Our Scintillating Six: A Half-Dozen Fantasia 2025 Features We Can’t Wait to See!

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TERRESTRIAL REVEALS A DIFFERENT SHADE OF (STEVE) PINK

As director of the HOT TUB TIME MACHINE films, ACCEPTED, and ABOUT LAST NIGHT, and the co-writer of HIGH FIDELITY and GROSSE POINT BLANK, Steve Pink has made a distinctive name for himself with individualistic comedy works that ooze personality. Now, he’s exploring darker edges of his sensibilities with TERRESTRIAL, a provocative thriller with unconventional comedy and sci-fi elements, still rooted in character and behavior, but filtered through paranoia and fear. A reunion weekend spirals out of control for four college friends when the host (Jermaine Fowler, SORRY TO BOTHER YOU) a science fiction writer on the verge of newfound success, fights to maintain his sense of reality in the face of sudden, uncanny dangers. Fowler is brilliant here and is flanked by a cast that includes James Morosini (I LOVE MY DAD), Pauline Chalamet (SEX LIFE OF COLLEGE GIRLS), Edy Modica (JURY DUTY), with Rob Yang (SUCCESSION) and Brendan Hunt (TED LASSO). World Premiere.

**NECROMANCY AND BELIEF VS CORPOREAL DECAY: MOTHER OF FLIES SPELLBINDS**

When a young woman faces a deadly diagnosis, she seeks dark magic from a witch in the woods… but every cure has costs. Written and directed by John and Zelda Adams and Toby Poser (The Adams Family), who also star, shot, edited, and scored, MOTHER OF FLIES is the latest creation from the filmmaking family behind such singular landmarks as THE DEEPER YOU DIG, HELLBENDER, and WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS, each of which has World Premiered at Fantasia. Described by the filmmakers as their fairytale manipulation of the darkly shadowed, yet love-lined pathways between a human life and death, MOTHER OF FLIES is an extraordinary work of personal genre storytelling, gestated through the family’s own experiences battling and surviving cancer. It stands with the strongest of their work, a poetic, haunting, and moving film that glows with otherworldly imagination, exploring the concept of necromancy in connection with two women who have very intimate relationships with death. World Premiere.

A HAUNTING 8MM DESCENT INTO AUSTRALIA’S SURREAL UNDERBELLY

A GRAND MOCKERY, the feature debut from co-directors Adam C. Briggs and Sam Dixon, is a grimy, experimental descent into Australia’s dark underbelly, rendered in the raw textures of 8mm film. Starring Dixon as Josie, a man plagued by mental illness, addiction, and compulsion, the film follows his increasingly horrific, near-ritualistic wandering from Brisbane’s mundane outskirts to the sublime horrors of the Sunshine Coast. With a tone that veers from darkly funny to nightmarishly surreal, the film channels the disorienting psychology of its outcast protagonist. A technical triumph of underground cinema, A GRAND MOCKERY transforms the grain of 8mm into something painterly and visceral, evoking Francis Bacon’s dread-soaked visions while building a phantasmagoric world of blurred realities, hypnotic soundscapes, and cinematic obsession. At once grotesque and poetic, it’s a film that pulses with human chaos and defies categorization. Underground section. International Premiere.

DUI SHAW (Bangladesh) – dir. Nuhash Humayun

Following 2023’s folk-horror anthology PETT KATA SHAW, four new fearful fables from the leading light of genre film in Bangladesh, this time redirecting focus towards social ills plaguing South Asia. Each of DUI SHAW’s segments is strikingly distinct in theme and tone, ranging from gritty and gruesome to haunting, hilarious, mythic, and magically musical. Official selection: SXSW 2025 Canadian Premiere.

THE WAILING (Spain) – dir. Pedro Martín-Calero

Several generations of women, separated by time and space, are stalked by the same terrifying curse. One of the scariest films of the last year, vibrantly told in a multi-chapter structure, taking place in Spain and Argentina across periods decades apart, showcasing a trio of striking lead performances from Ester Expósito (VENUS), Mathilde Ollivier (OVERLORD), and Malena Villa (EL ANGEL). Official Selection: San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024, BFI London 2024, Hong Kong International Film Festival 2025. Canadian Premiere.

TOGETHER (USA) – dir. Michael Shanks

Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie (Dave Franco and Alison Brie) find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country, abandoning all that is familiar in their lives except each other. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love, and their flesh. A smart, shocking marriage of body horror and troubled-relationship study. Official selection: Sundance 2025, SXSW 2025. Canadian Premiere.