THE MOTIVE

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A slasher with a grudge meets his match when a group of queer friends on a weekend getaway turns his killing spree into a bloody night he never saw coming.

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Recently divorced, Warren retreats to a quiet lake house with his young son. When a stranger named David appears asking for help, an ordinary evening becomes a tense psychological confrontation, exposing secrets, shifting power, and an unexpected connection between them.

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At summer camp, Syd is secretly transforming into a werewolf and struggling to act normal around new friends. When they discover those friends are werewolf hunters, Syd decides that fitting in may require removing everything that makes them inhuman.

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Nightmarish corporeal body horror with excessive violence.

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When a rookie forest ranger flees into the Quebec wilderness to escape a brutal hazing ritual, he finds himself hunted not only by his peers, but by a towering creature of folklore stalking him through the woods.

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Blending horror and humour, Lethal Ethel is a mockumentary that follows the story of a Naskapi vampire who goes to murderous lengths to protect her land and culture.

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After two decades of creative repression, an artist descends into kaleidoscopic madness, turning her oppressive partner into a grotesque work of art.

DocumentaryIN-CINEMAVIRTUAL

In late-70’s NYC’s “slummy and fabulous” West Village, a serial murderer dismembered victims and “exploitive” Exorcist-director William Friedkin ripped a page from the headlines, inciting the community to action. As anarchy raged, an unexpected jouissance permeated the hot-blooded summer of ‘79. Addison Verrill, a 36-year-old Variety reporter, split time between his live-in lover, splashy premieres with the likes of Streisand, and exploring “eroticized fears” in pitch black container trucks. His shocking murder convinced crusading journalist Arthur Bell to dedicate himself to the case—a mission that inadvertently inspired Cruising. Helmed by a straight director and his straight superstar, Al Pacino, the film attempted to infiltrate the hedonistic, “leather and Levis” world of the notorious Mineshaft bar. Gay extras flocked while gay activists turned the set into a battlezone as two competing visions of representation clashed. The results would be felt for generations. Jeffrey Schwartz, the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker of Vito (I+N24, 2011) and I am Divine (I+N26, 2013), guides this graphic, gripping documentary. In it, Dan Savage joins historians, journalists and leathermen alike to trace Cruising’s makings and cultural mark all the way to the youth culture of today.

FeatureIN-CINEMA

At Grayson Manor, family legacy is a curse, desire is dangerous, and even a pair of hands can have a mind of their own. Glenn McQuaid’s wickedly funny, unapologetically queer Gothic horror turns the conventions of the haunted-house movie into a delirious tale of repression, excess, and bodily autonomy. Boyd Grayson (Chris Colfer), a hedonistic gay heir with an appetite for men and a talent for provoking his formidable mother, Jacqueline (Alice Krige), has little interest in fulfilling her dreams of a traditional family legacy. But when a horrific accident leaves him handless, Jacqueline seizes the opportunity to remake her son—and secure the heir she so desperately wants. Her solution is experimental prosthetic hands controlled by Boyd’s subconscious. Unfortunately, his impulses are anything but innocent, and the new appendages soon unleash a bloody cascade of chaos. Blending camp melodrama, grotesque practical horror, and dark comedy, The Restoration at Grayson Manor skewers heteronormative expectations while embracing queer desire in all its unruly, outrageous glory. A twisted celebration of the monstrous and the misfit, McQuaid’s gleefully excessive film brings image+nation’s new queer horror series to a suitably bloody close.

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A slasher with a grudge meets his match when a group of queer friends on a weekend getaway turns his killing spree into a bloody night he never saw coming.

FeatureIN-CINEMA

Poignant and powerful, Don’t Come Out is a horror film that brings visibility to queer femme identity, and with a visceral intensity that is impossible to ignore. It spares no detail in the consequences of authenticity in a homophobic and misogynistic environment; particularly, how it permeates and haunts the mind. Medical student Liz lives a seemingly charmed life. As long as she is careful, consequence is only a word. After the sudden and brutal death of her secret girlfriend, Liz keeps up appearances, playing the role of dutiful daughter and passing as straight in her relationship with her doting boyfriend. When she makes a weekend getaway with her best friends, the reality dawns on her that escape is not really an option. As she finds herself enmeshed in sapphic desire again, the horror of breaking social norms ensues, and there is no going back from it. Informed by giallo cinema—blending suspense, eroticism, and stylish cinematography—as well as modernist and grotesque art elements, Don’t Come Out is sure to linger with you long after the credits roll.

