Fantasia Film Festival‘s 30th edition is less than two weeks away! It seems just like yesterday that the 2025 festival took place. This year’s lineup might be the best yet, with countless films ranging from vintage slashers to bone-rattling psychological thrillers, promising to blow the minds of horror audiences. When it comes to narrowing down to the most anticipated films, the work was certainly cut out for me. But I managed to rangle the 20 films I’m most excited to see.
Her Private Hell
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Screening: July 16 @ 6:30pm
Nicolas Winding Refn’s audacious return to feature filmmaking is a gorgeous, mysterious act of cinema, sensorial and transgressive, that demands to be experienced on its own terms. It emerges through spectral mist like dream transcriptions from the beyond, pulsating with psychic threads to Bava, Suzuki, Argento, and Vadim by way of Hans Christian Andersen, steeped in saturated primary colors and dripping with potent surrealism and mordant wit. Set in a fog-basked futuristic city that curves, arches, juts, and glows like pathways into the subconscious, HER PRIVATE HELL stars Sophie Thatcher (Showtime’s Yellowjackets, COMPANION), Charles Melton (MAY DECEMBER, The CW’s Riverdale), Havana Rose Liu (LURKER, BOTTOMS), Kristine Froseth (SHARP STICK, AppleTV’s The Buccaneers), and Dougray Scott (MY OXFORD YEAR, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2). A hallucinatory fairy tale death trip inspired in part by its gifted maker’s own harrowing experience with death and resurrection, HER PRIVATE HELL is a deeply personal and obsessive film that explores memory and mortality, often through breathtakingly stylized Neo-Noir and Giallo film coding.
The Mouths
Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Screening: July 26 @ 6:35pm
A rumor circulates about a cursed tree standing in the center of a supposedly haunted cemetery and a group of university students decides to tempt fate by visiting this legendary spot in the dead of night. Their courage quickly wavers in the face of the location’s eerie atmosphere and the deafening sound of cicadas. Things rapidly spiral out of control for the quartet as a waking nightmare, filled with ghostly figures and sudden disappearances, unfolds. Their recklessness comes at a price far steeper than they ever imagined. “What happened that night?” That’s the mystery the viewer must unravel in this terrifying new film by Takashi Shimizu (the SANA trilogy), brilliantly adapted from the novella A Questionnaire About the Mouth by renowned author Sesuji. Shimizu further cements his place in the pantheon of J-horror with a well-paced feature that relies more on genuinely unsettling supernatural apparitions than excessive jump scares. Fans of atmospheric horror will relish the excellent THE MOUTHS and its mind-bending, nerve-jangling finale.
When You Open the Door
Directed by Eriko Katagiri
Screening: July 25 @ 9:45pm
Miki, a 27-year-old working in an architectural firm, wakes up in her small apartment, pulled out of her sleepy memory. Her world is quiet and strange, but will soon be interrupted by a transformative experience spurred by a half-remembered wolf bite. As Miki searches for answers, she soon finds herself drawn into the woods, and to the center of a ritual at a shrine cared for by elderly maidens. Director Eriko Katagiri was the recipient of the Japan Horror Award, a prize previously won by the director of NEW GROUP and BEST WISHES TO ALL, and her film tackles feminine isolation and alienation in a unique and powerful way. Viewers who allow themselves to be carried into Miki’s mind will find themselves pulled into one of the most unique werewolf stories ever put to the big screen. Cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa (TOKYO SONATA, CREEPY), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s frequent collaborator, lends the film a unique visual identity, creating images built in ephemera, silhouettes, shadows and nature. WHEN YOU OPEN THE DOOR isn’t just a great film, it’s the announcement of a bright new talent.
