After earning its slot in Round Two by defeating Amor y Frijoles in the first match, Mandrill now finds its super spy in the fight of his life against heavy favorite Pan’s Labyrinth. Spain was favored going in, and then delivered a 95-5 crushing victory against Switzerland. There are more than a few Mandrill fans out there, but will they be enough to see the movie go on to the next round of contests?

In another fantastic match up, the foothold of Honduran cinema as it enters the modern era goes up against the ass-kickery of Mandrill. Amor y Frijoles is a slice of life (and beans), and the Chilean challenger is a 1960s-style send up of the contract killer. Two completely different genres from two countries separated by a continent. Will voters be hungry for love or hungry for a beat down?

With as lightening-fast as Marko Zaror is, we were incredibly lucky to catch him on camera for an exclusive Fantastic Fest interview. We assume the master martial artist and Mandrill director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza were lured in by the promise of free booze and shag carpet on the walls.

Luckily we had a list of the winners sent to us because we didn’t remember all the names. Or where our pants went.

A hitman who kicks unprecedented amounts of ass gets an assignment to kill the man who he believes killed his parents. The plot thickens when he falls for the man’s daughter and must decide between leaving her an orphan or forgoing the revenge he’s waited for his whole life.

We’ve been training all our lives for this, and it’s finally here. Fantastic Fest 2009 promises to remove our eyeballs, pour blood, sex and ninja moves all over them and then shove them right back in our face. These are the 20 films that have us most excited about that upcoming amateur surgical procedure.