2026: Toronto's Canadian Horror Film Festival. 🇨🇦 Fearless Canadian Horror

After a violent car crash links Nicole and the enigmatic Rachel to a string of brutal murders, two detectives uncover a world of corrupt online sex work, obsession, and manipulation. As Nicole recounts her descent into Rachel’s seductive influence, the lines between protector, predator, and identity begin to collapse.

Opening Short

Women Calling (L’appel des sœurs)

Dir. Briana Legault · 12:31

A woman gets woken up from a sexual assault by an invisible force compelling her to relive the previous day’s events and seek revenge for herself, but above all for all those who will never get the chance.

Last Moon is a frontier nightmare set in the Old West. A former bounty hunter living under a new name believes he has buried his violent past on a remote wilderness farm, but when a savage creature emerges from the forest and tears his family apart, he is forced back into the life he tried to escape. As he and his young daughter track the creature through the darkening woods, a horrifying truth emerges: the monster hunting them is not just a wolf, but the living consequence of a massacre he committed years earlier. Blending the mythic brutality of the Western with the primal terror of werewolf folklore, Last Moon is a haunting tale of vengeance, guilt, and sins that refuse to stay buried.

Opening Short

A Family Affair

Dir. Shanice Iesha Bowrin · 8:00

A Family Affair is a horror drama about duty, trauma, and forgiveness within a Black Caribbean family. Successful author Gemma Clarkes returns to her aunt’s Toronto home for the anniversary of her best friend Trisha Walsh’s disappearance 15 years earlier, where she reunites with her estranged mother and confronts the secrets of that night.

It’s 2125 in the post-apocalyptic arctic where a tenacious young teen lives in a remote cabin with her only companion; a humanoid A.I. she calls Mother. Following an attack, they’re forced to brave the vast northern tundra in search of life-saving plasma. LUMI is an arctic adventure that will prove some bonds can defy even the darkest of times.

Opening Short

Sick Bird

Dir. Gabriella Rigakos · 7:40

Roberta must finish her art school thesis amid an anthropomorphic crisis of self-actualization in Northern Ontario.

An influencer couple invites their most devoted superfan couple to an intimate weekend retreat, secretly planning to use them as the centrepiece of their next viral reinvention. However, the curated weekend unravels into psychological warfare when each couple's vision for the weekend curdles into something feral, where the desperate need to be seen turns deadly. A razor sharp satire of celebrity worship culture.

Opening Short

The Ride Home

Dirs. Toryn Krezek & Paula Vergara · 4:48

After a fatal car crash, four friends awaken trapped inside their wrecked car in a liminal space between life and death.

A group of Influencers anonymously invited to a haunted island in search of buried treasure get more than they bargained for when the spirits guarding the treasure start to show them just how protective they are. The influencers, previously strangers, have to put aside their differences and learn to work together when the search for treasure becomes a quest for survival.

Mexican/Canadian director Lisa Ovies, whose film PUPPET KILLER played BITS in 2019 and won the award for Best FX Makeup, directed this supernatural bloodfest with a 90% female presenting crew. Stepping away from her horror/comedy background, Lisa blends practical effects and supernatural scares with internet culture and righteous feminine rage to tell a story that is at times chilling, funny, blood-spattered, uncomfortable and unfortunately for some, all too familiar.

Anisha Cheema (iZombie, Boot Camp), and Christian Sloan (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Star Trek Beyond) star as two of the camera (and treasure) hungry few racing against time, each other, and the dead in this high-paced supernatural slasher.

Opening Short

Marionette

Dir. Milene Curiel · 6:27

When a reclusive filmmaker notices the actors in his favourite TV show stumbling over their lines, his growing frustration uncovers a disturbing truth that traps him in the very game he once controlled.

After the death of his people by the order of the evil King Kath, Kylgor the Conqueror and his band of surviving barbarians set out for revenge. Succeeding in their quest, with the king's severed head in their possession, the gang flees the kingdom with enemy soldiers close behind. But before they can escape, the Barbarians plummet into a giant underground abyss filled with horrific creatures, dangerous terrain, and a deep darkness lurking within.

Opening Short

Remnants

Dir. Jay Da Costa · 9:53

When a quiet young teen introduces a new mentor to his favourite pastime, she finds that breaking the rules comes with serious consequences.

A family's Christmas Eve dinner becomes a nightmare as Gino must protect his loved ones from his reanimated Nonna who crashes the celebration with murderous intent and a hard opinion about the sauce recipe. As tensions (and the body count) begin to rise, and old family secrets begin to surface, Gino and his family must figure out how to send Nonna and a growing army of undead ancestors and neighbours back to the grave before the end of this Unholy Night.

Writer/Director Michael Gabriele (whose short film Get Away did a major run through the 2023 festival circuit, winning many awards) weaves an exploration into Italian tradition and family dynamics with the true horror of having to host your entire family for Christmas dinner. In his first feature film, Gabriele uses atmosphere and special effects to turn the once loving Nonna into a terrifying, vengeful spirit.

Unholy Night stars Marc Bendavid (Reacher, Murdoch Mysteries) and Jacqueline Robbins (The Wicker Man, A Series of Unfortunate Events) as Gino and Nonna in this tale of ghosts, tradition, and most importantly, respecting your elders.

Opening Short

Heirloom

Dir. Dominic McDowell · 12:34

After receiving an heirloom sauce recipe from his late father, a grieving son is consumed by his obsession with growing tomatoes.

Hammer Films unleashes its first new monster in over sixty years with Casey Walker’s ITHAQUA, a frontier horror set in the starving winter of 1821, where an American mercenary (Luke Hemsworth) fights to hold a famine-stricken fur-trade outpost together against the cold, the hunger, and a dark force that leaves its victims craving flesh. With Kevin Durand and Michael Pitt, it is a slow-burn survival drama that erupts into bloody, grotesque creature horror — a Western Gothic nightmare in the tradition of Ravenous and Bone Tomahawk that builds to a crescendo of dread and leaves you hungry for more.