Fantasia 2026 Curtain Raiser: Genre Cinema, Animation, Horror, and the Strange Corners Between

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Fantasia 2026 Curtain Raiser: Genre Cinema, Animation, Horror, and the Strange Corners Between

The 2026 Fantasia Film Festival lineup is already packed with the kind of discoveries that make the festival such a vital stop for genre fans, animation lovers, horror devotees, and anyone looking for work that feels a little outside the usual lanes. This year’s selections include world premieres, international premieres, shorts programs, documentaries, Indigenous horror, Italian genre cinema, underground vampire mockumentary, animation showcases, and more.

Below are several highlights from the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival schedule. Descriptions are presented as provided by the festival.

AÏE!

Directed by: Valérie Blien
Presented in: Animation Tous Azimuts!
Screening: Sunday, July 19, 2026, 11:40 AM
Location: Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
Country: Canada
Year: 2026
Runtime: 1 min
Language: OV – Without dialogue
Genre: Comedy, Animation
Composer: Albert Fauteux

Description:
Despite her fear of needles, a young woman gets a tattoo.

ANCESTRAL BEASTS

Directed by: Tim Riedel
Section: Septentrion Shadows
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Presented by: Indigenous Screen Office
Screenings: Wednesday, July 22, 2026, 9:30 PM; Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 10:45 AM
Location: JA De Sève Room
Country: Canada
Year: 2026
Runtime: 104 mins
Language: English OV
Subtitles: French
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Cast: Shannon Baker, Darla Contois, Victoria Gwendoline, Morgan Holmstrom, Asivak Koostachin, Gail Maurice, Jesse Nobess, Jess Salgueiro, Josh Strait
Presented with: PURGE, directed by Andrew Hamilton

Description:
Tim Riedel's psychological horror film ANCESTRAL BEASTS was a Frontières project at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, and now it's coming to Fantasia for its world premiere! Four years after losing her mother, Elyse (Morgan Holstrom, OUTLANDER, SHADOW OF THE ROUGAROU) is still struggling to cope. She's making mistakes at work, she needs time off, and her sister Nikki (Darla Contois, LITTLE BIRD, ABERDEEN) is nagging her about every little thing. In desperation, Elyse goes to her aunt's house outside of town to get away from it all. When she arrives at the small, isolated cabin, she encounters the intrusive neighbor Max (Josh Strait, SAFEHAVEN, CORNER GAS), whom she suspects of having broken in. She soon realizes it wasn't Max, but raccoons living under the house, a fact confirmed by a gaping hole in her bedroom floor. Her request for time off work is denied, and the constant conflict with Nikki is exhausting her, to the point that her meditation app is no longer enough. But there's something lurking around the cabin's foundations, and Elyse notices a dark presence around her…

Of Métis descent from the Red River, Tim Riedel explores his personal relationship with family dysfunction and mental health through psychological horror in his debut feature film. Self-harm, anxiety, and depression become the antagonists for two generations of Indigenous women trying to escape their shadows. It's a haunted house story that also addresses how intergenerational trauma can return from beyond the grave and take hold of us. Morgan Holstrom carries the film on her shoulders as Elyse, ably supported by Darla Contois, who portrays Nikki with vigor, and by Canadian legend Gail Maurice (ROSIE, NIKA AND MADISON) as their aunt Adele. With an almost entirely Indigenous cast and crew, ANCESTRAL BEASTS offers us a deeper understanding of mental illness as it manifests among Indigenous peoples and within many other communities. – Translation: Kevin Laforest

BEASTS OF DEATH (BESTIAS DE LA MUERTE)

Directed by: Sandra Powers
Section: Animation Plus / Circo Animato 2026
Premiere Status: North American Premiere
Screening: Saturday, August 1, 2026, 4:45 PM
Location: Salle J.A. De Sève
Country: USA, Mexico, Peru
Year: 2026
Runtime: 9 mins
Language: OV Spanish
Subtitles: English
Genre: Horror, Animation, Fantasy
Cast: David Cáceres, Ximena Galiano
Presented in: Circo Animato 2026

Description:
Bereaved teenager Claudia wants her dear, departed mother back from the other side, and she’s willing to gamble her own soul to make that happen. Three trials await her in the underworld, three monsters to defeat, three levels of loss and lamentation to transcend. Personal grief drives a pop-Gothic cartoon creature clash from CalArts graduate Sandra Powers. – Rupert Bottenberg

CAPTURED! (TORE!)

