We wrapped our Fantasia International Film Festival minisodes with Junction Row, and wouldn’t you know it, another world premiere. “There’s a bunch of world premieres,” Arthur said. The thirtieth anniversary kicked things up a notch. This one is Canadian, it is sci-fi horror, and it left the two of us in different places.
What Junction Row Is About
The official line: a veteran recovering from addiction returns to the intentional community she once called home in search of her missing friend, but finds it has been infiltrated by an otherworldly force. Katharine Isabelle plays Juno, an army vet who got out of a compound that was happily enabling her habit. She left someone behind, someone she was very close to (there is clearly more going on there than friendship). Eight months later, she comes back.
“Fuckery’s afoot,” Arthur said, and there is plenty of it. A pharmaceutical company is pushing a new drug cooked up out of weird stuff, because a place where drugs already happen is where a company goes to make addiction worse.
When you take it, it really messes you up.
Juno fights her way through the compound to find her friend and figure out what is actually happening.
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The Look: Old School Style, Paper-Thin Tech
This is where Junction Row hooked us. It mixes old and new in a way that shouldn’t work. The in-world reports and advertising feel very 60s and 70s, then characters pull out phones and tablets so thin they look like a sheet of paper. That futuristic edge next to retro design gives the film a texture you rarely get at this budget level.
Where We Split: Mystery Versus Explanation
Arthur was not jazzed at the screening, and a few days of distance did not move him.
I thought it was okay. I wish it revealed more to me than me having to guess and trying to think too much about what it means.
He gets it if he sits with it. He just thinks he shouldn’t have to.
If I think hard enough about it, I get it. But I feel like it should have been a little bit more obvious.
He pointed to Meander, the French sci-fi horror, as the model: strange throughout, abrupt at the end, and you still understand it.
Meaghan went the other way, which is funny given she complained about wanting answers sooner back in the Home Bodies episode. This one just worked for her.
There probably maybe could have been a slightly tighter explanation.
She admitted, but the open-ended finish sat fine with her.
Katharine Isabelle, Kyle Mac, and Forgiving a Small Budget
Making Juno an army vet earns its keep. She has tactical knowledge, she strategizes her way into the compound, and she kicks a lot of ass. Kyle Mac plays Miles, a drug dealer and full-on scene stealer, an asshole who brings levity to scenes that need it. The material is dark and gets darker as it goes.
Ashlea Wessel directs, her first feature, and co-writes with Adam Cesare (the Clown in a Cornfield author). A few visual effects get wonky, and we are calling that a budget thing.
I’m much more likely to be forgiving of films like this than I would be of a Marvel movie.
Meaghan said. Studios with all the money in the world have no excuse. Independent Canadian horror does.
Bagman: The Short That Nearly Ran Off With the Night
The short playing with Junction Row was Bagman, from brothers Connor and Vaughn Gaston, inspired by their sister, the field biologist. A wildlife team tracks animals through remote cameras. One night a black garbage bag shows up in the footage out of nowhere.
One second it’s not there, the next frame it’s there.
Nat watches the feed, a teammate goes to check the bag, and things get weird fast.
Arthur was all in.
Oh my god, I loved it so much.
What got him was the jump scare and the implication underneath it, a recursive thing that keeps happening to every person who experiences it. Meaghan liked the concept more than the ending. Either way, it is the kind of short you argue about on the drive home.