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.

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.

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.

A magical tale of a young man who is stolen away to the spirit world, and the young woman who rescues him.

After perpetrating a hit-and-run, a troubled woman (Marie-Josée Croze) encounters her victim’s son, who helps her come to terms with her life.

When Winnipeg is named the ”saddest city in the world” for the fourth year running, Baroness Port-Huntley (Rossellini) concocts an elaborate scheme to promote her beer by advertising a contest to find the saddest music in the world.

With a $25,000 prize up for grabs, composers from all over the world are soon pouring into Winnipeg to play her their woeful tunes. Things get even more interesting when her own former lover, Broadway producer Chester Kent (McKinney) enters the competition.

Realized in Guy Maddin’s signature black-and-white style that imitates the look of ’20s and ’30s cinema, this delightfully quirky film is a triumph of the imagination. A cross between a silent film and a Hollywood musical, The Saddest Music in the World is truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen before!

In this quirky tale full of magic and wonder, the small town of Saint-Élie-de-Caxton decides to eliminate death once and for all. When the character of Death arrives in their village seemingly determined to take their souls, the extraordinary townsfolk decide to fight against their mortality as best as they can. In this story, death is not an end, but just the beginning of a fantastic legend.

 

Based on the acclaimed novel by Fred Pellerin, L’Arracheuse de temps was a box office success and received 5 Canadian Screen Award nominations, including for Pellerin’s screenplay.

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.

In the near future, the environment has been destroyed and society suffocates under a brutal military occupation. A lone Cree wanderer searches an urban war zone to find the ancient and dangerous Weetigo to help fight against the occupiers.  

Content note: The film is set in a post-conflict war zone, and depicts armed characters.

The first manned mission to Mars is in danger of failing because the crew is at each other’s throats. The solution? Put together a surrogate crew to simulate and predict the astronauts’ interactions. As the mock tensions begin to become all-too-real, the line between life and performance blurs, sending all the fake astronauts on a collision course with each other.

This unique and charming comedy from Stéphane Lafleur balances absurdist humour with a poignant reflection on the human condition.