Fantaspoa 2026 Review: Adorable Humans (2026)

Director: Anders Jon, Kasper Juhl, Michael Kunov, Michael Panduro

Year: 2026

Country: Denmark

Alternate Titles: Yndige Mennesker

Genre: Anthology

Plot:

A series of stories adapted from the fairytales of Hans Christian Anderson.

Review:

The Dead Man-Desperate for work, a man takes a job as a caretaker for an elderly neighbor but soon becomes infatuated with a woman others call crazy. As he tries to spend more time with her, a part of her personality that others warned him about begins to interfere with his job. Overall, this was a generally strong opening segment. The main storyline, offering a way to get him into the man’s house for what should be easy money, only to meet up with the strange woman and become infatuated with her to the point of neglecting his charge, sets itself up rather nicely to look into the sense of comfort afforded to the elderly. The unease about being in the house and how his snooping around either gets foiled or leads to the discovery of something he shouldn’t is played off nicely since there’s a chance his mind is playing tricks on him following up on his lust for the strange woman. She’s graced with enough to make the infatuation work, but as she disappears for long stretches of a supposed short, it is a bit off-putting not being around her more to help sell it even further. Still, there’s enough to like here as this goes along to make for a strong opening.

The Story of a Mother-After a tragic accident, a woman tries to help care for the ailing son left in her care after the incident. While she also struggles with the guilt about what happened during the accident, it forces her to do whatever she can at any cost to not let her child suffer. This was a far more heartbreaking entry than anything, although it has plenty to like about it. The main setup, featuring the mother trying to get over the survivors’ guilt about her role in the accident that killed her son’s classmates and left him with a bad run of ill-health, gives this a strong, emotionally-charged storyline that allows her to be seen as the tragic heroine looking to make sure her child never suffers. Seeing the mental and physical toll it takes on her with him being in that kind of pain, adds to the tragic nature of it all, and knowing the effects of the crash on him only fuels that even more, but beyond just getting the occasional audio jump with the sound of the crash, very little of this dips into the genre overall. The setup makes its endgame fairly obvious and routine as well, so less time getting to that part of the segment also hinders this slightly, but even this is just looking at this for nitpicks.

The Snow Queen-After some questionable health news, a woman and her husband try what they can to ensure that she is as healthy as possible while trying to get her through the treatments. While this is being accomplished, the arrival of a masked man looking for a strange mirror only complicates matters. Overall, this was a decent enough, if slightly problematic, segment. A great central setup that provides this with the kind of sympathetic starting point, trying to come to terms with her failing mental health that takes the form of a series of graphic body-horror-styled sequences of her removing strange objects or vines from her body in excruciating manners, while the squelching practical effects are put to good use. This all feels good enough and could’ve worked on it’s own, yet the inclusion of the deformed man asking for a mirror out of nowhere is a weird inclusion where it seems to halt the momentum gathered in the name of trying to replicate the atmosphere of the fairytale, only to not be much of a factor after his introduction, so it all seems like a waste to do so.

Auntie Toothache-Joining a big rock band, a new vocalist tries to get his creative juices flowing and write some new material, which only goes to highlight the kind of smothering writer’s block keeping him from contributing. When his aunt offers to help him using unconventional techniques, he starts to question how desperate he is for fame. For the most part, this was a solid enough way to end things on. The initial idea of the guy joining the band and trying to fit in by contributing new parts to their latest work, which he is unable to do due to the crippling writer’s block holding over him, serves to provide the kind of effective instigation to try his aunt’s unconventional therapy. As he now becomes haunted by the demonic spirit and is tortured for his work that brings about some gruesome and squirm-inducing setpieces, there’s quite a lot tot like here which is only held up by the somewhat underwhelming music featured here as its presented like their mainly popular in the community but not the rest of the world so it’s a bit hard to see the kind of attention given to them is warranted. Beyond that, this was a fun final segment.

Overview: ****/5

A stellar anthology with quite a lot to like about it, this contains quite a lot to like with nearly every segment being a winner that it has only small fissures holding it down. Those with an appreciation for this type of indie genre effort or who are hardcore anthology fanatics will have a lot to like with this one while most others out there might want to heed caution.

This review ran as part of coverage of the 2026 Fantaspoa Film Festival.