‘Ancestral Beasts’ review: Indigenous Canadian horror effectively draws on the spectre of generational trauma

Dir/scr: Tim Riedel. Canada. 2026. 104mins

The spectre of generational trauma haunts the latest feature from Indigenous Canadian filmmaker Tim Riedel. As a troubled young Metis woman returns to her late mother’s rural home in an attempt to reconnect with herself, this atmospheric if occasionally uneven film explores the insidious, destructive power of buried emotion and the dark legacy of systemic abuse.

Explores the devastating, lasting impact of colonial abuse and ancestral suffering

The knowledge that Riedel’s mother was a survivor of the Sixties Scoop – in which Indigenous children were removed without warning from their homes by the Canadian authorities and placed with white families – gives additional depth to this story, which should capture the attention of further genre festivals and strands following its Fantasia premiere. It could also attract distributors with an interest in authentic Indigenous voices (Mongrel Media will release in Canada) but is more likely to find a wider audience on streaming.

Twenty-something Elys (Morgan Holmstrom) is struggling. Barely holding on to her casual bar job – when we meet her she is pleading her case to her boss after screaming at a customer – she also feels suffocated by her relationship with her overprotective and overbearing sister Nikki (Darla Contois, Little Bird). Needing a break, Elys decides to move to the Red River, Manitoba home previously owned by her mother, whose death by suicide we witnessed in an opening prologue. Hints in that sequence of something supernatural give the home a menacing, ‘cabin in the woods’ feel even before cinematographer Joey Forte’s camera stalks through its dark wood corridors, hunkers under its low ceilings, highlights its vulnerable, isolated setting.

Elys feels the home’s ominous energy, but applies her own logic to the things that go bump in the night - nocturnal animals, the weather, even creepy white neighbour Max (Josh Strait) who seems to want to help but growls warnings about the place. Elys no longer trusts her own instincts, her mental health in tatters despite the help of her kind estranged cousin Shayla (Shannon Baker) with whom she has tentatively reconnected after a family rift drove them apart.

So far, so generically genre - but then Elys discovers a hole under the house, and what she finds there takes the film into more interesting territory. Here, otherworldly practical effects come into their own, the skittering creature that lurks in the gloom both familiar and terrifyingly alien. As Elys comes to understand her connection to this monstrous being, so she begins to access the more shadowy parts of herself – and her history – that she has tried so hard to keep buried.

As a film about an Indigenous family living (and still suffering) on ancient Metis Nation land, Ancestral Beasts effectively explores the devastating, lasting impact of colonial abuse and ancestral suffering. But Riedel’s screenplay goes beyond that to reveal a more universal, explicitly female trauma; the brutal toll of swallowing one’s true feelings in order to prioritise the needs of others, of not being heard even when trying to speak up. A sequence in which smitten local lad Cody (Asivak Koostachin) will just not listen to Elys, even as she is trying to save his life, makes a powerful point.

The cast is strong throughout, even if some of the supporting characters remain somewhat underdrawn thanks to the film’s intense focus on Elys and her journey to self-reckoning. Holstrom’s well-balanced, naturalistic performance drives the film, helping to carry it through its more unfocused, languid sequences and keeping things grounded as it reaches its bloody denouement.