At the Place of Ghosts Review: Two Siblings Wander a Haunted Forest in Atmospheric Queer Indigenous Horror
Blake Alec Miranda and Forrest Goodluck lead Bretten Hannam’s slow-burn supernatural drama
by Alex Kaan 11 May 2026
VVS/Magnify Films
When two estranged L’nu siblings encounter a malevolent spirit, they journey together into an otherworldly, time-bending woodland to confront the ghost and their dark past. A moody, dreamy descent into Indigenous folklore and deep-set familial trauma, Sk+te'kmujue'katik (At the Place of Ghosts) is a stirring horror drama.
Two-Spirit (an Indigenous umbrella term including non-binary and third-gender identities) 20-something Mise’l (Blake Alec Miranda) lives in the city with their partner. When they encounter a ghost from their past, they return to the Canadian small-town community where they grew up, where their brother, Antle (Forrest Goodluck), is now raising his daughter. Once inseparable as children, Antle resents Mise’l for leaving, while Mise’l cannot understand why Antle stayed behind. Despite their fractured relationship, the supernatural sighting convinces them that they must travel to a forest known as Sk+te’kmujue'katik (“The Place of Ghosts”).
VVS/Magnify Films
Meditative, quietly unnerving, and charged with alluring ambience, At the Place of Ghosts turns the setting of the Nova Scotian woods into an eerie, evocative liminal space filled with buried childhood memories and ancestral spirits. As Mise’l and Antle meet everyone from their younger selves to British soldiers and a woman from the future, this is less an in-your-face genre film and more a pensive, unsettlingly non-linear exploration of repressed pain. Writer-director Bretten Hannam—who is Two-Spirit themself—is more interested in building a delicate sense of unease and searching for catharsis as he explores the siblings’ relationship to their past and future, both on a personal level and as Indigenous people.
VVS/Magnify Films
At the Place of Ghosts may be a high-concept supernatural thriller, but Hannam makes it first and foremost a sensitive family drama about two siblings grappling with a violent upbringing and queer trauma. Miranda and Goodluck are both excellent, with their tender relationship driving the film and giving the audience something to hold on to when the narrative takes one of its many commendable big swings.
A seamless blend of a queer Indigenous family drama with an understated indie horror film, At the Place of Ghosts is a rousing, endlessly unique midnight movie.