Godhead
Directed by Mark H. Rapaport
Screening: July 18 @ 7:05pm // July 23 @ 1:15pm
In 2023, Fantasia fell in love with HIPPO, Mark H. Rapaport’s electrically weird coming-of-age debut feature. With his sophomore effort, GODHEAD, Rapaport plunges us back into his wickedly strange imagination, re-teaming with his HIPPO star Kimball Farley. This equally baffling and engrossing film examines the intertwining blood structures where fanaticism and obligation meet. The film follows eccentric twins (Farley and Sarah Coffey) who proclaim themselves prophets, blurring reality and delusion as they draw a priest into their supposedly divine mission. A darkly comic work that examines the limits of dogmatic belief, the film’s formal identity reflects themes of unreal truth and fanaticism in an increasingly fragmented world. Claustrophobic and uncertain, GODHEAD pulls us into the headspace of religious indoctrination. It’s an offbeat film for our offbeat audience, and a movie for the freaks trying to find their place in this unforgiving world.
Junction Row
Directed by Ashlea Wessel
Screening: July 28 @ 6:45pm
Ashlea Wessel has directed festival-favorite shorts like 2018’s TICK and 2020’s WEIRDO, and rounded them out with segments in the 2024 horror anthology CREEPY BITS. Now, audiences can see the World Premiere of her feature debut, JUNCTION ROW. Canadian horror icon Katharine Isabelle (GINGER SNAPS, AMERICAN MARY, BACKROOMS) is Juno, a recovering addict who leaves a fringe housing compound for a better life, leaving her beloved Ruby (Natalie Brown, of FX’s The Strain and THE BREACH) behind. When she learns that Ruby has gone missing, Juno returns, only to find Junction Row has become a hotbed of criminal activity, but she encounters much more than menacing drug dealers on her mission to find Ruby. Isabelle continues to be a crowd-pleaser as an action star, and supporting roles by Glen Gould (Paramount+’s Tulsa King, AT THE PLACE OF GHOSTS) and Kyle Mac (Netflix’s Between, AppleTV’s Government Cheese) don’t disappoint. With distinct Lovecraftian dread, this creature feature, penned by Adam Cesare (CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD), Matt Serafini, and Wessel, conjures a story where the fear of the unknown isn’t confined to what lies above, but what waits beneath.
The Last Footage
Directed by Arkar Soe Oo
Screening: July 27 @ 7pm // July 29 @ 11:35am
Aside from a small handful of arthouse dramas screening at Locarno and such, the national cinema of politically isolated, conflict-plagued Myanmar remains all but invisible outside its borders. Few are aware of its lively, low-budget genre-film scene, circulating mostly online or on VCDs, but writer/director Arkar Soe Oo aims to change that with his innovative feature THE LAST FOOTAGE. Myanmar’s first found-footage horror film, shot entirely in first-person POV, is possibly the first Burmese chiller to hit the global genre-festival circuit. The events of THE LAST FOOTAGE unfold in almost-realtime, as the sun sets on the haunted Wingabar Forest and eerie howls pierce its night. That, the first-person perspective, and the absence of conventional horror gimmicks (rapid edits and bass-heavy scores, not to mention gratuitous gore and cruelty) make THE LAST FOOTAGE feel more like an immersive work of in-situ theatre. Or perhaps more accurately, like a gleeful romp with friends through a haunted-house attraction at a regional fair, with various creepy creatures leaping suddenly out of the darkness.
Buddy
Directed by Casper Kelly
Screening: August 1 @ 6:25pm
A brave girl (Delaney Quinn, IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU) and her friends must escape a kids television show, stalked by a homicidal mascot (Keegan-Michael Key, KEANU) in the wickedly deranged Sundance sensation BUDDY, the long-coming feature theatrical debut from Casper Kelly (TOO MANY COOKS, ADULT SWIM YULE LOG). Inspired in part by the filmmaker’s own childhood envy of the kids who got to live in the worlds of his favorite children’s shows, before he began to question their presented realities. A remarkable achievement in gonzo world-building, inventively shot, meticulously designed, and bubbling with imaginative scenarios that frequently re-invent themselves, BUDDY lands with singular impact, its conceptual outrageousness grounded by a terrific lead performance from the always-strong Cristin Milioti (HBO’s The Penguin) and a sharp supporting cast that includes Topher Grace (BLACKKKLANSMAN), Michael Shannon (THE SHAPE OF WATER), and Patton Oswalt (RATATOUILLE). From the producers of WEAPONS and COMPANION.
