In Ramin Fahrenheit’s grindhouse psychodrama, a young woman (Fatima Maziani) released from a mental hospital is drawn to a drug dealer she sees at the cinema they both frequent. These two outsiders come together; both of them are eager to escape their troubled pasts. One fateful evening, however, they plan to rob a married couple, but, when things get bloodier than expected, it is revealed that the woman has a compulsion to kill. Plagued by visions and voices, the titular killer queen attempts in vain to suppress her urges, and the victims continue to pile up.

Shot on Super 8mm and featuring an in-the-key-of-John-Carpenter score by Norman Orenstein, Killer Queen’s pulpy aesthetics and formally fluent genre language recall films of the past but also work to express the inner world of its marginalized characters. The ingenious non-linear structure further articulates their disturbed conditions as you piece the story together. Immersed in the oppressive shadowy streets of Toronto, a character unto itself, they seek some kind of refuge, meaning, and liberation from their shared displacement.