Spoilers will not go towards the light.

Every year when the Fantasia International Film Festival begins, I review all my personal “rules” about choosing films. Then I throw them out the window and just pick at random. There are trends though, like the opening film rarely fitting in with the rest of the lineup. My personal trend has become that my starting film is rarely the actual opening film. In a personal tradition of mine, I will skip the opening film and just go rogue.

The A-Frame (2024) is written and directed by Calvin Reeder. Donna (Dana Namerode) has just been hit with terrible news. She has been diagnosed with bone cancer which has started to affect her hand. As a pianist, she’s terribly affected by the news and joining a support group lead by Linda (Laketa Caston) feels overwhelming. She’ll try anything, including new age crystals and reiki. But in her desperation, she also considers a strange offer by charismatic fringe scientist Sam (Johnny Whitworth) that involves a quantum displacer.

An original idea can spawn many iterations, and although the film does have certain parallels to a few films, I like to think that it’s all in the execution. I did like how Donna’s character is introduced with her mostly quiet while we encounter her doctor, other patients, the support group and her musician friends. I also liked the fact that despite the science fiction theme, the movie grounds itself in reality with a very honest and brutal portrayal of cancer patients. You’re also going to catch moments of either incidental, accidental or very dark humour in the whole thing. The horror is not one that would particular chill you but one more of repulsion, although I’d say there are definitely far more scary and icky features out there.

Highly recommended for seekers of independent sci-fi horror where the focus is more on real people and not visual spectacle. However, there is some gore of the body horror kind that might catch the squeamish although very briefly. All and all, I’d say it’s worth a watch for independent aficionados that do not need over the top cgi and are able to get into the story by character development alone.

That will do for now.