Bowels of Hell
Directed by Gurcius Gewdner and Gustavo Vinagre
Screening: July 31 @ 9:30pm
For those who believe they’ve seen everything cinema has to offer, here comes Brazilian madmen Gurcius Gewdner and Gustavo Vinagre’s BOWELS OF HELL, unquestionably the grossest film of Fantasia 2026 – and also one of its wildest, most unpredictable, and hilarious. It’s not entirely a scatological humor fest, because BOWELS is also a surprisingly touching story about parents and children, and the struggle to focus on the people in your life that matter the most. It’s also filled with some of the most disgustingly inventive kills seen in any movie in some time, and it should come as little surprise that even the legendary Bruce LaBruce shows up at one point. When you gotta go, you gotta go… but in this film’s haunted São Paolo apartment complex, “go” means that your time is most certainly up! Produced by Rodrigo Teixeira, the Oscar-nominated producer of THE WITCH, I’M STILL HERE, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, and THE LIGHTHOUSE, BOWELS OF HELL is an unexpectedly layered mix of family drama, social satire, cranked-to-eleven grossout horror, and poop jokes told with energy, wit, and style, coming to the continent after blowing minds and stomachs at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
Los Vampires
Directed by Craig Mitchell
Screening: July 21 @ 9:15pm
In 1930 Hollywood, a Spanish actor (Henry Ian Cusick, LOST, MACGYVER) is cast in the night shoot of a soon-to-be-legendary vampire film, forced to imitate the English-speaking star (Thomas Kretschmann, THE PIANIST, SPECTRE) who performs the same role by day. The two actors regularly meet at the transitory hours of their shoots, and a rivalry stirs between them. All the while, a string of murders are occurring on and around the soundstage. With names respectfully altered, Craig Mitchell’s LOS VAMPIRES is a fantastical fictionalized account of the making of George Melford’s Spanish DRACULA (1931), the arguably superior version of the Universal Horror classic which had been shot overnight on the same sets Tod Browning’s landmark pictured used during the day. Cusick and Kretschmann captivate as uncanny surrogates for Carlos Villarías and Bela Lugosi, while Daniela Couso (SERIAL BEAUTY), Tony-winner Jefferson Mays (INHERENT VICE), Oscar Nuñez (THE OFFICE), and Jorge Diaz (FOR ALL MANKIND) round out an immaculate cast. LOS VAMPIRES is a meticulously designed, occult-tinged tribute to the dignity of performance… and a darkly imaginative, bittersweet love letter to old Hollywood – and the forgotten struggles that made it what it was.
Corpus
Directed by Corrin Evans
Screening: July 26 @ 9:35pm // July 27 @ 4:20pm
A bold and visceral horror vision, CORPUS is the transfixing feature debut from filmmaker Corrin Evans, whose work explores death, eroticism, and the supernatural. Co-written and produced by Lily Cowles, who also stars, CORPUS is a body horror yearn-and-burn. Erotic and surreal, the film lands brilliantly as a meditation on identity, desire, and the lethal cocktail of longing, vulnerability, and control.
It’s the summer of 1998 in New York City; Sayo (Jeff Wahlberg, EUPHORIA), a soulful nightlife photographer and small-time drug dealer, is invited to a party upstate by his long-time friend and unrequited love, a movie star on the rise: Vince Marlowe (Brodie Townsend, HEARTBREAK HIGH). Together with their rowdy friend Ross (Michael Vlamis, POOLS), they drive to a remote, bucolic manor in hopes of some summer debauchery. But when they arrive, they discover that the promise of a party is actually three mysterious women – Billie (Lily Cowles, ANTEBELLUM), Wren (Nuha Jes Izman, YELLOWJACKETS), and Cata (Ching Valdes-Aran, THE EQUALIZER) – whose disturbing agenda draws the boys into a dark web of seduction and terror. Cheval Noir Competition.
