Max Renn (Woods) is the president of a trashy TV channel desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he and his girlfriend (Harry) unearth a mysterious show called “Videodrome” and try to find its origins, they end up embarking on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of conspiracies, sadomasochism and bodily transformation.

Videodrome is one of David Cronenberg’s most original and provocative works, and is widely acclaimed as one of the most influential and mind-bending sci-fi/horror films of the 1980s. “Long live the new flesh” goes this movie’s most famous quote — and long live crazy Canadian body horror!

If Black Christmas doesn’t make your skin crawl, it’s on too tight!

 

At the start of winter break, a group of sorority sisters begin to receive threatening anonymous phone calls. The calls are initially creepy, but soon turn murderous as girls start disappearing from the sorority house and the sisters begin to suspect a killer is in their midst. But no one realizes just how close the mad murderer may be!

 

Inspired by the terrible true crimes of the Westmount murders in Montreal, Black Christmas is surely not your traditional holiday fare, but when the film is this historically significant — Bob Clark’s film is often cited as one of the first slasher films in horror — naughty or nice, it’s time to check it off your list!

A romantic camping trip set to take place in the hunting grounds of a ferociously hungry bear … what could possibly go wrong? Starring Missy Peregrym and Jeff Roop.

Mathieu (Samian) may be a brilliant and successful neurosurgeon, but his life is far from perfect. When his long-term prescription drug habit is exposed, and his wife discovers he’s been having an affair, Mathieu faces professional and personal consequences. His father’s sudden death prompts Mathieu’s return to the northern Anishinaabe community of his youth and the remote forest cabin where he goes to scatter his father’s ashes. But what begins as a respite from his chaotic life to a place he thought he’d left far behind becomes a battle with something far darker. Haunted by painful memories and hunted by the legendary Wendigo, Mathieu faces demons both figurative and literal.       

A rare French-language Indigenous genre film, L’inhumain is the directorial debut of Anishinaabe producer and writer Jason Brennan. It’s a thrilling and evocative parable about the dangers of feeding the monster inside.   

Written and directed by David Cronenberg and based on J. G. Ballard’s 1973 novel of the same name, Crash tells the uncomfortable (and controversial) story of a group of people who are turned on by car crashes, a unique form of paraphilia.

After hitting Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter)’s vehicle in a critical car accident, film producer James Ballard (Spader), a man in an open marriage, and Remington, whose husband died in the crash, begin an unlikely affair that seems to take place exclusively in and around automobiles. While he is recovering, Ballard meets Vaughan (Koteas), a man who leads a bizarre subculture of people who fetishize car crashes, car safety tests, and traffic accidents in general. As Vaughan’s unusual cult meetings intersect with their lives, Ballard finds deeper meaning not just in his marriage, but in mankind’s increasingly intertwined and disturbing relationship to technology.

Fear, paranoia, suspicion, desperation: In Vincenzo Natali’s cult classic, seven complete strangers find themselves trapped together in a booby-trapped puzzle of interconnected boxes.

Imprisoned in a seemingly endless maze of rooms, each with its own set of deadly traps and hidden dangers to overcome, the seven reluctant collaborators must try to work together to find a way out, without succumbing to the terrors of the cube. Will they crack the code and find an exit, or are they just burrowing deeper into a sinister game that they don’t understand and can never escape?

An absolute classic of Canadian sci-fi horror, Cube is a cool, complex film with a major cult following and a slew of sequels. The conceptually brilliant thriller marked Natali as a visionary new talent and has inspired a whole genre of “trapped in a puzzle” horror films including the wildly popular Saw franchise.

Two bodies. Two minds. One soul. In one of David Cronenberg’s best and most disturbing films, the lives of identical twin gynecologists (each played by Jeremy Irons) are disrupted when a beautiful woman (Bujold) enters their lives, throwing their relationship out of balance.

 

Kinky, bloody, and allaround gruesome, Dead Ringers is a complex relationship story, an intense psychological drama and a masterpiece of body-horror that puts a deadly spin on hopeless love and loss.

 

“A stylistic tour de force.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Welcome to Willard, an idyllic town in a 1950s parallel universe where the sun shines every day, everybody knows their neighbour and zombies carry the mail.

Visually captivating, sly and clever, Fido follows the Robinson family, who have been hesitant to get a zombie of their own even though everyone on the block has one. All that changes when Mom (Moss) buys Fido (Connolly), and the loveable brute becomes young Timmy’s best friend. Fido is a funny, satirical and refreshing movie with an all-star cast and a standout performance by Billy Connolly as Fido.