Directed by: Koichi
Section: Horizon 2026
Premiere Status: International Premiere
Presented by: Japan Foundation
Screening: Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 7:00 PM
Location: Cinéma du Musée
Country: Japan
Year: 2026
Runtime: 74 mins
Language: OV Japanese
Subtitles: English
Genre: Horror
Cast: Runa Nakashima, Megumi Okina
Presented with: FACE THIEF, directed by Yuta Shimotsu

Description:
Misaki, an exceptionally bright and energetic high-school senior with grades good enough to get into a reputable university, has been living alone with her mother since her father’s death. Fearing she might have to enter the workforce prematurely to help her mother, she decides to start a vlog to make some money, following her friend Satsuki’s advice. To her surprise, her first videos garner a few views despite their rather mundane content, but one in particular—where a silhouette stands behind the young girl—receives special attention. Satsuki suggests they take advantage of this to produce fake horror footage in an old, abandoned, and supposedly haunted building, to attract viewers. After their escapade, a silent, masked entity that only Misaki can see begins to follow her everywhere she goes. The two students decide to consult a medium, who makes a startling revelation: the ghost watching over Misaki is actually a benevolent deity, while Satsuki finds herself threatened by a dangerous spectre.

More and more content creators are making a successful transition from the small screen to the big one, as evidenced by the success of TALK TO ME, among others. The famous Japanese YouTuber Koichi (WON’T DISAPPEAR), whose videos have frequently garnered up to 2.8 million views, fits perfectly into this trend with his second feature film, CAPTURED!. He blends horror, comedy, and a coming-of-age story through a brilliant screenplay that isn’t afraid to play with the conventions of the genre, immersing the audience in a unique atmosphere where a college student finds herself haunted by a god, resulting in several sequences that are as unsettling as they are zany. The director and screenwriter’s eclecticism continues with an excellent cast featuring rising star Runa Nakashima (6 LYING STUDENTS), who plays the extremely endearing Misaki; influencer, model, and musician Maikichi; and veteran Megumi Okina, star of the classic JU-ON: THE GRUDGE. Let yourself be captivated by this unique and entertaining film. – Nicolas Archambault

FERINE

Directed by: Andrea Corsini
Section: Cheval Noir
Premiere Status: International Premiere
Presented by: Institution culturelle de l'Italie à Montréal
Screenings: Thursday, July 23, 2026, 6:50 PM; Sunday, July 26, 2026, 1:05 PM
Locations: Cinéma du Musée; Salle J.A. De Sève
Country: Italy
Year: 2025
Runtime: 105 mins
Language: OV English/Italian
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Cast: Carolyn Bracken, Caroline Goodall, Paola Lavini, Elisabetta Caccamo

Description:
Excited to explore a new chapter in life, wealthy and influential art collector Irene (Carolyn Bracken, ODDITY, YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER) has just adopted a baby through a surrogate arrangement. This exploration will take on unexpectedly darker shapes when a sudden tragedy shatters Irene’s world, grief tearing through her to such paralyzing extremes that primal, violent instincts begin to guide her in ferocious ways. Her path fatefully crosses with Dama (Caroline Goodall, SCHINDLER’S LIST, HOOK), a lavishly wealthy trafficker of exotic predator animals. Dama recognizes that Irene has become a mercurial predator herself. A morbid bond forms between them. Few in the vicinity will be safe.

Written and directed by Andrea Corsini and loosely based on the award-winning 2020 short that launched at Venice Critics Week, FERINE marks a return to a provocative and stylish form of Italian horror cinema that has been absent from the screen for years, awash in sumptuous visual design, volcanic emotion, and transgressive flashpoints of violence. It’s a powerhouse of a film, aesthetically stunning and thematically rich in the perverse ways that it discusses questions of custody as ownership, violence as fulfillment, and all stripes of power exchanges. It echoes Claire Denis’ TROUBLE EVERY DAY and Paul Schrader’s CAT PEOPLE as much as it does Italian classics and core Eurohorror, distilled into a unique personal vision that captivates and shocks. Speaking of lineage, FERINE’s claws sport multiple formative bones in Fantasia’s universe, having debuted as a project through the Frontières Proof-of-Concept program at Cannes in 2021, it later participated in the Co-Production program in Montreal at 2022’s edition, all in addition to Corsini’s original short having had its national premiere at the festival. Now, it lives, complete with a lush orchestral score from the legendary Pino Donaggio (DON’T LOOK NOW, CARRIE, THE HOWLING, DRESSED TO KILL, TWO EVIL EYES…), his most beautiful in ages. FERINE is a breathtaking film, anchored by extraordinary performances from Bracken and Goodall. Submit to its power, and let it tear into you. – Mitch Davis

FOR THE NIGHT.

