If you write about horror films with any level of professionalism, you’ve heard about the Fantasia International Film Festival. For years, Fantasia has been home to countless genre favorites, serving as a Canadian counterpart to the stellar international programming of festivals like Fantastic Fest in Austin. And while a trip to Montreal this time of year sounds absolutely divine, I'll settle for covering my first Fantasia remotely, enjoying the robust support their team offers film critics from around the world.
There are plenty of high-profile films playing at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, but this list highlights the features that are most enticing to me. That means a lot of folk horror and a little bit of Lizzy Caplan, whose new feature has been double underlined for me since its debut at the 2026 SXSW festival.
Drag
How many genre movies does Lizzy Caplan need to do before she can be considered a bonafide scream queen? While her filmography is a bit light in that regard – Caplan’s work on shows like True Blood and Castle Rock have established her as more of a small screen scream queen than a horror movie icon – her work in Samuel Bodin’s manic chamber piece Cobweb suggested that she and horror were always going to end up together. Drag has already gotten rave reviews on the festival circuit, and I, for one, am hoping that first-time filmmakers Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer leave nothing on the table.
Home Bodies
While there’s something magical about sweeping science fiction epics – a concept Home Bodies stars Ian Ho and Emma Ho certainly understand, having cut their teeth on The Expanse – the best sci-fi is often small in scope. Films that lean into their limitations and hint at a world bigger than their budget allows often invite us to imagine the rest, which is an especially effective approach to horror. So bring on Home Bodies and its comparisons to Cube, another sci-fi movie that is modest and budget but big in ideas. These are the kind of claustrophobic horror shows we all expect the future to offer.
Junction Row
Being a writer often means walking the line between rooting for the people you’ve come to appreciate in the industry while also maintaining a level of objectivity about their projects. There aren’t a lot of writers or filmmakers that I would call friends, but I do root for every Adam Cesare project that comes along, which is why I’ll also be rooting for Junction Row. It has immaculate horror movie bonafides – Katharine Isabelle of Ginger Snaps fame will do that for you – but it also feels like an enticing mixture of science fiction and horror. Plus, we’ve had the chance to talk to Cesare on the Certified Forgotten podcast, and podcast guests must simply come first.
Motherwitch
I’m a simple man: you compare your movie to Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse in the programmer notes and it instantly becomes one of my most anticipated feature.s Folk horror has always been a favorite subgenre of mine, and that fact has become even more pronounced as filmmakers turn to trauma as a subtext of horror. But folk horror is often about memory – the memory of the land or the people who inhabit it – and this allows the subgenre to remain one of the few flavors of modern horror that can engage audiences with a trauma-informed narrative as more than just a narrative shortcut. That's enough to put Motherwitch at the top of my radar.
Recluse
Despite a starstudded cast and crew, Scott Cooper’s Antlers ended up being one of the great disappointments of 2021, an exercise in folk horror that never managed to coalesce. But there were so many big ideas present in the film that I can’t help but be curious to see what screenwriter Henry Chaisson musters up for his directorial debut. Recluse feels like the ultimate passion project – with Chaisson serving as writer, director, composer, and more - and if he manages to bring everything together for a horror film centered on sonic horror? Well, let’s just say all will be forgiven for Antler’s failure to live up to the hype.
