Fantasia Film Festival 2026 – Many genre films explore generational trauma, healing ancestral wounds, and how we inherit these battles through our bloodlines. There has been a slight boom within the last few years as we have seen filmmakers work through their own familial tragedies. The breakout film Mārama is one of the latest and best examples of why these stories are therapeutic and healing for many of us. After all, the best art is often the result of combining the personal with the fictional to communicate an idea to strangers. This is what Tim Riedel’s new psychological horror film, Ancestral Beasts, tries to accomplish. The film had its world premiere at Fantasia Film Festival 2026 and definitely brought some important topics to the program.
Ancestral Beasts introduces us to a woman who is having a difficult time. Elyse (Morgan Holstrom) lost her mother four years ago and has a big sister, Nikki (Darla Contois), who seems to get off on bullying her. After nearly getting fired from her job because she’s overloaded to the point of barely functioning, she decides to take a trip. She drives to her aunt’s isolated cabin outside of the city, hoping for some peace and a reset. Instead, she meets an annoying neighbor, Max (Josh Strait), continues being tormented by her sister via cell phone, and experiences a new streak of bad luck. She tries to get help and is met with a bunch of paperwork, the hoops we all must jump through with insurance, and the stress and shameful feelings that arise from that situation. She also has a mysterious presence living under the cabin, on top of all of the life stuff bombarding her as she tries to work on herself.
It’s hard to not feel bad for Elyse because most of us have been in her shoes. Many of us learn the hard way that we do need help. However, when we reach out for help, we’re made to feel bad about needing it. Society still has a stigma around mental illness, even though social media and your favorite abusers love to weaponize therapyspeak. This is why too many people give up and suffer in silence. It is also how many people find themselves lashing out at people and becoming the monster in their narrative. Loads of us also have faulty support systems that make us wish we had never mentioned anything to our supposed friends and family in the first place.
In addition to these unfortunately relatable issues, Elyse is also back in a small town she has a history with. A long-forgotten cousin knows who she is and remembers more about what drove a wedge in their family than she does. While reconnecting is great for some people, this simply adds another circle to the spiral of familial baggage weighing Elyse down. Both depression and anxiety feel like death by a thousand papercuts. While this complication might seem like an insignificant way to connect the film’s thesis and title a bit more, it is also Elyse’s one thousandth papercut. As someone with a lot of family issues, I get the complicated feelings that stem from interacting with people who knew you when you were a child. They expect you to remember them and for you to want to be close to them. However, in reality, it’s just another gaping hole you are now forced to look into and wonder if it’s worth fixing.
Ancestral Beasts tosses us some visually interesting moments despite its small budget. The hole in the home leading to the scary tunnel is one. This metaphor could be many things, depending on where the viewer is when they hit play on this film. Is Elyse crawling further into her despair because the outside world won’t listen? Or is the monster she’s tried to keep mentally at bay crawling its way out? That’s on you to decide, but after my first watch, I like to think they’re meeting in the middle. I also love the way the creature is revealed. Too many movies try to give us a full monster too soon. That is especially hard to pull off when budget restraints will not let you be great. Which is why we love creatives who get creative and give us a little razzle-dazzle via practical effects. The film gives us enough of the creature to get it and what it represents. This helps it find its almost storybook groove and prevents us from being nitpicky and distracted from the real reason for the monster.
The genre needs more Indigenous horror movies, and I’m always going to stick up for them. Especially because we’re all painfully aware that most of these indie movies by Indigenous filmmakers aren’t getting the same funding opportunities. That results in plenty of moments where you can see what they probably wanted to go for just out of reach. However, Riedel doesn’t let that deter the film from doing some cool things with its monster. The puppet monster, as the manifestation of Elyse’s emotions, is as effective as it can be in this film. Her journey of discovery, and her pleading with it to stop hurting those around her, are genuinely relatable moments. Far too many people hurt the ones they love because they cannot quite get a handle on their own demons. This isn’t a revelation, but Ancestral Beasts’ care while handling the topic is one of the film’s strengths.
BIPOC women specifically deserve more stories where they get to be messy, they get to lead, and they are allowed to be the person who needs help. Having this movie specifically center a Métis woman literally battling her demons sets it apart from so many other films the genre is oversaturated with. How many mid moves feature white women in these narratives? How many allow them to be catastrophes that we are told to root for? I’m not going to lie about Ancestral Beasts being a perfect film. However, I am going to tell you that I see the forest through the flaws and think we owe it a watch. Especially, if you are the type of person who loves to use a land acknowledgment in a Zoom or speech, but never actually supports Indigenous people or consumes Indigenous art. It’s literally the bare minimum.
We can argue all day about what’s wrong with the movie. However, representation matters, and it is crucial that we all get the opportunity to see ourselves in the media we consume. Maybe this movie will become a slumber party favorite and connect with a BIPOC girl who will feel seen and get help sooner than most of us. Maybe it’ll just be the first (and sadly one of the few times) an Indigenous child sees themselves as a lead in a horror movie that strips away outdated and harmful tropes. Ancestral Beasts is important and righteous, and I’m glad it exists even if it’s not super memorable. It’s not the worst movie I have seen at this festival. However, more importantly, it’s a movie that gets us out of the hole the industry has dug, where only white leads are deserving of help.
