This is where the wild ones come out to play
Don’t let all that talk of death in the film titles get you down. Rest assured, Altered States is as rowdy as ever. This time around, it even boasts a romantic streak (as long as you’re permissive with your definition of romance). It’s here that you’ll find the festival’s pulpiest and trashiest fare in the forms of Night Stage and Fucktoys. Elsewhere, Canadian indie icons Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie star in two tales of weird science and strange love (with Grace directing one of them). And while Radu Jude skewers AI with his wantonly ridiculous Dracula, the endearing OBEX is an ode to simpler technological times.
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Dead Lover
A foul-smelling gravedigger’s romance ends in tragedy, spurring her to attempt a resurrection through a madcap series of science experiments. Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie’s film is a zany DIY horror that zaps fresh life into Mary Shelley’s classic.
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Death Does Not Exist
A young activist abandons her comrades after a failed mission and takes a spiritual journey into the wilderness, where she’s given a second chance. A breathtaking work of hand-drawn animation and a war cry for political change.
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Deathstalker
As the Dreadite horde cuts a path of destruction across the land, one man weilds the power to rid the world of their evil — Deathstalker, a ruthless and courageous hero. FX wizard Steven Kostanski conjures a bloody, entertaining hack-and-slash adventure.
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Dracula
A bawdy (and then some) deconstruction of Romania's most potent IP, Radu Jude parodies the use of AI in filmmaking with his trademark acidic humour. It's about six films in one, and there's something to offend everyone.
Image: © Silviu Gheție
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Foreigner
An Iranian teenager who recently immigrated to Canada is desperate to make friends at her new high school. Pressured to dye her hair blonde, she unleashes a demonic force rooted within her. A humourous coming-of-age horror from Ava Maria Safai.
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Honey Bunch
After waking from a coma with memory loss, Diane is taken to an experimental treatment centre in the wilderness by her husband Homer. Disturbing visions accompany her recovery, and as her memories return, Diane discovers dark truths about her marriage.
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Night Stage
Love becomes an act of defiance when a queer actor and a closeted politician discover a mutual fetish for public sex in the streets of Porto Alegre. A steamy, slow-burn erotic thriller with a dreamy neo-noir aesthetic.
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OBEX
A computer nerd is transported into a video game fantasy world when his dog is taken by the evil demon Ixaroth. Alberty Birney’s lo-fi adventure combines analog horror with RPG mechanics, rendered with nostalgic black-and-white vaporwave aesthetics.
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Our Hero, Balthazar
A wealthy student's performative online videos put him on a collision course with an online troll, who may be planning an act of mass violence. Oscar Boyson's film is a searing examination of youth disaffected by the internet and driven to destruction.
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The Plague
At a water polo camp, Ben is plunged into the deep end of toxic peer pressure. Terrified of incurring his campmates’ wrath, he joins them in tormenting a kid whose skin rash has been branded “the plague”. But then he experiences a breakout of his own...
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A Useful Ghost
Wacky, whimsical, and always engaging, this tale about Thailand’s bloody modern history starts with a ghost in a vacuum cleaner and ends with a guerilla attack on an orgy. In between there’s romance, deadpan comedy, and subversive historical excavation.
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