“Ancestral Beasts” Creeps into Fantasia Festival for its World Premiere [Movie Review]

Psychological horror comes knocking at Fantasia Festival’s door in the Canadian horror film “Ancestral Beasts” from writer/director Tim Riedel. His first narrative feature film made its world premiere at the Montreal-born festival and digs into mental health, a threatening entity, and everything else in between.

Elyse (Morgan Holmstrom; “Day of the Dead” TV series as well as the “Sky Med”series) is seeing her world crumbling around her. She has remained in a vulnerable state ever since her mother’s death, four years ago. She’s now in difficulties with her job, has to go on leave, and her witch of a sister, Nikki (TV Series “Little Bird”; “Aberdeen” (2024)), is only adding to all the pressure she feels weighing down on her. To escape her reality, Elyse drives over to her aunt’s vacated house in the woods, away from all the noise. There, she meets an annoyingly nosy neighbor. Even worse, she fears raccoons may be living under her house and have dug a hole up into her floor. The only thing is: what’s hiding in the dark shadows underneath is much, much more serious than a few critters.

Riedel brings forth spotless cinematography in what is his very first non-documentary feature film. Interesting camera angles, appealing aesthetics, and crisp lighting make every shot worth watching. “Ancestral Beasts” crafts a tale swimming in Indigenous culture, including “land acknowledgement” reminders throughout, intermingling pains of the past, challenges of the present, and topping it all off with a violent dose of psychological horror. The jumpscares scattered across the film are, for the most part, sudden and efficient, without resorting to typically annoying, cranked-up, out-of-context audio added to the scene.

Being of Métis descent himself, Riedel has surrounded himself with a mostly Métis crew, including the cast, and even up to the composer. Each cast member executes an upstanding job in their respective roles. Morgan Holmstrom delivers a brilliant performance as the tormented main character, but she is well accompanied throughout its 104 minutes of runtime. Every actor hits the mark for their embodiment of each of their respective character, from the overly curious neighbor to the consistently nagging and berating sister. Even the score, concocted by Justin Delorme, an award-winning Red River Métis screen composer, adds an imposing stamp of his own to the film’s ambiance. Within the very first scene of the film, overflowing with blood, his ominous music reverberates within your soul in a suffocating manner. However, at times, throughout the film, it might even be a tad overbearingly loud, negatively affecting the overall experience of a scene.

The main flaw with “Ancestral Beasts” is the second half of the film. Despite the actors being on point and keeping the audience engaged within the complex relationships among them, the nefarious entity haunting Elyse’s aunt’s house takes an almost comical turn, dropping all suspense and apprehension regarding it. Most interest in regards to the spectre and its next move withers away in the latter portion of the motion feature, stripping off most of the horrific aspect of the tale.

Though it lacks in quenching the most vivid thirsts of horror audiences, Tim Riedel’s debut as a writer/director in the narrative feature film world is worth a watch for its grasp on Indigenous culture and the modern-day challenges its community faces, its themes of dysfunctional families, mental health, as well as how different members of society deal with these situations.

The horrific drama “Ancestral Beasts” receives a score of 3.25 eyes out of 5.

If themes of family dysfunction in horror are your jam, make sure to check out our “Evil Dead Burns” review.