We got lucky with this one. The team at VVS sent over an early screener of At the Place of Ghosts (Sk+te’kmujue’katik), a Canadian supernatural thriller from filmmaker Bretten Hannam, and we sat down to watch it knowing very little about what we were getting into.
What we got was a film that left us both staring at the screen in near-silence for its entire runtime, processing every frame as it unfolded. This is not a movie you casually watch. It asks you to pay attention, and it rewards you for it.
At the Place of Ghosts follows Mise’l and Antle, two Mi’kmaq brothers who were inseparable as children but have spent nearly twenty years apart. Trauma from their upbringing, specifically an abusive, alcoholic father, drove them in opposite directions.
When a malevolent spirit of bones and rot begins stalking them both, Mise’l returns to the community he left behind, and the two brothers are forced to reunite and travel into Sk+te’kmujue’katik. This primordial forest exists outside of time, to destroy the entity before it consumes them entirely.
The film premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival in the Platform Prize program and arrives in Canadian theatres on May 8, 2026.
A Drama Wrapped in a Ghost Story
One of the producers, Marc Tetreault, described the film as
A drama wrapped up in a ghost story that is wrapped back up into a drama again
And we think that nails it. If you go in expecting wall-to-wall horror, you might be surprised. This is a slow burn in the best sense. It never once feels boring or sluggish; it just takes its time peeling back layers of story, character, and history with a patience that most horror films don’t bother with. Arthur put it well:
I was hoping it was a little bit more horror, but then again, it doesn’t really take away anything from the movie itself.
The nonlinear timeline is the engine that makes everything work. Time folds on itself throughout the film. Mise’l and Antle encounter versions of themselves and others from the past, the present, and the future as they move deeper into the forest. We were both bracing for confusion, because nonlinear storytelling can absolutely wreck a film if it’s handled poorly. That was not the case here. Meaghan said:
Sometimes when you’re watching a movie that is super convoluted, it really takes you out of the story. That was not the case with this film. I was intrigued the entire way through.
Bretten Hannam wrote this brilliantly. There was never a moment where we lost the thread. The time-bending structure isn’t a gimmick; it serves the story’s emotional core. These brothers are literally walking through their shared history, facing ancestors they never met and confronting versions of themselves they tried to leave behind.
The Forest, the Cinematography, and the Technical Achievement
We have to talk about how this movie looks, because it is stunning. Guy Godfree handled the cinematography, and the result is something you could frame on a wall. Most of the film takes place in the dense forests and along the rivers of Nova Scotia, shot in and around Halifax during the summer of 2024. These are not easy locations. The cast and crew were climbing rocks, wading through creeks, swimming in rivers, and filming in caves. Arthur kept coming back to the logistics: “Can you imagine getting all the equipment to the cave? That is wild.“
And then there were the cicadas. According to the press materials, the sound team had to contend with cicadas screaming nonstop during outdoor shoots. Meaghan couldn’t help but laugh at that:
I can’t even imagine the sound mixers who had to do all the post-production work. Kudos to you guys because holy shit.
Despite all of those challenges, nothing about the final product feels compromised. Every shot is deliberate. The forest feels alive and watchful, and the atmosphere never lets up from the opening scene right through to the final moments.
There were a couple of shots that genuinely messed with Arthur’s head. “There were some shots that kind of fucked my mind and I was like, wait a minute. What’s happening? I have to rearrange my brain to understand what I’m looking at.” That is the kind of filmmaking that earns a rewatch.
Culture, Queerness, and Generational Trauma
At the Place of Ghosts is specifically a Mi’kmaq story. The Mi’kmaq are an Indigenous people who reside primarily in the Atlantic Canadian provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador) with some communities extending into Maine. The film uses a mix of English and the Mi’kmaq language throughout, and parts of the story are narrated in Mi’kmaq as well. This is not a generic “Indigenous film.” It is rooted in a specific culture with specific traditions, and it treats those traditions with respect and care.
