Our Most Anticipated Horror Movies at the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival
by Alex Kaan 15 July 2026
Mubi
The Fantasia International Film Festival returns in its 30th edition, with the Montreal-based event promising another wave of superlative genre films after last year delivered hits like undertone and Together.
The stacked line-up includes two new films from J-horror director Takashi Shimizu (Ju-On: The Grudge), a queer meta slasher from Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s first film since 2016’s The Neon Demon.
Plus, gear up for some body horror in the vein of The Substance and The Ugly Stepsister, and catch everyone from Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) to François Arnaud (Heated Rivalry) on the big screen.
Corpus
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Drawing comparisons to The Hunger, this erotic queer horror set in 90s NYC follows a nightlife photographer invited to a party upstate by his unrequited crush. But when they reach their destination — a remote, rural manor — they find three mysterious women whose disturbing agenda draws them into a dark web of seduction and terror.
Her Private Hell
Neon
Nicolas Winding Refn’s (The Neon Demon) first film in a decade follows a melancholic actress (Sophie Thatcher) and a vengeful American GI (Charles Melton), whose storylines are united by a mysterious slasher killer known as the Leatherman, who targets women across their futuristic metropolis.
The Mouths
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Ju-On: The Grudge director Takashi Shimizu returns with an atmospheric J-horror about a cursed tree in a haunted cemetery buried deep in the forest. When a friend group visits the tree for kicks, they find themselves followed by a ghostly female figure.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
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Billed by director Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) as “Portrait of a Lady on Fire set in a Friday the 13th sequel”, this romantic meta queer horror film follows a young director (Hannah Einbinder) rebooting a slasher franchise who becomes obsessed with the original movie’s Final Girl (Gillian Anderson).
Our Effed Up World
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
21-year-old trans horror auteur Alice Maio Mackay (T-Blockers, The Serpent’s Skin) returns with a sci-fi spectacle about a friend group navigating the arrival of a voracious alien entity. Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) produces while Annapurna Sriram (Fucktoys) stars.
Los Vampires
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Dramatising the making of the 1931 Spanish-language version of Dracula — which was shot at night on the same set that the classic Bela Lugosi film used during the day — this historical horror film imagines a rivalry between the two Draculas, Lugosi and Carlos Villarías, as a string of murders plagues both productions.
Colony
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho is returning to the zombie subgenre with this film about a biotech conference sent into chaos by the outbreak of a rapidly mutating virus. Jun Ji-hyun and Koo Kyo-hwan star.
Needle
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Joining the recent wave of feminist body horror led by The Substance and The Ugly Stepsister, this short follows a young seamstress who takes extreme measures to fit into her grandmother’s ridiculously narrow-waisted heirloom dress.
The Glorious Dead
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
After Mother of Flies won last year’s Cheval Noir Award, the festival’s top prize, family filmmaking collective The Adams Family returns with a practical effects-driven monster movie about a small-town sheriff (Toby Poser) and her deputy (Zelda Adams) facing the apocalypse. Co-director John Adams says, “It’s about waking up in America in 2026.”
Village of Eight Gravestones
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Another entry from Ju-On: The Grudge director Takashi Shimizu, this bloody folk horror remake, laced with slasher elements, follows a young man who visits the rural village where his late mother grew up. There, he teams up with famed Japanese pulp detective Kindaichi to solve a series of murders modelled on the masked characters of an ancient traditional dance.
Sour Minnows
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
When Ricky (David Brown) stumbles across an unnerving sight — six men sensually licking the pavement of an empty LA street — his reality begins to shatter as he finds himself facing a mysterious body-snatching entity known as “The Yellow Thing”.
Freaks Part II
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Final Destination: Bloodlines directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, who are currently co-writing Gremlins 3 with Chris Columbus, return with a sequel to their 2018 film, an indie sci-fi hit and gory X-Men riff about mutants on the run from the Abnormal Defense Force.
Unholy Night
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
In this ultra-gory yuletide horror comedy, a family’s Christmas celebrations are disrupted when their dead grandma comes knocking at the door and goes on a murderous rampage.
Suzuki=Bakudan
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Earning comparisons to Se7en, this taut Japanese thriller begins with the seemingly trivial arrest of a drunken middle-aged man (Jiro Sato). But when he correctly predicts the explosions of two bombs, a detective (Yuki Yamada) and his team start to investigate him as a terrorist while scrambling to solve his riddles and prevent the next explosion.
Never After Dark
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
A travelling medium specialises in guiding restless spirits out of the world of the living. But on a visit to a remote country house, she encounters a grotesque force that puts her abilities to the test in this supernatural thriller from House of Ninjas director Dave Boyle.
AnyMart
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
A convenience store’s assistant manager must trade cleaning up aisles for facing off with ghosts in this late capitalism Japanese horror satire.
Nightborn
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
In this Finnish folk horror with echoes of Rosemary’s Baby, Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint) move to a remote house in the Finnish woodlands while planning to start a family. But when their child is born, Saga suspects that something is terribly wrong.
Nameless
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Suzuki=Bakudan star Jiro Sato also takes the lead in this feature adaptation of his own manga. The thriller follows an unarmed man who mysteriously kills his victims with an invisible weapon.
Sleep No More
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Suzuki=Bakudan star Jiro Sato also takes the lead in this feature adaptation of his own manga. The thriller follows an unarmed man who mysteriously kills his victims with an invisible weapon.
Someone’s Daughter
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
A decade after Sam (Pascale Brussières) successfully defended her client, Paul (Heated Rivalry’s François Arnaud), against rape allegations, the victim’s father kidnaps the pair and leaves them stranded in the Canadian woods. As tensions rise, Sam begins to question what really happened all those years ago in this gripping survival thriller.
Hot Spot
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
Set in a near-future society ruled by sentient AI, a private eye investigates a murder case only to discover a rebel group capable of undermining the digital overlord. Noomi Rapace and Andrzej Konopka star in the sci-fi thriller from The Silent Twins director Agnieszka Smoczyńska.