Directed by: Giuliano Musacchio
Section: Les Fantastiques week-ends du cinéma québécois
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screening: Sunday, August 2, 2026, 4:00 PM
Location: Cinéma du Musée
Country: Canada, Quebec
Year: 2025
Runtime: 25 mins
Language: OV English
Genre: Drama, Romance
Cast: Sara Bradeen, Esmé Thompson, Thomas Vallières
Presented in: Paris risqués

Description:
On the eve of her wedding weekend, Sophia Ryder crosses paths with Charlie, a former lover, in the bar of a Paris hotel. What begins as a chance reunion unfolds into a night shaped by lingering tension and unresolved history. As they move through the hotel, the lines between past and present begin to blur. Conversations circle what’s left unsaid, and familiar rhythms resurface in unexpected ways. By morning, Sophia is left to confront a quiet shift—one she can no longer ignore.

THE GLORIOUS DEAD

Directed by: Toby Poser, John Adams
Section: Horizon 2026
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screening: Monday, July 27, 2026, 9:20 PM
Location: Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
Country: USA
Year: 2026
Runtime: 81 mins
Language: OV English
Cast: Zelda Adams, Toby Poser, Lulu Adams
Presented with: TERM, directed by Chadrick Preuss

Description:
“As today’s societal norms are challenged, institutions shattered, and we witness a collision of church and state, it can feel as if our core humanity is edging away from us. Sometimes it plays like a dark comedy. This film takes dangerous fundamentalism at face value and asks what remains for the rest of us.” – Filmmakers John Adams and Toby Poser

Over the course of a single hellish winter day, a rural U.S. town finds itself in an irrationally changed state. Neighbours and loved ones are disappearing without a trace. Pets as well. Blood oozes from water taps. Creatures unlike anything known in nature are seen in the woods. Fear and paranoia spreads through the community. Some want the town to be shut off and isolated, for fear of outside contagion. On this day, where no previously accepted norm can be relied on, a trusted sheriff (Toby Poser) and her young deputy (Zelda Adams) try to bring reason and stability to circumstances that are impossible to navigate, let alone understand. People are turning against one another. The sky is changing. Soon, the dead will no longer stay inside the earth.

Heartfelt and poignant, darkly witty, sharply gritty, and fully freakish, THE GLORIOUS DEAD is a personal genre vision that speaks to the increasing horrors of American life in a time of enormous, instigated division. Co-written and co-directed by John Adams and Toby Poser, the latter of whom also stars, and co-starring Zelda and Lulu Adams, it’s the latest one-of-a-kind creation from the gifted filmmaking family who’ve become cherished staples at the festival, and across the genre universe. Working with an all-hands-on-deck inter-familial creative process, writing, directing, starring, shooting, editing, scoring, and sound-designing together, the Adams Family, as they’re known as a collective, continue to stand alone as intuitively gifted dreamweavers of resourceful independent filmmaking that’s so exciting to see. 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 GLORIOUS DEAD stands on its own biblically shifted shelf within their body of work as a unique stripe of rural gothic, steeped in subtly off-kilter Americana and vibrant with rugged expansiveness while retaining the intimate interpersonal poetry, occult imagination, and morbid humour that the family are renowned for. Complete with a pounding H6LLB6ND6R score that will have the theatre rumbling. Amen. – Mitch Davis

I LOVE PARIS

Directed by: Nicky Murphy
Section: Underground
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screenings: Sunday, July 26, 2026, 6:40 PM; Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 1:25 PM
Location: Salle J.A. De Sève
Country: Australia, France
Year: 2026
Runtime: 120 mins
Language: OV French/English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Fantasy
Cast: Louiza Aura, Antoine Dumortier, Noé Hermelin, Leonor Oberson, Aminata Thiboult
Presented with: AVALE, directed by Hugo Loiseleux and Elisa Hazebrouck

Description:
I LOVE PARIS opens with an impromptu MTV CRIBS-style apartment tour. “This,” explains Paris, holding up a plastic horse, “is Rodrigo.” Moments later, she shows the viewer a clay statue in her maximalist apartment. “I got a boner for music,” she tells the camera, as she shows off her creation and his upturned erection and face, paying tribute to the musical gods. The film’s production design has an incredibly catered lived-in feel. Shot in a mockumentary style, I LOVE PARIS is an explosive and vibrant vampire film that is funny, dynamic, and haunting. Avoiding many of the pitfalls of mockumentary, I LOVE PARIS feels real but never loses touch with keeping the audience entertained. The editing style is quick, the compositions thoughtful, and the energy upbeat. Aminata Thiboult, who plays Paris, is an explosive talent; her screen presence is electric, playful, and intense. Her performance is hypnotic.

Not just a vampire movie, this is a music film and the beats actually hit. The movie captures a kind of 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 but also pulsing with youth and ambition as the film blends down-under humour with effortless French cool. Embedding the vampirism in the world of music allows the nightlife to really shine, while also underlying the changing conditions of the musical world, horrifically intertwined with industry and social media in a soul-evaporating tension. The film’s nighttime textures are loaded with beauty, colour, and anxiety. Paris (the city) really comes alive in the film’s underground energy, capturing facets and people that we rarely see through this perspective of both celebration and desperation. – Justine Smith

LOS VAMPIRES

Directed by: Craig Mitchell
Section: Horizon 2026
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screening: Tuesday, July 21, 2026, 9:15 PM
Location: Cinéma du Musée
Country: USA
Year: 2026
Runtime: 105 mins
Language: OV English/Spanish
Subtitles: English
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Fantasy, Experimental
Cast: Daniela Couso, Henry Ian Cusick, Thomas Kretschmann, Jefferson Mays, Oscar Nuñez, Carol Abney
Presented with: THE END OF THE END, directed by Junar Kim

Description:
In the dead of night, in 1930 Hollywood, a migrant film crew work on the Spanish version of what will become one of the biggest blockbusters of its year—a certain vampire film, starring a beloved Hungarian screen idol. As dubbing technology had not yet come into being, an occasional practice had been devised of simultaneously shooting an alternate language version of major productions on the same sets from dusk until dawn, the actors being forced to emulate the work of what was being done by the stars of the English day shoots. Celebrated Spanish actor Luis de Ossario (Henry Ian Cusick, LOST, MACGYVER) has been cast to play the Count. He comes with decades of instinct and experience from stage and screen, but is unable to draw upon his talents, forced instead to mimic every aspect of what the English version’s star, Kürt Orlov (Thomas Kretschmann, THE PIANIST, SPECTRE) is doing with the role. The two actors regularly meet at the transitory hours of their shoots, and a rivalry begins to stir between them. All the while, a string of murders are occurring on and around the soundstage…

With names respectfully altered, LOS VAMPIRES is a fantastical fictionalized account of the making of George Melford’s Spanish DRACULA (1931), which had been shot in the evenings on the stages of Tod Browning’s soon-to-be classic. The detail of the recreated sets will immediately tell you where you are and will have audiences gasping. Cusick and Kretschmann captivate as uncanny surrogate Carlos Villarías and Bela Lugosi incarnations, the latter being an especially fascinating casting choice, having previously played Dracula himself in Dario Argento’s take on the tale—as well as Van Helsing in the 2013-2014 NBC series. Rounding out the cast is an immaculate Daniela Couso (SERIAL BEAUTY, GIRL GROUP) as a Lupita Tovar analog, Tony-winner Jefferson Mays (INHERENT VICE), Oscar Nunez (THE OFFICE, THE SCHOOL DUEL) and Jorge Diaz (FOR ALL MANKIND, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES). Writer/director Craig Mitchell (co-director of Don Coscarelli’s debut JIM, THE WORLD’S GREATEST) has created something so special with this occult-tinged tribute to the dignity of performance and the conviction of an actor’s pride. A dark love letter to old Hollywood and the forgotten struggles that made it what it was. The blood is, indeed, the life. – Mitch Davis

NO ONE GOES TO THE MOVIES ANYMORE

Directed by: Jade Giang
Section: Les Fantastiques week-ends du cinéma québécois
Premiere Status: International Premiere
Screening: Friday, July 31, 2026, 9:30 PM
Location: Cinéma du Musée
Country: Canada
Year: 2026
Runtime: 5 mins
Language: OV English
Genre: Horror
Cast: Sarah Larmony, Sarah Tremblay, Thomas Watkin
Presented in: Horreurs All-Dressed

Description:
Everyone’s been whispering about the haunting figure in the theatre, the silent presence that appears rows behind, watching. Fear has emptied the cinemas, leaving audiences to hide at home. But Lauren refuses to let go of the big screen. Determined to bring her reluctant friend to the film she’s been dying to see, she risks discovering whether she was right all along… or if the nightmare in the dark is real.

RUBBERHEAD: THE LIFE & MONSTERS OF STEVE JOHNSON

Directed by: Nick Taylor
Section: Documentaries from the Edge
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screenings: Thursday, July 23, 2026, 9:30 PM; Sunday, July 26, 2026, 10:30 AM
Location: Salle J.A. De Sève
Country: USA
Year: 2026
Runtime: 105 mins
Language: OV English
Genre: Drama, Horror, Comedy, Documentary
Cast: Tom Holland, Steve Johnson, John Landis, Linnea Quigley
Presented with: SEASON’S GREETINGS, directed by Michael Dougherty

Description:
Steve Johnson was a monster kid whose love of movie makeup and creative drive led him to Rick Baker's creature shop in his early twenties, starting on the landmark AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, with such effects-heavy classics as VIDEODROME, GHOSTBUSTERS, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, and FRIGHT NIGHT soon to follow. But after a disastrous experience on the original creature for PREDATOR (not his fault!), Johnson went indie, delivering big time for such fan favourites as NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, where he met (and later married) scream queen Linnea Quigley. Soon, Johnson would build his own groundbreaking FX studio, in demand for some of the biggest films around, working with James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro—everyone! But he would still party like it was the ’80s, resulting in divorce and a serious drug habit. By the 2000s, studios began favouring digital FX over practical work. Johnson was now a guy out of time and out of place, whose demons were about to come out of his workshop and into every atom of his life.

Over seven years in the making, RUBBERHEAD: THE LIFE AND MONSTERS OF STEVE JOHNSON thankfully is not another fan-service nostalgia trip (though the film is positively stacked with incredible, never-before-seen archival footage), but is instead a portrait of an immense talent who could also be his own worst enemy. Johnson is an enormously engaging raconteur who holds absolutely nothing back, especially when it comes to his years of addiction and the recklessness that helped to feed it. Adapting from the two-volume book series of the same name, director Nick Taylor lets the artist do most of the showing and telling (though the likes of Quigley, John Landis, Tom Holland, and Oscar-winner Bill Corso also contribute, among others), and between astonishing tales of problem-solving triumphs, riotously funny remembrances, and devastating acts of self-sabotage, his talent, honesty, and love of the craft will unquestionably earn your respect. A captivating reflection on the gamechanging glory days of practical FX, when everything was unexplored ground primed for radical invention, RUBBERHEAD is above all a fascinating, entertaining, and revealing story of an FX master whose greatest monster may have been himself. – Matthew Kiernan

SCREEN OF THE DEAD

Directed by: Martin Bruyère
Section: Horizon 2026
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screening: Thursday, July 30, 2026, 7:00 PM
Location: Théâtre Plaza
Country: Canada
Year: 2026
Runtime: 7 mins
Language: OV English
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Cast: Elayna Beaudoin, Gabrielle Bruyère, Juliette Cousineau, Éliane Croteau, Sofia Mitzelos, Savannah Weagant
Presented in: Cabaret of curiosities – 2026 edition

Description:
A normal afternoon in a backyard takes a disturbing turn when Gaby realizes her friends no longer react to anything, their eyes locked on their screens. What first feels like a strange digital obsession soon spirals into bloody, absurd and uncontrollable chaos. With grindhouse energy, dark humour and unapologetic gore, Screen of the Dead turns one simple question — “are you still there?” — into a viral nightmare.

SOUR MINNOWS

Directed by: Harrison Atkins
Section: Cheval Noir
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screenings: Friday, July 24, 2026, 6:45 PM; Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 1:45 PM
Locations: Cinéma du Musée; Salle J.A. De Sève
Country: USA
Year: 2026
Runtime: 83 mins
Language: OV English
Cast: David Brown, Phil Burgers, Julia Jones, Suzanna Son, Chase Williamson

Description:
After unknowingly peeking through the veil, Ricky (David Brown, THE RAINBOW BRIDGE, JURY DUTY) and his roommate Tepper (Chase Williamson, THE GUEST, JOHN DIES AT THE END) witness six men sensually licking the pavement on an empty L.A. street. As time stretches and bends in the aftermath of this encounter, Ricky’s relations, including his situationship with fellow cinephile Aura (Suzanna Son, RED ROCKET, FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN), begin to take on surprising new dimensions. Memories morph into lies, reality becomes malleable, and Ricky finds himself at the mercy of “The Yellow Thing,” an entity that wears people like costumes.

