The 2026 Fantasia Film Festival is upon us. Running from July 16th-August 2nd in Montréal, Quebec, the festival celebrates the best in horror and genre cinema. This is the 30th edition of festival and this year is screening over 125 feature and 200 short films. There is something for everyone including big Hollywood studio fare, indie icons, first time filmmakers, restorations of classics and even a program dedicated to family friendly fare! Here Dakota Arsenault, Jeff Bulmer, Pedro Lima and Rach Epstein share 8 films they are excited to see. Check back often as there will be plenty of reviews for films that screen at Fantasia!
Cherry and Virgin
Directed By: Masanao Kawajiri
Starring: Takashi Okado
Synopsis: A ‘nervous romance’ about Ryou, a 32-year-old erotic manga artist who has no experience with women, and Ami, a 28-year-old fujoshi who has a bad impression of real men.
Why I’m Excited: Cherry and Virgin is about two artists from radically different worlds. Different professions, different locations, and communicating initially over distance through a dating app. Already a decent premise, the idea is elevated through an astounding mix of styles, blended together as part of the story. Using different art styles to depict different worlds, or characters’ worldviews is nothing new, but it’s always exciting to see. Even when a change of artstyle represents a single sequence of a film, it makes an impression. A film built entirely around that concept is nothing short of a must-see for fans of animation and comics. While the creative team behind this film is unproven – Kawajiri cut his teeth as an animator but has yet to direct a feature – Cherry and Virgin promises to be one hell of a debut.
- Jeff Bulmer
Dance Freak
Directed By: Alan Resnick, Robby Rackleff
Starring: Stavros Halkias, Conner O’Malley, Robby Rackleff
Synopsis: A dangerous experiment goes awry resulting in a Dance Freak running wild.
Why I’m Excited: Back in the 2010s, Adult Swim began airing 15-minute comedy specials called “infomercials” by up-and-coming directors, featuring bizarre humour, purposely outdated television formats, and always premiering around 4 AM. The most famous of these was Too Many Cooks, which immediately went viral after airing around Halloween of 2014. My personal favourite, however, was Unedited Footage of a Bear, which premiered just under two months later. Bear starts out as stock footage of a bear in the woods, before going into a pharmaceutical ad which spirals out of control as the woman in the ad realizes the world she inhabits is not real. Director Alan Resnick would continue honing his bizarre analog horror twist on familiar formats with This House Has People In It, and now comes to Fantasia with his debut film Dance Freak. Featuring a who’s-who of modern alt-comedy – Conner O’Malley, Sarah Sherman, Stavros Halkias, and of course Resnick and partner Robby Rackleff – Dance Freak inhabits the format of a low-budget black-and-white indie film to again interrogate the tropes of the medium through surreal absurdist comedy.
Plus, the trailer song is an absolute bop.
- Jeff Bulmer
Freaks Part II
Directed By: Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein
Starring: Reznor Allen, Amanda Crew, Audrianna Lico, Lorelei Olivia Mote, Lili Taylor, Stephen Tobolowsky
Synopsis: Several years after a traumatic escape, we meet Mary and her daughter Chloe as they live on the road, hiding their powers and identities. They are hunted by the Abnormal Defense Force, paramilitary police that specialize in ruthlessly exterminating ‘freaks‘ like them. Mary is fueled by revenge, determined to find the ADF officer who killed her first child.
Why I’m Excited: This is a sequel to the 2018 indie hit Freaks, where Lopovsky and Stein made their version of an X-Men tale of young kids learning they have powers and the government agency trying to kill them. Since then the directing duo were hired to resuscitate the corpse of the Final Destination franchise, but instead of turning in more dreck, they managed to inject new life into the once popular series and gave a proper send off to the late great Tony Todd. Now that they are riding high on the success of Final Destination Bloodlines, Lipovsky and Stein hope their sequel (originally titled Freaks Underground) will continue to propel them to the top of the horror genre.
Plus I worked a few days on this as a grip and after seeing some of the set pieces, I can not wait to see how the carnage filmed unfolds!
- Dakota Arsenault
I Love Paris
Directed By: Nicky Murphy
Starring: Louiza Aura, Antoine Dumortier, Noé Hermelin, Leonor Oberson, Aminata Thiboult
Synopsis: After being transformed into a vampire, a Parisian singer pursues stardom at the cost of her soul.
