Fantasia International Film Festival, held in the heart of Montreal, is back for its 29th edition next week, running from 16 July to 3 August, and I’m delighted to be back providing remote coverage for my fourth year. Described as a juxtaposition between pop culture and alternative cinema, the festival showcases a broad range of genre with a focus on fantasy, horror, science fiction, and cult, though it expands into other genres such as thriller, animation, action, and romance. With its celebrated mix of hidden gems and major international premieres, Fantasia continues to showcase eccentric and diverse perspectives, offering the very best of Canadian and world cinema, which keeps fans coming back for more each year. Last year, we were treated to the likes of Oddity, House of Sayuri and Cuckoo. Here are just 10 of the films I’m most anticipating from this year’s line up.
It Ends (2025)
As Tyler (Mitchell Cole), James (Phinehas Yoon), Fisher (Noah Toth), and Day (Akira Jackson) spend one last night together before going their separate ways after college, they find themselves taking an unexpected turn down an unending road that literally goes nowhere. They soon realise that they’re stuck on an infinite road in a car that now uses up no gas and tracks no miles. They can stop for limited periods of time, but cannot turn off the engine or leave the car without inviting danger. As they attempt to uncover what’s going on, each friend confronts their fate in different ways, but they all ask the same questions: When does it end? Will it end? Can it end? And will they end with it? It Ends, directed by Alexander Ullom, has been called the ultimate Gen Z horror film. Its simple concept explores the often confusing and terrifying journey into adulthood and the real world.
Sweetness (2025)
With a dead mother and a cop dad (Justin Chatwin, Another Life), teenager Rylee (Kate Hallet, Woman Talking) is an easy target for bullies. But all is forgotten when she hears Swedish pop star Payton (Herman Tømmeraas, Ragnarok), the lead singer of the band Floorplan, sing. She’s obsessed and plans to see him live in concert with her best friend Sid (Aya Furukawa, The Fall of the house of Usher). After the show, Rylee has a chance encounter with Payton and discovers his publicly declared sobriety is a big fat lie. After Payton crashes a car while under the influence, Rylee takes him home and decides to help him get sober — a plan that involves chaining him up with her dad’s spare handcuffs. The road to good intentions is marred with teenage angst, badly formed plans, and some dark decisions that push Rylee to the point of no return. Emma Higgins’ debut feature film, Sweetness, is a pitch-black coming-of-age story about how you should never meet your idols.
Foreigner (2025)
Set in 2004, Yasamin aka Yasi (Rose Dehgan) is an Iranian teenager who has just moved to Canada with her father (Ashkan Nejati) and her grandmother (Maryam Sadeghi). Her high school experience is daunting and Yasi worries she won’t make any friends. On her first day, she meets a trio of pastel-clad girls: “Queen Bee” Rachel (Chloë MacLeod, Sugar Rot) and her followers, Emily (Victoria Wadell) and Kristen (Talisa Mae Stewart, The Casket Girls). Having never met an Iranian person before, the girls are intensely interested in Yasi and feed on her desire to fit in. Their insidious racism pushes Yasi to assimilate into white Canadian culture. She dyes her hair blonde, like her late mother, and attracts a demonic force that threatens to destroy her loved ones and the new life she’s building. Blending comedy and horror, Ava Maria Safai’s first feature, Foreigner, takes the Mean Girls/Heathers setup and uses it to explore the immigrant experience through a horror lens.
Fucktoys (2025)
AP (Annapurna Sriram, Billions) is a sex worker living in “Trashtown” who discovers she’s been cursed. To survive, she must raise $1000 to pay a medium who might be able to lift it. Thus begins her absurd, grotesque, and glittering quest which is filled with a parade of characters, sexual misadventures, and unexpected acts of tenderness leading her through a distorted dreamscape version of Louisiana. Shot in 16mm, Annapurna Sriram’s Fucktoys, which she wrote and directed, is described as a fever-dream odyssey which reimagines the classic’s Fool’s Journey through a radically queer, maximalist lens. Paying homage to the likes of John Waters and Russ Meyer, Fucktoys can be considered profane, trashy, ridiculous, and sublime.
The Wailing (2024)
In modern-day Mardid, Andrea (Ester Expósito, Venus) is being haunted by a terrifying entity that she can neither see, understand, or explain. Twenty years ago, thousands of miles away, in La Plata, Marie (Mathilde Ollivier, Overlord) is being tormented by the very same presence. A third woman, Camila (Malena Villa, El Angel), has a gut-wrenching understanding of what’s happening, but nobody will believe her. In their darkest moments, each will hear the same terrible sound: A ghostly wailing that will overwhelm their senses. Other women before them have suffered the same fate. Directed and co-written by Pedro Martin Calero, Spanish horror The Wailing is told vibrantly in a multi-chapter structure and has been called one of the scariest films of the year. While this is Calero’s first feature, he came up as a cinematographer and director of a string of popular short films and commercials, in addition to music videos for artists like The Weeknd.
