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.