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When a rookie forest ranger flees into the Quebec wilderness to escape a brutal hazing ritual, he finds himself hunted not only by his peers, but by a towering creature of folklore stalking him through the woods.

FeatureIN-CINEMA

A stunning film set in the Canadian wilderness by award-winning director Gloria Mercer. Thrill-seeking in every sense, and especially bold in its critique of patriarchy out in the wild, A Safe Distance examines the idea of what survival can mean, putting a refreshingly feminist twist on a lovers-on-the-run tale. Yellowjackets fans, get ready, this one’s for you. There is no place for fragility in this film-viewing since gore and guile mark the characters’ journey as they stray far from their comfort zones, sometimes intentionally, and other times, by chance. When a marriage proposal goes awry, an abandoned woman named Alex finds herself in the company of two intriguing strangers whose rejection of societal norms draw her in and away from the mundane reality of her own life. One psychedelically-induced night of mayhem later, Alex has uprooted her entire system of values, and on levels that she never imagined possible. Fluid and kinetic, with the use of long-lens photography and zoom lenses, A Safe Distance is a rare cinematic sight to behold.

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Nightmarish corporeal body horror with excessive violence.

FeatureIN-CINEMA

The leather bars of New York’s underground scene become the setting for a dangerous game of desire, identity, and surveillance. William Friedkin’s Cruising plunges into the city’s pre-AIDS queer nightlife, where a young undercover cop is drawn into a world he was sent to investigate. Al Pacino stars as Steve Burns, a rookie police officer assigned to go undercover in Manhattan’s leather district to track down a killer targeting gay men. Disguised as a member of the scene, Burns moves through bars, clubs, and late-night encounters as the investigation draws him deeper into a world that is both unfamiliar and increasingly difficult to observe from a distance. Released in 1980, Cruising remains one of the most controversial films about queer life in American cinema. Friedkin’s shadowy, atmospheric direction captures the charged anonymity of New York’s leather and S&M subculture, while deliberately blurring the boundaries between performance, policing, desire, and identity. Cruising will screen alongside Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders, a documentary exploring the real-life murders and notorious leather bar at the heart of the film’s story. Together, they offer two perspectives on a pivotal moment in queer New York, just before the AIDS crisis transformed the community.

FeatureIN-CINEMA

A queer psychosexual slasher starring Emmy-winning actors Hannah Einbinder (Hacks) and Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Jane Schoenbrun’s latest film further establishes them as one of queer and trans cinema’s vital auteurs. Einbinder stars as Kris, a passionate writer hired to revive Camp Miasma, their favourite horror franchise, after years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom. Kris travels to an abandoned summer camp to meet Billy (Anderson), the reclusive actress who played the original film’s final girl. As the two women unravel the ways the franchise has shaped them, they descend into a blood-soaked delirium of desire, self-discovery, and obsession. Described by Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair; I Saw the TV Glow) as “an insane yet cozy midnight odyssey,” Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a brilliant, funny, and poignant meta-meditation on the stories that make us, our final girls and their monsters, and the process of becoming. With echoes of Mulholland Drive, standout central performances, and a stellar cast including Jack Haven, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Eva Victor, and Zach Cherry, Schoenbrun delivers a singular vision.

FeatureIN-CINEMA

Join Sheri and her entourage on this short and sweet sci-fi romp that explores found family with effortlessly queer sensibilities. Grieving the loss of her beloved grandmother, Sheri and her astronomer dad are soon mystified by radioactive meteors that crash land in the forest nearby, spawning a hungry intergalactic creature. Campy, fun, and outrageous at times, Alice Maio Mackay’s eighth film delivers movie store nostalgia, quippy conversation, and neon green alien gore. The scale of everyday problems in Our Effed Up World—or a small town in Australia to be more specific—is cut down to size, replacing trivialities, ennui, and existential dread with pure extraterrestrial mayhem. A movie for B movie buffs with an added dash of realism to the world of science fiction, plus vocal cameos from Brandon Flynn of Hellraiser and Jack Haven of I Saw the TV Glow make for quite the adventure, bringing all the more appreciation to simple nights with loved ones under a starry sky among the soothing sound of crickets and the laughter of friends.