Fantasmas

This is a sketch comedy show of how Julio's brain works. It's about his "profession" and how he is not any "one thing" in life. He is an artist that struggles with the question, "so what do you do?".

These sketches go far down a rabbit hole of fleeting ideas, with stunning makeup, costumes, and set design. Sketches range from bizarre sitcoms to reflective narrative moments on what it means to be an artist or creative person in the modern world.

For those who do not know Julio Torres, he is often associated with the term "magical realism". I'm assuming that if he ever wanted to be confined to a genre that would be appropriate.

Julio Torres never presents a cliche' subject. Go with the flow, and enjoy every delicious moment. Surprises around every single corner awaits. Stories within stories, within stories. He packs each half hour segment like a can of sardines with his enchanting plots. His wardrobe and background settings are done with an artist's vision of both beautiful colors and unique geometric shapes. He may have changed his hair color of choice from blue to orange, but his signature creativity is still woven in the wickedly absurd vignettes. The new characters that he introduces to us like Chester the driver, played by Tomas Matos or Steve Buscemi, as the unforgettable Q, are hysterical! I can't wait for the next episode to come an take me into his magically twisted dreamland of delight.

First episode and it's seemingly more of Julios spontaneous, surreal style of filmmaking. Very quirky, very funny and clearly influenced. There's a unique feel to his projects, like a flow of thoughts coming and going, creatively juggling themes in this dreamlike splash of colours, costumes and alternate worlds similar to something you'd see in "poor things". The first episode picks up many concepts in 30 minutes, though so far they dont really land well enough to impress me (or hopefully these ideas will be explored in following episodes) but based on this being the exact issue I had with his feature film, I'm uncertain if these established themes will be revisited in this "stream of Julio's conscious thoughts" style. I liked his feature "problemista" but he is still clearly in the early stages as a filmmaker.

Check this out if you like funny, surreal, quirky weirdo filmmaking from an exciting upcoming indie director still finding his footing.

I think that that the negative reviews are borne from people either not understanding or trying to apply logic to what is undoubtedly the quirkiest, funniest series I've ever seen. Highly unconventional, totally bizarre, and above all, hilarious, this series is without logic - don't try to understand it, just strap yourself in for a helluva ride. The humour is not quite American, not quite British, but takes the best elements of both. I was spellbound by it, unable to recall what the original 'plot' was, as the story flew off it multiple tangents, each more surreal and ridiculous than the last. Try it, you won't regret it.

I felt like I needed to give this a rating even after 2 episodes. From the set design and costumes to the multidimensional characters and stories they tell all within a world that can only make you think of things like Alice in wonderland or any novel by Vonnegut. I don't want to give anything away but the show does have a story that is certainly absurd at first glance but wholly satirical on every detail it presents about certain mundanities in our day to day lives that really are ridiculous when given further consideration.

Excited to see more of that this world is like. Expect to be weirded out at times, but please give it a shot if you're at all interested.