When sailors or fishermen head out to sea, they do not wish to hear their family say goodbye out of a fear of not coming home.
There is no whistling at sea, for fear of conjuring up a storm. Having a woman on board unnecessarily could anger the sea, causing treacherous conditions as revenge.
Enter Justin Oakey’s Hangashore, an unsettling film that blends genre and narrative and landscape in challenging, often indirect, ways. On one hand, it is a character drama and low-key courtship, set against the stressful nature of working a small-crew fishing boat in 21st century rural Newfoundland. On the other hand, there is a foreboding old-world ghost story lost in fog and dreams and intuition. There is a rugged tug of war between this pragmatic prose on the mundane workaday of the maritime way of life, and the sea as a mysterious and unforgiving abyss, a tomb for angry men, and the lure of siren song.
Enter Justin Oakey’s Hangashore, an unsettling film that blends genre and narrative and landscape in challenging, often indirect, ways. On one hand, it is a character drama and low-key courtship, set against the stressful nature of working a small-crew fishing boat in 21st century rural Newfoundland. On the other hand, there is a foreboding old-world ghost story lost in fog and dreams and intuition. There is a rugged tug of war between this pragmatic prose on the mundane workaday of the maritime way of life, and the sea as a mysterious and unforgiving abyss, a tomb for angry men, and the lure of siren song.
Opening in Iceland, Vera is a woman quietly broken, haunted by her father never returning from the sea when she was a child. She exists at the edge of an asymmetrical frame, uncomfortably within the warm tones of a cozy cottage. In the heavy steam of her sauna, she experiences fever-cold visions of her father dying in a foreign land, as if she were a shaman in a sweat lodge. She has visions of a certain rocky shore off the coast of Newfoundland, which she inks with her fingertips in charcoal.
In Newfoundland, Jack is a fisher whose boat is being tugged in to an unfamiliar village port, smoke billowing out from the bridge. Serious engine failure has cut short his seal-hunting voyage, and now he has to sell the few pelts that he has to pay for the repair, while time and season are slipping away. There is serious financial pressure, and shame. Jack deals with this dire situation by putting his head down and doing the work, trying not to think too much about it, walking up the harbour to the small inn he is staying at, or hitching a ride from one of the locals, who is also looking for work.
While staying at the local inn, Jack meets Vera, who has come across the ocean to seek answers. In exactly the right place at the right time, they have romantic affair. Oakey frames it, at times, as more of a seduction, though. Their relationship is one of separate needs, as Jack seeks solace from his poor lot in life, while Vera needs a boat to get to her rocky shore.
To add to this, Jack’s unreliable crew-hand and long time friend, Donovan, who might have been the cause of the engine failure, is itching to get up to drinking and into trouble, plenty of which is on offer, given the unknown amount of time to get parts and repair.
When Donovan’s drinking leads to violence from which he must run, Jack’s desperate need to get back to work becomes overwhelming, and Vera’s relentless drive to understand her vision becomes consuming, they all end up on the deck of the partially-repaired boat on a fool’s errand, at odds with ice and dangerous shoals outside the vessel, betrayal and tensions rising.
Sealing during the winter and navigating the dangerous ice floes in order to make ends meet, given the closure of many traditional cod and crab fisheries, and the increasing impracticality of making this a viable way of life, give the story a very regional verisimilitude. Shooting on a real boat, either at port or out in the ocean, further adds to this.
Sealing during the winter and navigating the dangerous ice floes in order to make ends meet, given the closure of many traditional cod and crab fisheries, and the increasing impracticality of making this a viable way of life, give the story a very regional verisimilitude. Shooting on a real boat, either at port or out in the ocean, further adds to this.
The way Oakey captures the snow-covered landscapes, along with the unromanticized working village, belies any kind of tourist advert from the Canadian government, which promotes the promise of friendly Newfoundlanders and quaint little coves. He looks at it with bleak, dark waters, and unmoored men, whose work can be a way of running from other responsibilites.
At one point, lost in the vast ocean, the puny boat is completely engulfed in swirling fog, with no bearings and no instruments working, just floating in a lost white calm. The image is arresting. It serves as a kind of transition to a different world. This from a film that has been hiding its ghosts and spirits in plain sight. Like any good folk horror, even one dressed in fisherman’s clothing, it provides a grim, even bleak, reason why these superstitions both exist, and linger.
Hangashore is far from perfect. The two-act structure is somewhat abrupt and disjointed in ways that can be alienating; paradoxically both overstuffed and understuffed simultaneously. The characters have distinct motivation for their actions, but the film foregrounds Jack and Donovan, and their sins, often the expense of Vera, who, although low-key, is the driving force of the story.
This balance is tricky, and feels off, which creates its own kind of unsettling confusion. The director does offer the occasional life-line, one in particular, being a long slow glance directly into the camera.
The film has a distinct mood, however, and an original vision for telling a supernatural story in a very distinct, almost documentary style, one that layers ironies and obfuscation into the mix in subtle ways. Couple that with an excellent eye for setting mood by framing tight lived-in interiors against beautifully vast, hostile, exteriors, with only tiny windows in between. Justin Oakey is a filmmaker to keep an eye on.
The film has a distinct mood, however, and an original vision for telling a supernatural story in a very distinct, almost documentary style, one that layers ironies and obfuscation into the mix in subtle ways. Couple that with an excellent eye for setting mood by framing tight lived-in interiors against beautifully vast, hostile, exteriors, with only tiny windows in between. Justin Oakey is a filmmaker to keep an eye on.
The film screened at the 2026 Calgary Underground Film Festival.