Don’t F**k With Ghosts. It’s the #1 rule every ghost hunter knows, and the first rule every ghost hunter breaks. In the painfully delightfully Canadian mockumentary Don’t F**k With Ghosts, filmmakers Stuart Stone and Adam Rodness (playing fictional versions of themselves) set out to find indisputable proof of the existence of the ghosts. Their quest takes them out of their comfort zone, and out of the Toronto film industry. To get this project off the ground, and to embed themselves in an environment that fosters ghostly activity, Stu and Adam are forced to travel to a cold, unforgiving land of pain and suffering…..Winnipeg, Manitoba 😅
Stu and Adam clearly do not believe in ghosts. For the sake of the project, Adam has adopted a more Zach Bagans-esque, one-with-the-spirits attitude while Stu remains staunchly anti-ghost. For their investigation, they visit every well-known haunted location in Winnipeg. Along the way, they meet with psychics, mediums, and ghost experts who are either incredibly gifted and knowledgable or kooky and nutty, depending on your own beliefs. Their search eventually leads them to a small town north of the city (shout out to Selkirk), and an abandoned house that just straight-up looks haunted. Under pressure to get the proof they need to sell their movie, they go head-first into that haunted house to grab that footage, no matter what it takes.
“a goofy good time […] plays like a travelogue for dark tourism in Canada”
Winnipeg actually has a surprising history of paranormal activity. It was a hotbed for psychic activity in the early 20th century and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once declared that “Winnipeg stands very highly among the places we have visited for its great paranormal potential“. Heck, I even went to a ghost story event at a local brewery over the summer because Winnipeg loves a good scary story. Needless to say, there is no shortage of weird happenings and unusual history here in the heart of Canada. And Don’t F**k With Ghosts, besides being a goofy good time, is like a travelogue for dark tourism in “Friendly Manitoba”, visiting all the spookiest spots.
I might be a little biased here, but I love Canadian films. Movies and television in Hollywood North have a long history of reality-blending and incorporating improv. It’s due partly to our filming laws, which shows like Nirvana The Band The Show could never have existed without, but an argument could be made that it’s just a clever use of budgetary restrictions. A way of making your weaknesses an asset, and it often comes with a meta-quality that Don’t F**k With Ghosts really capitalizes on. It breaks the fourth wall, it heightens its own reality with over-the-top characters, and it plays with your expectation of what a ghosthunting documentary is supposed to look like. Honestly, even calling it a “Mockumentary” might not be the right move. It’s a real documentary but with slightly fictionalized characters steering the ship.
“A charming slice of Canadian Halloween fun [with] over-the-top characters and heightened reality.”
As a spooky person who recently moved from Toronto to Manitoba, this one seemed tailored for me and my obsession with Found Footage and Mockumentaries. Stuart Stone’s Don’t F**k With Ghosts is a charming slice of neurotic Halloween fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s loaded with really funny candid moments, and real people just doing their thing. You want to see some magicians explain floating tables or a local Romanian psychic give some silly filmmakers a reading? How about (maybe) a real ghost? Don’t F**k With Ghosts scares up a good time and points fun at the absurdity of paranormal reality programming without ever tipping over into a mean-spirited criticism. After all, they’re just a couple of polite Canadians.
Stuart Stone’s Don’t F**k With Ghosts, a levelFILM release, hits theatres on October 10th. Let us know what you think of this Canadian AF ghost mockumentary, and please share any of your own ghost stories with us in the official Nightmare on Film Street Discord!
