Canada does not always get the credit it deserves in horror, which feels wrong the deeper you look. July 1 gave us the excuse we needed. Instead of chasing new releases and festival buzz like we usually do, we spent Canada Day on the films that made us fall for our own country’s genre output.
Sometimes when I start doing some research into things, I discover that Canada has so much more horror in it than I thought it did.
Meaghan said, and Arthur’s answer summed up the whole episode: “Oh yeah, so much.”
The rules were simple. We each brought five strictly Canadian horror films, country of origin Canada, made by Canadian teams, usually with Canadian casts and crews. No obvious picks, no filler. Just movies we love and would hand to anyone. Here they are, and yes, there will probably be a part two.
Slaxx (2020)
Elza Kephart’s horror comedy is about a pair of killer jeans, and somehow that is the least strange thing about it. A trendy clothing store gets a shipment of “Super Shapers,” the miracle pants that supposedly fit any body, and then the pants start eating the staff.
We caught it at Fantasia years ago and never forgot it. “The kills are great,” and they are, but the thing that sneaks up on you is the ending, which turns the whole silly premise into a sharp jab at fast fashion and the people exploited to make it. It is gory, it is funny, and it has something to say. We had a really good time with it.
Red Rooms (2023)
Pascal Plante’s Les Chambres Rouges is the hardest one here to describe without giving too much away, so we will keep it tight. A Montreal model becomes fixated on the trial of a man accused of torturing and murdering three young women and selling the footage on the dark web.
What follows is part psychological thriller, part crime drama, and quietly one of the most disturbing films we have seen in years.
It’s very tense even though there is not any violence on screen.
Meaghan noted, and that restraint is the point; most of the horror is auditory, implied, left to your imagination. Juliette Gariépy gives a lead performance we have thought about a million times since. An excellent film.
Undertone (2025)
Ian Tuason’s feature debut freaked Arthur out in the theater, and we mean that as a compliment. It follows a paranormal podcast whose host starts receiving cursed audio files, and as the recordings bleed into her life, the hauntings begin.
Because so much of it lives in sound;
You should turn off the lights and watch the movie
Especially the final stretch, which gets genuinely nasty. We will be honest: Meaghan came out a little on the fence, wondering if the hype train dulled it slightly, and we both want a rewatch to sit with it properly. Even so, as an exercise in audio-based dread, it is doing something worth your time.
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Ginger Snaps (2000)
If we are being honest, showing anyone a single still from John Fawcett’s werewolf classic is enough; people know exactly what it is. Two morbid sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, share a death pact and a codependent bond, and then Ginger gets bitten the same night she gets her first period.
What makes it sing is the metaphor.
There is something about a werewolf story within a coming of age spectrum that I think works beautifully.
And Ginger Snaps threads puberty, sexuality, and the terror of becoming someone new right through the monster movie. Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins are Canadian horror royalty for a reason.
Come True (2020)
Anthony Scott Burns wrote, directed, shot, and scored this one, and it shows in how complete the mood feels. A teenage runaway (Julia Sarah Stone) joins a paid sleep study for a safe bed and some money, and the study turns into a nightmarish descent into her own dreams and the shadow figures waiting there.
It is nonlinear and a little sci-fi, only because of the tech involved, and it burrowed into us.
I loved that movie and I recommend it to everyone!
Arthur said, and he has recommended it to what feels like eighteen different people since. Meaghan’s take is fair too: “I feel like I missed half of what was going on,” which is exactly why it earns a rewatch.
Buffet Infinity (2025)
This is the weird one, and we mean hyper, hyper, hyper Canadian. Simon Glassman’s satire is told entirely through fake TV commercials, in the spirit of SCTV, following a fictional Alberta county where a beloved sandwich shop and a shiny new all-you-can-eat buffet wage war through their ads.
A sinkhole grows. A cult forms. The buffet gets a little too sentient. “Which sounds like it doesn’t work, but it does,” and once you catch the flow, the story clicks into place, and the dread creeps in under all the goofiness. It is nuts, in the best way. Just watch it.
Cube (1997)
Vincenzo Natali’s debut is the throwback of the bunch, and a lot of people credit it as a precursor to the trap-horror wave that followed. Seven strangers wake up in a labyrinth of cube-shaped rooms, each one rigged to kill: fire, collapsing walls, flying blades, you name it.
They built it for around $350,000, and it made roughly $9 million, which tells you how much a great premise and tight direction can do.
This is one that actually has more of a cult following than we think it does.
Arthur said, and he is right. There is even a Japanese remake and a 4K restoration floating around now.
Pontypool (2008)
Bruce McDonald and writer Tony Burgess (adapting his own novel, Pontypool Changes Everything) made maybe the most original zombie film we know, and there is barely a zombie in it.
A radio DJ (Stephen McHattie) works an overnight shift in a small Northern Ontario town as a strange infection spreads, one carried through language itself. People catch a word, get stuck repeating it, and turn. “It’s very unnerving to hear,” and it is nearly impossible to explain to anyone who has not seen it.
It makes perfect sense when you are watching it.
Meaghan said, and that is the magic. There is even a loose 2019 spin-off, Dreamland, if you want to go further.
Suck (2009)
Rob Stefaniuk wrote, directed, and stars in this rock and roll vampire comedy, and the cast list is genuinely absurd. An indie band called the Winners tours across Canada and the States; their bassist gets turned into a vampire, and suddenly they are famous, which raises some inconvenient questions.
We have a special place in our heart because it’s just so funny.
And half the joy is the parade of cameos: Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Moby, Alex Lifeson, Malcolm McDowell as the vampire hunter. “Did this production get this many superstars into this movie?” Yes. On a budget that barely broke $3.5 million. Watch it with a group.
Vicious Fun (2020)
Cody Calahan’s horror comedy is set in the eighties and follows a snarky horror film critic who wanders, drunk, into what he assumes is a fan meetup and turns out to be a support group for serial killers. To survive, he has to blend in.
Then he meets a woman posing as one of the killers, who is actually an assassin hunting them. It is high energy and pretty much fun from start to finish. Meaghan had a bonus reason to love it: she recognized the actress playing the assassin from her college theater days, which happens more than you would think with Canadian productions. Do not take it seriously; you are not meant to.
Honorable Mentions
Kryptic (2024)
We could not stop at ten, so a few more. Kourtney Roy’s Kryptic is a strange, erotic creature study about a woman who loses herself in the B.C. woods after an encounter with something she cannot explain, and we liked it far more than we expected.
Les Affamés (Ravenous) (2017)
Robin Aubert’s Les Affamés (Ravenous) is a French Canadian zombie film that reinvents the subgenre through what the infected build and how the survivors cope; it won Best Canadian Feature at TIFF for a reason.
Possessor (2020)
Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor, sitting at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, is a brutal sci-fi horror about assassins who take control of other people’s bodies, and things go exactly as wrong as you would expect.
Screamers (1995)
And Screamers, the 1995 Christian Duguay film based on a Philip K. Dick story, scarred Arthur as a kid and still gets under the skin; it is fully sci-fi and genuinely strange.
The further we dig, the more this country keeps surprising us, and it keeps producing more of this stuff every single year. Keep it coming, Canada.