Someone’s Daughter
Directed by Wiebke von Carolsfeld
Screening: July 21 @ 6:30pm
When the law fails you, who do you turn to? Over a decade ago, Sam (Pascale Bussières, MA VIE EN CINÉMASCOPE, FRONTIÈRES) successfully defended her client Paul (François Arnaud, HEATED RIVALRY, FUCKTOYS, THE BORGIAS) against rape accusations. Years later, the victim’s father kidnaps both the lawyer and his daughter’s alleged assailant, leaving them stranded in the Canadian wilderness with only each other to turn to. It’s a happy reunion for Paul, but the deeper they wander together, the more Sam finds herself questioning what really happened all those years ago and what’s coming for her today. In SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER, director Wiebke von Carolsfeld (THE SAVER, STAY) carefully ponders the morality of her characters and the role of law versus justice, weaving a tense tale of revenge and survival. Against a breathtaking tableau of northern backcountry, the leads deliver solid performances. Bussières’s grounded stoicism plays exquisitely well in contrast to Arnaud, who is as charming as he is chilling. Cheval Noir Competition.
The Glorious Dead
Directed by The Adams Family
Screening: July 27 @ 9:20pm
A small-town sheriff (Toby Poser) and her young deputy (Zelda Adams) wake to find the world they believed in no longer exists. Blood drips from faucets, people and pets are missing, and fleshy creatures walk the woods. Soon, the dirt can’t keep the dead down. Anger and fear spread through the community. Co-written and co-directed by John Adams and Toby Poser, the latter of whom also stars, and co-starring Zelda and Lulu Adams, THE GLORIOUS DEAD is a personal genre vision that speaks to the increasing horrors of American life in times of enormous, instigated division while retaining the interpersonal poetry, imagination, and dark humor that its creators are renowned for. This will be the sixth consecutive work from the singularly talented filmmaking family to World Premiere at Fantasia following the festival’s launches of THE DEEPER YOU DIG, HELLBENDER, WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS, HELL HOLE, and MOTHER OF FLIES, the latter having won our 2025 Cheval Noir Award for Best Feature. In their words: “This film takes dangerous fundamentalism at face value and asks what remains for the rest of us.”
Big Break
Directed by Ian Faria
Screening: July 19 @ 7pm // July 21 @ 9:45pm
Years after Simple Town split up, three comics reunite with their successful ex-collaborator, leading to a fight for their lives (and careers) as dark secrets are revealed, and these washed-up comedians learn what it really means to kill! Jumping from the stage to the big screen for their feature film debut, New York’s cult comedy darlings Simple Town wield their knack for absurdist situational comedy like an axe to the horror genre. With an all-star team of indie producers including Richie Doyle (IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU), Conor Hannon (THE PEOPLE’S JOKER), Graham Mason (INSPECTOR IKE – also the editor of TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA), Ani Schroeter (BUNNYLOVR), and Sarah Wilson (DAD & STEP-DAD), BIG BREAK navigates the harsh realities and moral dilemmas that come with being a part of the entertainment industry, and greets them with a punch(line), finding humor in the struggle and relatability in its cast of characters. Directed by Ian Faria, BIG BREAK recalls underground American horror-comedy classics while carving out a space entirely its own thanks to Simple Town’s special brand of chaotic cringecore sketch comedy.
The Mutation
Directed by Shin Su-won
Screening: July 23 @ 6:40pm // July 24 @ 2:30pm
Se-oh, a Black man born to two white Korean parents, is tired of feeling like a stranger in his homeland due to reactions to his skin color. He spends everything he has on a luxury suitcase containing his most precious possessions, to offer it to someone who would like to join him on a two-day road trip. Sora, a lesbian who lost her partner to suicide due to a forced marriage, decides to join this journey where landscapes, memories, sorrows, and hopes will intertwine. Embark on this magnificent, introspective voyage helmed by director and screenwriter Shin Su-won (MADONNA), who displays exceptional sensitivity and intelligence in guiding the viewer to a destination that will restore faith in humanity by tackling realistic, often harsh themes. The duo of Han Hyun-min and Lee Zoo-young deliver masterfully nuanced performances as two outsiders with whom we wish we could spend more time once the final credits roll. THE MUTATION brilliantly exposes human beauty and complexity and will make you want to take a walk with a stranger.
