You can see everything from a Romanian abortion drama (Vegetarian Cannibal) to a vulgar Dutch comedy where every other word is "cunt" (New Kids Nitro) at Fantastic Fest, but the bloody, still-beating excised heart of the festival is horror movies.

One of our favorites this year is Adrian Garcia Bogliano (seen at left with the Alamo Drafthouse's Tim League and stars Laura Caro and Francisco Barriero) and his to slow-burn '70s horror Here Comes the Devil (2012). As we mentioned yesterday, the movie opensopens with actresses Dana Dorel and Jessica Iris engaged in some vigorous lesbian sex, only to be graphically dispatched by a serial killer moments later. (All this is just a prologue, by the way). People used to movies like The Last Exorcism (2010) are going to be surprised by this one, not only for the copious amounts of nudity and sex but also for the way typical Exorcist-inspired imagery (heads turning around, kids floating in midair, you know the drill) is downplayed in order to explore the sexual implications of a "possession" story. We asked the director about what influenced the film, and unsurprisingly he named The Entity (1981) as one of his key inspirations.

We loved Here Comes the Devil (which was just picked up for distribution and is coming to a theater near you in January, by the way), but unfortunately we can't say the same for the hysterically over-wrought Argentinian horror flick Memories of the Dead. We liked the practical gore effects in the insanely bloody finale (the director estimates over 500 gallons of blood were used for the film), but overall we couldn't shake the feeling that we were watching a Satanic telenovela. On the bright side, we get great nude scenes from co-stars Jimena Anganuzzi and Belen Brito.

Body horror was a big theme of Fantastic Fest's horror programming this year with Brandon Cronenberg's distinctly, uh, Cronenberg-esque sci-fi horror hybrid Antiviral (2012), which has some interesting commentary on celebrity culture (including a Kim Kardashian-type star played by Nenna Abuwa who is shown topless in several news reports on "leaked nude photos"), but in the end left us feeling rather cold. We felt the same way about Eron Sheehan's scientific thriller Errors of the Human Body (2012), which tries to use a German scientific institute as the jumping-off point for a morality tale but in the end just took too long to get going to really engage us in the story, a problem that wasn't helped by the clinical look and tone of much of the movie. Plus, all the nude scenes were really disturbing, and that bums us out.

Our favorite body-horror movie this year at Fantastic Fest was American Mary (2012), the new movie starring horror veteran Katharine Isabelle and directed by twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska. While this movie too suffered from some story problems--watching it, you get the impression that the directors had this great concept and weren't sure where to go with it, but said to themselves, "fuck it, we'll do it anyway"--Katharine's character, Mary, was so compelling and the tone and production design of the film so distinctive (see it with a Goth chick you know, she'll love it), we liked it anyway and will definitely be checking out whatever Jen and Sylvia do next. The story focuses on the culture of underground body modification surgery, and thus a lot of the shocks in the movie were of the naked variety, including one (technically) full frontal shot of a woman who willingly had her nipples removed and vagina sewn shut to look more like a doll. Katharine’s non-nude streak continues, but considering she spends several scenes dressed in a corset, thigh-highs, and/or a latex apron, there’s still plenty to feast your eyes on here.

American Mary was definitely one of the more interesting QAs we attended as Jen and Sylvia took the mic with co-star Tristan Risk wearing replicas of the (very revealing, by the way) ensemble Katharine wears in the film. But that was nothing compared to the QA for The ABCs of Death (2012), where Japanese actress Je$$ica stripped off her shirt to reveal a "9/11" boob tattoo. We'll never forget that for sure.

The ABCs of Death was the first movie co-produced by the Alamo Drafthouse's film division, and while you're bound to get some stinkers in an anthology movie containing 26 short films (one for every letter of the alphabet), when it's good The ABCs of Death is a delightfully profane orgy of fart smelling, baby eating, graphic gore, sick jokes, and tons of full frontal nudity. They mean that "this film is not to be viewed by anyone under the age of 18" disclaimer, people. Case in point: "L is for Libido" (left), from director Timo Tjahjanto, based on the following premise: two guys are bound to chairs and shown an increasingly fucked-up series of sexual images, from a sexy naked woman to straight-up pedophilia. The rules of the game are: each guy has to jack off to what he sees. The last one to finish dies. If you find that as funny as we do, then The ABCs of Death is worth a look-- though you might want to wait 'til it comes out on DVD.

Join us again tomorrow for more coverage from Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas!