THE REST OF US – Directed by Aisling Chin-Yee – (limited spoilers) ⁓ It all begins with the death of a cat named Boots. After sustaining unspecified injuries, Boots is put down. Cami (Heather Graham) and Aster (Sophie Nélisse) decide …
WANDER – directed by April Mullen – written by Tim Doiron – SPOILERS Arthur Bretnik (Aaron Eckhart) investigates conspiracies. Using the on-air name Atlas Major, he and his sidekick Jimmy Cleats (Tommy Lee Jones) co-anchor a “deep web” podcast called …
BRIGHT HILL ROAD – directed by Robert Cuffley – SPOILERS ⁓ It’s quickly established that Marci (Siobhan Williams) is an alcoholic. She drives drunk, works drunk (she is in charge of HR for an unspecified company), and does everything else …
THE SWARM (La Nuée)- directed by Just Philippot – SPOILERS ⁓ On a farm somewhere in the French countryside, Virginie Hébrard (Suliane Brahim) decides to raise locusts as a last ditch effort to survive. She has a mildly asthmatic, soccer-playing …
DEMONIC – a film by Neill Blomkamp – SPOILERS It begins in a dream in which Carly (Carly Pope) wanders through the dry grass surrounding a disused institutional-appearing building, calling out to her mother (who does not answer). She finds …
NIGHT RAIDERS – a film by Danis Goulet – SPOILERS Beyond it’s timely political message, NIGHT RAIDERS is an excellent bit of science fiction that vividly illustrates the suggestion that technology may be evolving into a form that is more …
EVERYTIME A BELL RINGS – directed by Maclain Nelson – (some spoilers) ⁓ Ali Liebert tweeted on 20 November: “spoiler alert! in #EveryTimeABellRings, Nora gets the girl!! Never thought i’d see the day that i’d be playing a lesbian in …
KINGSWAY – written and directed by Bruce Sweeney – SPOILERS Matt Horvat (Jeff Gladstone) , who is a Semiotics Professor and has a history of anxiety and depression, tells his therapist (Sara, played by Jennifer McLean) that his life has …
DONKEYHEAD – a film by Agam Darshi – SPOILERS A glimpse of a Salvation Army Santa tells us it’s December. Mona Ghumun (Agam Darshi) is caring for her father (Marvin Ishmael) who has cancer, something she has been doing for …
SEE FOR ME – directed by Randall Okita – SPOILERS ⁓ The story is part WAIT UNTIL DARK and part PANIC ROOM. (Davenport’s performance immediately brings Meg Altman to mind.) It is fast-paced with plenty of gunplay and no shortage …
BUSINESS ETHICS – directed by Nick Wernham, written by Richard Wernham – SPOILERS The story begins in a lecture hall where Professor Wrightway (Lance Reddick) is holding forth on the topic of ethics, and one of his students, Zachery Cranston …
SHE NEVER DIED – Directed by Audrey Cummings – Written by Jason Krawczyk – SPOILERS ⁓ She (Olunike Adeliyi) is immortal, but not a vampire although she does manage to impale someone in the course of things. She eats people, …
A GRAND ROMANTIC GESTURE – a film by Joan Carr-Wiggin – SPOILERS What if Romeo and Juliet had met, not in their early teens, but much later in life? After uncomfortably watching his girlfriend play Juliet, director Dylan (Gregory Calderone) …
WOMAN IN CAR (Femme. Voiture.) – a film by Vanya Rose – SPOILERS Vanya Rose takes the characters from Edith Wharton’s THE REEF and inserts them into an alternate universe where their primary motivations remain the same, but causality is …
KICKING BLOOD – a film by Blaine Thurier – SPOILERS ⁓ Birthdays don’t mean much to immortals, but Anna (Alanna Bale), a vampire of unspecified age, finds herself confronted with a birthday cake, complete with baroque icing and a single …
ANYTHING FOR JACKSON – directed by Justin G Dyck – SPOILERS ⁓ Shannon Becker (Konstantina Mantelos) is surprised and dismayed when Dr. Walsh (Julian Richings) tells her she’s pregnant, but Walsh is very pleased and even sheds a tear over …
THE EVIL TWIN – directed by Max McGuire – SPOILERS ⁓ The twin in the title (the evil one) is Charlotte (Emily Piggford), and she lives somewhere in upstate New York in a house purchased by her former lover Trevor …
MAYDAY – a film by Karen Cinorre – SPOILERS ⁓ This feminist fable is set in the psyche of Anastasia (Grace Van Patten), and as the story begins we find Ana waking up after a friend (Dimitri, played by Théodore …
THE BLAZING WORLD – a film by Carlson Young – SPOILERS ⁓ Two decades ago, on a summer’s day in the deep south, Young Margaret Winter endures complementary traumas. She and her identical twin sister Elizabeth are near the pool …
ALL MY HUSBAND’S WIVES – directed by Caroline Labrèche – SPOILERS Originally titled “Power of Three“, this complex and baffling mystery was filmed in Montreal in 2019 and is set in Jersey City, New Jersey. James Phillips‘ screenplay introduces seven …
ALL MY PUNY SORROWS – directed by Michael McGowan – SPOILERS Somewhere in Toronto, Yoli (Alison Pill) is trying to write a novel, and finding it difficult. What little she has written soon becomes relevant (if not accurate). “Suffering,” she …
FIRST KILL – created by V.E. Schwab – (minor spoilers) ⁓ The Atwood-Fairfield family are vampires who claim ancestry dating back to the Garden of Eden, and specifically to Lilith, who, according to their legends, frolicked in the garden with …
THE RIGHTEOUS – a film by Mark O’Brien – (limited spoilers) ⁓ Frederick Mason (Henry Czerny) was a Catholic priest until ten years ago when he met and married Ethel (Mimi Kuzyk). A few years later the couple adopted Joanie …
TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES – created by Vera Miao – (minor spoilers) Each of the episodes is a short film roughly twenty minutes long, and is in the middle of a two sentence story. The first sentence, shown at the …
TIN CAN – directed by Seth A Smith – SPOILERS At the start of things we hear a newscaster (voiced by Shelley Thompson) saying: “Since its May discovery, the fungal infection has quickly swept across the Maritime provinces and Quebec. …
CONTROL – a film by James Mark – SPOILERS On a sunny afternoon, a five-year-old girl (Evie Loiselle) sits in the sand by the sea and sings “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” A woman appears, and the scene is intercut …
CARMEN – a film by Valerie Buhagiar – SPOILERS ⁓ A lighthearted tale about the horrors of big religion, CARMEN takes place in an isolated Maltese village in the 1980s where the police station is across the street from the …
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE – a film by David Cronenberg – SPOILERS Not nearly as gory as, for instance, Guillermo del Toro’s CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, this story might be an attempt by Cronenberg to envision the impact of his work …
ASHGROVE – directed by Jeremy LaLonde – SPOILERS It is a tale of two couples. Jennifer Ashgrove (Amanda Brugel), a scientist tasked with solving the mysteries of a worldwide plague, is married to Jason Ashgrove (Jonas Chernick), a writer who …
TROLL – directed by Roar Uthaug – (limited spoilers) ⁓ Near Hjerkinn in Norway, workers tunnel through the Dovre mountains to build an extension to the Nordland Railway, which currently ends at Trondheim some 165 kilometers to the north. After …
