VIFF 2021: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

Tracing folk horror’s dark, winding path from the influential likes of Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man to more recent fare like The Witch and Midsommar, Kier-La Janisse has fashioned an astonishingly ambitious deep dive into every recess of one of the genre cinema’s most parabolic, spiritually resonant, and culturally specific strains. Assembling clips from … Read more

VIFF 2021: Saloum

Kicking off at a velocity that would leave most Mission: Impossible entries in its dust, Jean Luc Herbulot’s breathless genre gem vaults us into a darkly poetic, wholly cinematic realm. Having orchestrated a coup in Guinea-Bissau, extracted a foreign drug lord, and absconded with a gold bounty, the Bangui Hyenas—Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah), … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Scary of Sixty-First

When college friends Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) secure an affordable apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it’s not only too good to be true but worse than they could’ve ever imagined. They’ve barely unpacked when an exceedingly strange investigator (director Dasha Nekrasova) darkens their doorstep and shares the suite’s sinister lineage: it … Read more

VIFF 2021: Records

Twenty-one years after Alan Zweig’s groundbreaking first feature documentary Vinyl, Zweig returns to the topic of compulsive record collecting with newfound introspection and a sunnier disposition. Punctuated by his signature mirror-confessionals, Records compiles colourful interviews with vinyl enthusiasts, swirling around the proverbial maxim that music has the power to connect us all. Whereas Vinyl parsed … Read more

VIFF 2021: Red Rocket

Arriving on his estranged wife Lexi’s (Bree Elrod) dilapidated doorstep barely dressed, badly bruised, and all but penniless, semi-legendary porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) needs somewhere to hole up for a while. Within a matter of days, the manic motormouth has not only talked his way into Lexi’s bed, but also started peddling weed … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Boathouse

Already anxious and skittish, Anne (Firecrackers’ Michaela Kurimsky) could’ve found a less triggering summer job. With her music professor Natalia (Kelly Martin) having gone missing, Anne’s been hired on by Natalia’s husband, Dominic (Alan Van Sprang), to be a live-in nanny at a lakeside cottage. After winning over the couple’s skeptical kids, Anne finds her … Read more

VIFF 2021: Tin Can

A global outbreak of invasive fungus is spreading like wildfire, leaving its victims manifesting macabre growths that spread across their bodies, transforming them into something otherworldly. Parasitologist Fret (Anna Hopkins) might just be making headway with identifying a cure when she’s kidnapped and awakens in a locked suspended animation chamber. How long has she been … Read more

VIFF 2021: Sinkhole

Middle-manager Park Dong-won saved up for 11 years to buy a home in Seoul for his family of three. When the Parks move in to their condo, they notice some structural glitches, like a slanted floor. But they are more alarmed by their weird neighbour Man-su. As Park’s co-workers gather for his housewarming party, the … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Girl and the Spider

Both very sly and very daring, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s long-awaited follow-up to The Strange Little Cat (VIFF 2013) is largely set in a spacious bohemian apartment, as tenant Mara (Henriette Confurius) and various friends and family gather to help Mara’s longtime roommate, Lisa (Liliane Amuat), move out. But the story here takes a backseat … Read more

VIFF 2021: Bipolar

Reminiscent of its monochromatic brethren Dead Man and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Queena Li’s Bipolar is an odyssey all its own: a buddy comedy featuring a broken-hearted musician and technicolour lobster that sends the Orpheus myth crashing through the looking glass. In the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on a luxury pilgrimage, a … Read more