“Currie’s zombie comedy is in a class by itself.”
— Lori Fireman, NOW Magazine

In this Canadian horror classic, a young woman’s adolescent transformation gets hairier than expected.

Teenaged sisters Ginger (Isabelle) and Brigitte (Perkins) live in Bailey Downs, a small town that has been hit by a mysterious run of dog attacks. On the night of Ginger’s first period she is attacked by a monstrous creature, setting her on the path to a much more dramatic transformation than mere puberty held in store!

With biting satire on the coming-of-age story, Ginger Snaps is a cult classic, howling with laughs, screams and frightfully fun dialogue. Nominated for three Genie Awards, the film went on to spawn two sequels.

Grant Mazzy (McHattie) is a big-city shock radio DJ who has lost his job and moves to the small Ontario town of Pontypool, where he frustrates his new station manager, Sydney (Houle).

Nothing ever happens in Pontypool, so when Mazzy arrives at the station to start his show one wintry morning, he and his team are surprised by strange reports from town.

The station’s tiny crew find themselves holed up in their church basement studio, trying to piece together what’s happening outside as disturbing details pour in. Callers are making very little sense, and it seems like the English language itself is infected with a strange virus.

“McDonald knows it’s the things you don’t see, but only imagine, that best chill the blood.”
— Peter Howell, Toronto Star

“If you’re not back by midnight, you won’t be coming home!” So says the terrifying poster for Prom Night, Paul Lynch’s Canadian horror classic. The premise is deadly simple: An unknown killer seeks revenge on four teens for the accidental death of a classmate six years earlier — and with a knife this sharp, prom night just may be their last night.

This memorable slasher film was remade in 2008, but we’ll stick to the original, thanks! This gruesome and wildly fun cult hit was a drive-in-theatre hit all over the country, and garnered Jamie Lee Curtis a Genie nomination for her performance.

Most people prefer coffee with their pastry, but then, most people aren't Canadian vampires trapped in an all-night donut shop! Boya (Gordon Currie), a sexy Gothic vampire, rises after 25 years of hibernation in ‘90s Toronto. Overwhelmed by his new surroundings, Boya takes refuge in an all-night diner where he forms a close relationship with a charming waitress (Helene Clarkson) and an offbeat cabbie (Justin Louis) who’s in too deep with the local gangsters, lead by none other than Filmmaking Icon David Cronenberg. Blood & Donuts is the hilariously morbid debut feature film from accomplished Canadian director Holly Dale (Dexter, The Americans, Durham County).

While exploring a haunted mansion, Michael Baskin (Mackay) is struck by “The Fright”, a mysterious curse that causes its victim to lose all their hair. After failed attempts to disguise his sudden hair loss, Michael receives a hair growth cure from the ghosts – one that involves a lot of peanut butter. From there, everything just gets worse… and so much stranger.

Hands down the most surreal children’s movie in Canadian history, this cult classic from the Tales For All series has to be seen to be believed.

Set in the near-future, eXistenZ depicts a society in which game designers are worshipped as superstars and players can organically enter inside the games. At the center of the story is Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) whose latest games system, eXistenZ, taps so deeply into its users' fears and desires that it blurs the boundaries between reality and escapism. When fanatics attempt to assassinate her, Allegra is forced to flee. Her sole ally is Ted Pikul (Jude Law), a novice security guard who is sworn to protect her. Persuading Ted into playing the game, Allegra draws them both into a phantasmagoric world where existence ends and eXistenZ begins.

It's not unusual for alcoholic cop Lou Garou to black out and wake up in unfamiliar surroundings, but lately things have taken a strange turn. Crime scenes seem oddly familiar. Lou's senses are heightened, and when the full moon is out, he's ... a rage-fueled werewolf. Wolfcop is a hilarious, blood-soaked horror-comedy about one cop's quest to become a better man. One transformation at a time.

When an archeologist finds an ancient mask, the excitement of the discovery soon becomes terror as he finds himself tormented by disturbing and surreal visions that slowly drive him mad. As these visions become increasingly violent, he must find a way to escape them before his nightmare becomes a reality. This horror classic was unleashed on audiences with an early use of 3-D, adding to its completely bizarre nature.

“The management is not responsible for nervous breakdowns,” one poster cautioned during the film’s original release! And while the film may not be that terrifying, the 3-D sequences were truly inventive and unique, and remain surprisingly freaky and effective even now.

Unsettling and surreal, this was the first Canadian horror film released in theatres and is still a favourite amongst horror aficionados.