Sugar Rot (2025)
When punk girl Candy (Chloë MacLeod, Foreigner) is brutally assaulted by an ice-cream man, she becomes the host of a mutant foetus, and her body begins to transform into ice cream, leaving everyone wanting a taste. Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, Becca Kozak’s Sugar Rot is an exploitation film set in an ice-cream shop that comes with a relentless sensory onslaught of the depraved and delicious. With nods to Troma, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer, and John Waters, the film offers vulnerable commentary on the aftermath of sexual violence. As Candy’s condition worsens, she loses control over her body which becomes increasingly alien and objectified—not just by a parasitic candy foetus, but by capitalism, religion, and the state. Candy is left to wonder: is she a product or a person?
The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (2025)
Set in the summer of 2001, Argentina is on the verge of exploding. A recent outbreak of violence has left the country in a powder-keg state. Economic disaster is hitting hard with rolling blackouts, amplifying a hellish sense of instability. In the midst of this, best friends Natalia (Dolores Oliverio), Mariela (Candela Flores), and Josefina (Isabel Bracamonte) have just finished high school and are all madly in love with a boy called Diego (Agustín Sosa); a cherished friend since their childhoods, whom they now see in a different light. When Diego starts hanging out with a 30-year-old Silvia (Fernanda Echevarría), Natalia turns to her family roots of witchcraft to bring forth an ancient dark power to give herself an upper hand. With a long, hot, dangerous summer ahead, only some will see the fall. Directed by Laura Casabé and based on a pair of short stories from Argentinian horror author Mariana Enriquez, The Virgin of the Quarry Lake is a supernatural, feminine coming-of-(r)age story that explores the volcanic feelings of teenhood, while transposing these intense emotions with the social instability of its setting.
Lurker (2025)
Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) works at a trendy clothing shop in Los Angeles where he largely keeps to himself. The entire shop is stunned when rising pop star Oliver (Archive Madekwe, Midsommar) comes in to browse one day. Matthew puts on a track that impresses him and is rewarded with an invitation to his next show. It’s there that Matthew meets Oliver’s aggressive hipster entourage of friends and insinuates himself into the in-crowd. As Matthew’s self-worth amplifies alongside his online cred, a sinister narcissism comes to the surface, and he finds himself willing to do whatever it takes to hold onto his new-found success. Lurker is writer/director Alex Russell’s feature debut, though his writing credits include the likes of The Bear, Dave, and Beef. A taut thriller, the film has a lot to say about yearning for online acceptance and climbing the social ladder through proximity to another person’s accomplishments.
Noise (2024)
Joo-young (Lee Sun-bin) moves into a new apartment in a seemingly quiet neighbourhood with her younger sister, Ju-hee (Han Soo-a). Joo-young has a hearing impediment and wears hearing aids, but her ears start to sense intense and eerie noises in her own home. After her sister suddenly disappears, she begins to realise it has something to do with the unsettling sounds she’s been hearing and understands that a sinister entity is coming after her. While being haunted by these disturbing noises, Joo-young sets out to uncover the dark truth behind Ju-hee’s mysterious disappearance and the ominous presence surrounding her apartment. Described as Korean horror at its finest with non-stop anxiety for its 95-minute runtime, Noise is director Kim Soo-jin’s feature debut and screenwriter Lee Je-hui’s sophomore feature.
Together (2025)
Millie (Alison Brie) and Tim (Dave Franco) have been together for 10 years and find themselves at a crossroads in their relationship. Millie has landed a teaching job that requires them to move away from the city and leave behind everything familiar to their lives except each other. Their new house resides in the middle of a forested area and gives way to an uncanny energy dwelling within the woods. While Millie and Tim’s interpersonal anxieties drive them further apart, the supernatural force begins to bind them in ways both figurative and literal. As their bodies begin a symbiotic relationship that expresses itself even when they’re separated, they’re forced to take drastic measures to prevent themselves from being joined together… forever. Written and directed by Michael Shanks in his debut feature, Together unites the body-horror and troubled-relationship genres. Married in real life, Brie and Franco bring plenty of lived-in chemistry to their roles.
Head over to FantasiaFestival.com to see the festival’s full program and stay tuned for my coverage in the coming up weeks.
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