Why I’m Excited: An improvisational vampire mockumentary about music and ambition pairs well with modern narratives around what it takes to become famous in the era of Instagram and Tik Tok. Though there isn’t much posted by critics yet, as the film is premiering at Fantasia Film Festival, I Love Paris has the potential to be the film I tell people to watch as soon as it comes out. My hopes are high for something resembling The Vampire Lestat meets Rap World.
- Rach Epstein
The Leader
Directed By: Michael Gallagher
Starring: Grace Caroline Currey, Vera Farmiga, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Parsons, Simon Rex
Synopsis: In 1997, thirty-nine members of the American cult known as “Heaven’s Gate” committed the largest mass suicide to ever take place on American soil. This is their story.
Why I’m Excited: “Heaven’s Gate” is one of the most notorious American cults, but it is not well understood by most people. Cults have become largely understood as cons, schemes planned by bad-faith actors looking to make a buck, but Bonnie Lu Nettles and Marshall Herff Applewhite were likely true believers, with Applewhite dying alongside his followers in the 1997 mass suicide. With interesting subjects played by two of the most reliable character actors, it is hard not to be excited for this dive into the humanity and fallibility of two of America’s most “successful” cult leaders.
- Rach Epstein
Los Vampires
Directed By: Craig Mitchell
Starring: Daniela Couso, Henry Ian Cusick, Thomas Kretschmann, Jefferson Mays, Oscar Nuñez, Carol Abney
Synopsis: In 1930 Hollywood, a Spanish actor is cast in the night shoot of a soon-to-be-legendary vampire film, forced to imitate the English-speaking star who performs the same role by day. The two actors regularly meet at the transitory hours of their shoots, and a rivalry stirs between them. All the while, a string of murders are occurring on and around the soundstage.
Why I’m Excited: Taking the true story of Tod Browning’s Dracula, which was filmed during the days on the Universal lot, while at night George Melford directed a Spanish version with the cast and crew watching the dailies of the English version to recreate the same film, is a great jumping off point for this imaginative film. It takes place in the same space as something like One Night In Miami, where we use the jumping off point to imagine the conversations the two actors playing Dracula might have had. Add in a spooky murder mystery element and you get elements of Shadow of a Vampire, which similarly riffed on the filming of Nosferatu. This is the first film Craig Mitchell has directed since 1989, so fingers crossed this will be a success for him.
- Dakota Arsenault
Misterio (Studio Q)
Directed By: Marcela Fernández Violante
Starring: Juan Ferrara, Victor Junco, Helena Rojo
Synopsis: A soap opera actor is mixed in a real drama very similar to what he represents in his work.
Why I’m Excited: Marcela Fernández Violante, one of the pioneers of female filmmaking in Mexico, participates in the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival with her 1980 film Misterio (Studio Q). A new 4K restored copy by Severin Films from the original reels of the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (IMCINE), the film is a farce about a soap opera actor whose life starts to blur the lines between the fictional and the personal. The film utilizes a central element of the Latin American culture, the telenovelas, and the dramatic reflections of an actor upon their professional duty. Forty-six years after its release, the showing at Fantasia, its 4K copy world premiere, might mean the beginning of a new life for one of the pioneers of female filmmaking, who dared to investigate the culture of her country.
- Pedro Lima
Thrilling Bloody Sword
Directed By: Chang Hsin-Yi
Starring: Chin Han, Chiang Sheng, Fanny Fang, Chang Yi
Synopsis: The daughter of a queen and a comet is abandoned by her family. One day, she comes across a prince fighting a multi-headed dragon and falls in love with him. However, some wizards try everything to keep them apart.
Why I’m Excited: Another exciting restoration at the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival line-up is Chang Hsin-Yi’s Thrilling Bloody Sword. The film got lost for forty years. Recently, a 35mm started to circulate again; hence, the new 4K restoration hit the Canadian festival to rewrite the history of this Taiwanese wuxia. The film narrates the story of a kingdom under attack by monsters and the secret plan of an individual. However, the only person who might save the kingdom is a prince, who needs a magic sword to kill those monsters. Thrilling Bloody Sword seems like a blast, and the colors look to shine in the newly restored copy.
- Pedro Lima