One of the things we both appreciated is how the film handles queerness. Mise’l is a queer character who identifies as Two-Spirit, a concept with deep roots across many Indigenous communities that reflects gender fluidity and a broader understanding of identity that predates colonial influence. The film never shoves this in your face with a big announcement or a clunky line of dialogue. You gather it from context. You understand it through the reactions of other characters and the weight of what goes unsaid. As Arthur noted, “The movie explains enough and shows you enough to understand what’s going on.”
The father’s hostility toward Mise’l’s identity becomes one of the central emotional threads, and the film smartly connects it to the wider cycle of colonial violence. The character known as Old Holy Joe, their great-great-grandfather, was converted to Christianity during the British colonial period, and that imposed belief system filtered down through the generations, warping the family’s relationship to their own culture. Their father, likely a survivor of the residential school system, became a product of that environment. He is a monster, yes, but the film gives you enough context to understand how that monster was made. That kind of writing is rare and we respected the hell out of it.
Mise’l and Antle: A Brotherhood That Feels Real
The relationship between the two brothers is the heart of the film, and both Blake Alec Miranda (Mise’l) and Forrest Goodluck (Antle) deliver performances that feel completely lived-in. Miranda, who is also finishing a PhD in neuroscience (seriously), brings a quiet, searching energy to Mise’l. Goodluck, who many will recognise from The Revenant and How to Blow Up a Pipeline, plays Antle with a harder edge, a younger brother who feels abandoned by the one person he trusted most.
What we loved is that neither character is unreasonable. Nobody overacts. Nobody storms off into the woods over a miscommunication that could be solved with one sentence. Arthur was fired up about this:
I really love the fact that there was none of that stupid thing that always happens in movies where all it takes is a small conversation to fix a situation and people just run away.
When things get difficult between Mise’l and Antle, they either put the issue aside to deal with the immediate threat or they actually talk about it. That is smarter writing, and it creates real tension instead of manufactured drama.
One of the coolest details is that the brothers can physically interact with the spirits and ancestors they meet in the forest. They get fed. They receive weapons. They have real conversations. It breaks the typical time-travel rules (no interacting with your past self or you explode) in a way that feels intentional and grounded in the film’s own logic. This is not time travel. It is time-bending on itself, and the distinction matters.
Hopeful Beginnings Over Happy Endings
Bretten Hannam has said they don’t believe in happy endings, and the film reflects that. At the Place of Ghosts does not wrap things up with a bow. What it offers instead is the start of something. A hopeful beginning. Arthur articulated it perfectly:
It’s not a happy ending. It is a start of something new, but is not necessarily happy. It could go in every direction, but it is a hopeful new beginning as opposed to a happy ending.
After everything these characters endure throughout the film, a tidy resolution would have felt dishonest. The ending lands because it trusts the audience to sit with ambiguity, to understand that healing is a process and not a destination. Given the weight of the subject matter (abuse, colonial violence, generational trauma, identity), anything else would have cheapened what came before.
We both came away deeply impressed. Meaghan went high with a 9 out of 10 digs, calling it “an excellently made film” and refusing to find fault with it. Arthur landed at a solid 8 digs, noting that while he wished for a bit more horror, the film is beautiful from every angle. This is a Canada/Belgium co-production that deserves attention far beyond its release weekend. Go see it.
The film also releases during a meaningful time in Canada. May 5 is Red Dress Day, an annual day of remembrance honoring missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people. The day originated from a 2010 art installation by Métis artist Jaime Black, featuring empty red dresses to symbolise those who are no longer here.
May 14 marks Moose Hide Campaign Day, a grassroots movement from British Columbia engaging men and boys to help end violence toward women and children in Indigenous communities. Both causes accept donations, and we will link resources in the show notes for anyone interested in learning more or contributing.
Meaghan also recommended some Indigenous literature worth checking out: Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid, Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, Bad Cree by Jessica Johns, and the anthology Never Whistle at Night compiled by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. If At the Place of Ghosts sparks your curiosity about Indigenous storytelling, any of those are a solid place to start.