Harrison Atkins’ (LACE CRATER) second feature, SOUR MINNOWS, grabs onto and strangles a feeling that is almost beyond description, but is becoming increasingly present as our futures become progressively more uncertain. A feeling common in a post-pandemic world in which entire generations watched the American dream become just that. A nightmare filled with AI job postings, algorithmically generated news, depleted attention spans, and unintentional isolation. However, rather than taking this feeling to its grave, SOUR MINNOWS finds some comfort in the uncertainty. As his characters grasp for understanding in the aimless drift thrust upon them by a strange and volatile being, Atkins is unafraid to pose the question, “why me?”, knowing that the true answer is that it could happen to anyone.

Although dealing with complex and heavy concepts, SOUR MINNOWS’ experimental reworking of the hangout film brings a levity to the end times as it allows for the film’s melancholic and oddball sense of humour to shine through the darkness. Building upon the strengths of his debut feature, LACE CRATER, Atkin’s cast of characters are written with such relatability that you will find yourself feeling as though you're sitting on the sweaty couch right next to them, talking about everything and nothing. It is these moments of connection that add a sweet throughline to the film that leads directly to its heart! Weaving through claustrophobic camerawork, paranoid editing, and a huge rip of supernatural conspiracy, Atkins’ SOUR MINNOWS takes a turn onto MULHOLLAND DRIVE before wiggling its way into your brain to make a compassionate argument for human connection, creation, and jazz! – Vincenzo Nappi

SUZIE, VAMPIRESSE

Directed by: Kevin Miclette
Section: Horizon 2026
Screening: Thursday, July 30, 2026, 7:00 PM
Location: Théâtre Plaza
Country: Canada
Year: 2026
Runtime: 2 mins
Language: OV French
Subtitles: English
Genre: Thriller
Cast: Frédérik Beauchamp, Myriam Jodoin
Presented in: Cabaret of curiosities – 2026 edition

Description:
Sue, Vampiress, is looking for her next victim.

UNHOLY NIGHT

Directed by: Michael Gabriele
Section: Septentrion Shadows
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Screenings: Saturday, July 25, 2026, 7:00 PM; Monday, July 27, 2026, 11:45 AM
Location: Salle J.A. De Sève
Country: Canada
Year: 2026
Runtime: 91 mins
Language: OV English
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Cast: Marc Bendavid, Toni Ellwand, Shailene Garnett, Ron Lea, Jacqueline Robbins
Presented with: FREQUENCY, directed by Lauren Andrews

Description:
Michael Gabriele unleashed his brilliant short films at Fantasia with GET AWAY, winning Fantasia’s 2023 Gold Audience Award for Best International Short, and the darkly hilarious ROOM TONE, which also garnered several wins and nominations in 2024. It was only a matter of time before he brought his horror-comedy sensibilities to a feature-length film, so get ready for Christmas in July with the horror comedy UNHOLY NIGHT!

Christmas is a time for celebrating with food, family and, unfortunately, those difficult family dynamics, especially with traditions that die hard. Gino’s (Marc Bendavid, GOOD WITCH, REACHER) family preps their annual Christmas Eve dinner, and there’s a lot of hustle and bustle in this Italian household. His mother cooks like a demon, and it’s clear that from how you cut the cantaloupe to the shirt Gino wears, change isn’t welcome. He handles an impromptu visit from his ex-girlfriend, Rene (Shailene Garnett, DIGGSTOWN, MURDOCH MYSTERIES), poorly, and his overachieving siblings win their parents' favour easily. You see, Gino works in a paint store and lives in his parents' basement. His family is judgmental, and his confidence isn’t great either. It’s hard enough to navigate the landmines of disapproval and family ribbing, but when a surprise visit from their dead nonna breaks up the festivities, things go straight to hell! They soon learn that the “ritornati” are plaguing the neighbourhood, and Gino’s family is stuck right in the middle.

We all love a holiday horror, and the World Premiere of UNHOLY NIGHT offers plenty of Gabriele’s signature laughs, a fun ensemble cast that includes veteran actor Ron Lea of the Canadian classic CLEARCUT as Gino’s dramatic father Giuseppe, Italian traditions, and hardships that all families can relate to. So, raise a glass as we cheer, “Buon Natale!”, fight the undead, and handle mystery and absolute chaos, all before Christmas dinner is served! – Carolyn Mauricette