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
Short Forum 2: Anthropomaxx
Dogs, frogs, hogs, and more!
The Liberation
Haunted by her past, Rita (a magnificent Carrie Coon) is lured to an all-female commune by a magnetic, manipulative spiritual leader (Lily James). An unsettling yet deeply empathetic exploration of personal freedom, devotion, and control.
Image: © Bleecker Street
Tender Loving Care
Mike Leigh’s film depicts the lives of Amy and Rosie, best friends and fellow social workers, who care for the dispossessed with all the strength they have. Sometimes it's funny, tragic, and often it's balancing both, this is a work of humble compassion.
The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s
In The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s, Mark Cousins follows nonfiction into phones, GoPros, YouTube, TikTok, live streams, and feeds to look at bodily autonomy, surveillance, racism, borders, and truth after vérité.
Image: © Fire of Love, 2022, dir. Sara Dosa, Canada, USA, Sandbox Films, Cottage M, Intuitive Pictures, National Geographic Documentary Films
A Girl Unknown
In this tender, compassionate drama, we see the hardships endured by a young girl adopted in the early 1980s during China’s one-child policy. As a teenager in the 90s, she’s still fighting to find a sense of belonging and assert her worth.
Concrete Land
Filmed over eight years, Concrete Land follows the Najar family, one of Jordan’s last Afro-Palestinian-Bedouin families, as luxury villas close in on their grazing space outside Amman. Asmahan Bkerat preserves their way of life in the face of erasure.