It’s the tail-end of 1971, and Blackvale School for Girls is closed for the holidays — except that two boarders, Samantha and Clara (Madison Baines and Georgia Acken) are stuck here, which means that Miss Tanner (Chloë Levine) and her boyfriend, handyman Jimmy (Gus Kenworthy) have to stick around too. But there’s worse to come: fresh from a murderous crime spree, four Manson Family-type killers (one of them a Blackvale alumna) show up bearing bloody body parts, intent on raising hell and performing an ancient occult rite…
Jenn Wexler’s second feature has a couple of major, mind-bending twists up its sleeve which we can’t even begin to hint at… Let’s just say that horror tropes are significantly upended and there’s a subversive strain that runs rampant in the movie’s second half. Worth noting, too, a splendidly over-the-top performance by Mena Massoud (Aladdin) as the cult’s charismatic leader.
Narrative turns, characters that challenge perceptions, and slasher-like bloodletting yield a devilishly fun new entry in holiday horror.
Bloody Disgusting
Series Media Partner
Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch, Chloë Levine, Madison Baines, Georgia Acken, Derek Johns, Laurent Pitre
USA
2023
Altered States
English
Violence
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Marc Coté, Philip Kalin-Hajdu, Albert I. Melamed, Emily Gotto, Samuel Zimmerman, Roman Kopelevich, Crystal Hill, Roman Viaris, Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch, Peter Phok, Benoit Beaulieu, Mike Klymkiw, Walter Klymkiw, Mark Berry, Duane Farley, Shuxia Yu
Producer
Philip Kalin-Hajdu, Albert I. Melamed
Screenwriter
Jenn Wexler, Sean Redlitz
Cinematography
Alexandre Bussière
Editor
Arthur Tarnowski, Mathieu Bérubé
Production Design
Ted Samuels
Original Music
Mario Sévigny
Director
Jenn Wexler
Jenn Wexler is a writer and director, whose directorial debut, The Ranger (2018), world premiered at the SXSW Film Festival, premiered in Canada at the Fantasia International Film Festival, and was released by AMC Networks’ Shudder. In television, she’s directed for The CW’s Pandora and TruTV’s Late Night Snack. Wexler has also produced acclaimed and award-winning genre films including Darling (2015), Like Me (2017), Depraved (2019), and Most Beautiful Island (2017), which was nominated for the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at SXSW.
Filmography: The Ranger (2018); The Sacrifice Game (2023)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Whispers in the Woods
A luxuriant, healing immersion in nature with ravishing wildlife photography, this is the cinematic equivalent of "forest bathing," a trip deep into the Vosges, France, with photographer Vincent Munier (The Velvet Queen), his father and his son.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
King Arthur's Night
John Bolton's film of Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef's musical staging recreates Camelot at Harrison Hot Springs. It's a self-referential piece which joyfully reframes a classical narrative through the prisms of disability, inclusivity, and imagination.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Democracy Under Siege
As the USA turns 250, Oscar-nominated director Laura Nix considers the roots of the current political crisis with commentary from historian Heather Cox Richardson, progressive politician Jamie Raskin, and cartoonist Ann Telnaes, among others.