I Love Paris
Directed by Nicky Murphy
Screening: July 26 @ 6:40pm // July 28 @ 1:25pm
Shot in a mockumentary style, I LOVE PARIS is an explosive and vibrant vampire film that’s equal parts funny, dynamic, and haunting. Avoiding the traditional pitfalls of mockumentary filmmaking , I LOVE PARIS feels real but never forgets to keep its audience entertained. The film stars an explosive and hypnotic Aminata Thiboult as Paris, an aspiring musician who gets vampirized mid-shoot, giving all new meaning to the underground nightlife. Not just a vampire movie, this is a music film where the beats actually hit. I LOVE PARIS captures an improvisational style that blends comedy, music, and horror to draw in the audience. With obvious comparisons to WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, director Nicky Murphy brings in a dash of Tony Scott’s THE HUNGER – creating a vampire story that’s funny, pulses with youth and ambition, and blends down-under humor with effortless French cool.
Nightborn
Directed by Hanna Bergholm
Screening: July 22 @ 9:30pm
With dreams of starting a perfect family, Saga (Seidi Haarla, COMPARTMENT NO. 6, ICEBREAKER) and her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint, the HARRY POTTER series, SERVANT) move to the isolated house where she spent much of her childhood, deep in the Finnish forest. As soon as their baby is born, despite the reassurance of all around her, Saga knows there’s something terribly wrong with her son. Their marriage begins to crack and Jon struggles to support his wife, but only Saga suspects the terrible truth about her newborn. The sophomore feature from gifted Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm (HATCHING), NIGHTBORN launched in official competition at this year’s Berlinale and Fantasia is proud to be the site of its North American birthing. A deeply uncomfortable, viscerally gruesome, and darkly humorous look at the emotional rollercoaster of new parenthood through a genre prism, NIGHTBORN is stylishly directed and anchored by an astonishing, one-of-a-kind lead performance from Haarla.
Nameless
Directed by Hideo Jojo
Screening: July 21 @ 9:30pm
Security-camera footage has captured evidence of a vicious murder at a café, but the police are baffled that the suspect can slash people to death without even holding a weapon. Who is this man? How is he able to kill without a blade or a gun? Why is he shrouded in mystery? Based on star Jiro Sato’s own web-manga, NAMELESS is a compelling and gripping psychological thriller directed by Hideo Jojo, and another brilliant feature with the insanely talented Sato in its lead role. Jojo takes the Japanese thriller genre to the next level with superb pacing, visceral suspense, and remarkable character development. NAMELESS will make sure you forever remember its name.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
Screening: July 17 @ 9:30pm
Visionary writer-director Jane Schoenbrun (I SAW THE TV GLOW, WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR – Fantasia 2021) will arrive in Montreal fresh off their Cannes premiere and Palm Queer win with the Canadian premiere of TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA, starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. After years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom, the Camp Miasma slasher franchise is handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the original movie’s star, a now-reclusive actress shrouded in mystery, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium. A MUBI Release.
Our Effed Up World
Directed by Alica Maio Mackay
Screening: July 18 @ 9:45pm // July 20 @ 1pm
Jane Schoenbrun also produces OUR EFFED UP WORLD from frequent Fantasia festival darling, Alice Maio Mackay (THE SERPENT’S SKIN). Inspired by alien invasion films and slacker hangout movies, Mackay’s latest is about a group of friends standing up against an extraterrestrial invasion that threatens to swallow the whole world and stars Jess McLeod (also in CAMP MIASMA), Brandon Flynn (HELLRAISER, 2022), and Annapurna Sriram (FUCKTOYS).
Insecstasy
Directed by Angus Silver
Screening: July 24 @ 9:45pm // July 27 @ 2:05pm
Bathed in the glow of Dario Argento’s PHENOMENA and Lucky McKee’s MAY, Angus Silver’s INSECSTASY is for all the lonely perverts who’ve always wanted to be annihilated by the weight of their desire. A homage to 1970s erotic thrillers with a touch of creepy-crawly, INSECSTASY carries an offbeat, dark sense of humor and a violet-cast color scheme. Piercing the sterility of contemporary life with the disruptive transgression of eroticism, Silver’s film features dreamy fantasy sequences that interrupt and disrupt, drawing us expertly into its characters’ sensual and unusual interiority.
Leave a Reply