FrightFest 2026 Review: ITHAQUA, A Chilling Western Gothic Nightmare

1821. Canada. The decline of the fur trade has begun and during a particularly harsh winter American mercenary and hunter-for-hire Cole Franklin struggles to find animals to harvest for the residents of Fort Thomas. With Métis hunter and trapper Beauvais by his side they search in vain for wildlife beyond the gates of the fort and they come back empty handed every time. With the fort’s stores running out of provisions its residents are getting desperate and starting to grumble against its operator, Mr. McKellar. 

 

The lack of food is a key sticking point between MeKellar and Franklin, and the American also butts heads with British soldier Lt. Walker who tries to keep the peace in the fort. Franklin finds solace with Beauvais and the other Métis workers in the fort, but his heart is with Ahnung, the Indigenous woman who lives outside the fort with her mother, Nokomis. 

 

When a young Indigenous girl, mute and traumatized, wanders into the fort Franklin, Beauvais and Walker venture out into the wilderness to locate her band’s encampment. Perhaps they have food or stores to trade. What they find is worse, so much worse than they could have ever imagined. A primordial creature force is haunting these lands, a dark force that leaves its victims with an insatiable hunger. 

 

When you live in a famine-stricken outpost … What do they say about desperate times? Hunted by monsters both within and outside the walls of the fort, the trio race back before it is too late. This battle for survival anchors director Casey Walker’s Ithaqua, a “chilling” work of 1800s frontier folk horror. 

 

Luke Hemsworth plays Cole Franklin. He captures the weariness of a former U.S. soldier who used the fur trade to escape his past, only to face the consequences of his choices. Rather than dealing with McKellar head-on, Franklin retreats to his relationship with in Indigenous woman, Ahnung. In this role, Walker’s ineffectual approach to the fort's growing hostility worsens the isolation. Kevin Durand plays an English soldier, Lt. Walker. Durand is one of Canada’s dependable character actors—a chameleon who fits into any setting. This guy is a legend. 

 

Michael Pitt plays McKellar, the contentious company man, and fort operator. He leans into the role, contrasting with Hemsworth’s passive attitude before events get out of hand. Once the plot shifts, Pitt leans into the horror elements. Quebecois actor David La Haye provides levity as Beauvais. As the Métis hunter and trapper, his early jokes and quips drop away once the story turns into survival.

 

The use of English, French, and Ojibwe-Cree captures the reality of an 1800s Canadian fur trade outpost. For the script's Indigenous elements, director Casey Walker worked with co-writer Peter Scott Vicaire, who is Mi'gmaq. Vicaire brought an Indigenous perspective to the monster lore, using genuine mythology to ground the supernatural threat instead of relying on generic horror tropes. From there, the film lets the Indigenous cast carry the mythology. We trust that any horror elements that needed a boost were done so by the movie's other co-writer, Pascal Trottier, who has a tonne of horror street cred (A Christmas Horror Story, The Colony, Hellions, and Darknet). 

 

Pamela Matthews, who is Cree, plays Nokomis. She understands the nature of the threat, acting as a harbinger of the chaos while offering warnings the desperate outpost chooses to ignore. Leenah Robinson—Mohawk on her father's side and Haisla and Heiltsuk Nation on her mother's side—plays Ahnung. Aside from being Franklin's love interest, she acts as a bridge between the Indigenous characters and the colonizers, helping translate her mother’s warnings. Finally, Mara Pasley makes her debut as the young girl who wanders into the fort mute and traumatized, triggering the events of the plot. Because she is a minor, her personal background details and specific Nation are neccessarily kept private.