Our TIFF coverage continues with two horror-inflected films centring indigenous characters, and using hauntings as a method of exploring generational and personal trauma. In Taratoa Stappard's Mārama, a Māori woman travels from freshly colonised New Zealand to a creepily gothic English manor in the Yorkshire moors to uncover secrets about her family's past. Meanwhile, Bretten Hannam's At the Place of Ghosts (Sk+te'kmujue'katik) follows two estranged Mi’kmaw brothers' quest into the Canadian woods to avenge spirits that haunt them from their childhood.

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Our second preview of coming attractions from TIFF 2025 focuses on Genki Kawamura's psychological horror Exit 8, in which a commuter finds himself struggling to escape a seemingly endless loop of subway passages. Conrad joined Joe Lipsett, friend of the pod and co-host of the excellent Horror Queers podcast, in Toronto to discuss this liminal, time-loop terror, based on a popular video game.

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Horror Queers co-host and Toronto native Joe Lipsett joins Conrad for the first in a series of reviews of sci-fi, fantasy and horror films featured in this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). First up: Obsession, a darkly comedic relationship horror written, directed and edited by Curry Barker. It stars Michael Johnston as a hapless music store employee who makes a ill-fated wish that his secret crush, Nikki (Inde Navarette), would fall hopelessly in love with him. Be careful what you wish for...

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Joe Lipsett joings us to celebrate the imminent release of Tron: Ares by taking a look back at the original Tron (1982), a sci-fi action adventure arguably remembered best for its groundbreaking visuals and concepts rather than its storytelling and characters. Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan and David Warner, the film takes us inside an alternate reality within the rapidly emerging and little understood digital domain – which seems quaint in retrospect – to tell a tale of a society under threat of subjugation by an all-powerful and unchecked AI – which seems anything but quaint in our current context! But should this one be remastered in neon HDR 4K (hint: it already has been) and worshipped, or should it be de-rezzed and deleted? Find out!

Check out our guest Joe Lipsett on Instagram, Horror Queers and The Queer Gaze.

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Isaac Sutton takes on guest hosting duties with Dan to explore Charlie McDowell's The One I Love (2014) – an offbeat romantic mystery starring Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss, with the director's step-dad, Ted Danson, in a small but pivotal role. Shot largely at a single location over 15 days, it follows a troubled married couple who retreat to a secluded estate for therapy — only to discover a bizarre phenomenon that presents them with eerily perfect duplicates of themselves. As the surreal premise deepens, the boundaries between love, identity, and self-delusion begin to unravel. Should it be hailed as a clever indie gem about self-acceptance, or quietly left to vanish like a partner who didn’t make it out of the Twilight Zone?

Check out Isaac's YouTube channel for more of his movie hot takes and rankings!

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John D. Hancock’s Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) is a moody, low-budget psychological horror shot in Connecticut, emerging at the uneasy dawn of the 1970s when American genre cinema was shifting toward ambiguity and dread rather than monsters and gore. Starring Zohra Lampert as the fragile Jessica, supported by Barton Heyman and Mariclare Costello, the film follows a small group retreating to a rural farmhouse where whispers of the past mingle with Jessica’s precarious mental state. Should this eerie curio languish in obscurity like a ghost no one believes in, or should it be acknowledged as a living, breathing classic of psychological horror?

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Dan returns to explore The Hidden (1987), a sci-fi horror directed with slick B-movie flair by Nightmare on Elm Street 2 veteran Jack Sholder! An alien parasite with a love of fast cars and automatic weapons is jumping from body to body in the neon-lit streets of L.A., pursued by Kyle MacLachlan's eerily blank FBI agent. Flashdance love interest Michael Nouri plays the increasingly confused detective trying to make sense of exploding boomboxes, possessed bank robbers, and his new partner's alarming method of taking alka seltzer. With a synth-heavy score, gory mayhem, and Reagan-era cynicism oozing through every scene, should The Hidden be unhidden to the world? Or was it hidden for a reason? Find out!

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Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins Conrad to take on guest co-hosting duties while Dan goes on vacation – ironically, when we pull an Australian 80s sci-fi movie out of the Patreons' Choice nominations! It's another day, another ridiculous sci-fi bra for Carrie Fisher. The Time Guardian (1987) is an Ozploitation oddity directed by Mad Max (aka The Road Warrior) co-writer Brian Hannant, featuring a giant time-travelling dome, 'hoards' of menacing cyborgs, and a modern-day geologist trying to help a soldier from the future protect humanity's last hope. It's been largely overlooked and often difficult to find since its release. Even witty memoirist Carrie Fisher failed to mention it in her self-deprecating autobiographies. Should it be preserved for the ages in a time dome, or should it be blissfully forgotten? Find out!

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