De Palma, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, and perhaps even the AFTER HOURS-era of Martin Scorsese, intentional edits and trippy graphics create an engaging viewing experience that fuels the narrative's steady pace. However, even with these nods to some of the cinema greats, the movie never loses its Mickey Reece flavor. Further supported by the truly excellent and versatile score from frequent Reece collaborator Nicholas Poss, time feels and sounds like a construct built on Joe’s realm of experience. Visceral and ever-present, Poss’s music, in collaboration with the sound design, becomes a critical element of the storytelling, telegraphing Joe’s rapid descent into paranoid madness.      

What I love most about Reece’s films is that I never really know what to expect from them. Sure, I read the log lines and short plot summary snippets, but as a loyal, returning customer, I’ve come to realize that Reece’s movies defy such simple description constraints. This long-running tradition continues to hold with EVERY HEAVY THING. Blending absurdist humor with killer tension, Reece delivers a thought-provoking, gauzy, analog-infused thriller that transforms a normie man’s unraveling into a darkly comic look at our tech-obsessed world.  

The 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16 to August 3 in Montreal, Quebec, primarily at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screenings and events at Montreal’s Cinéma du Musée. For more information, please visit the Fantasia website here.