Canadian-made Supernatural Horror It Feeds recently took home some pretty heavy prizes at Panic Fest 2025, including Best Actress and Best Creature. Written and directed by Chad Archibald (Bite, I’ll Take Your Dead) It Feeds is an ambitious indie project punching above its weight class with a killer monster and great script that brings a mother and daughter face to face with more than one kind of evil. Simply put: It Feeds is a really strong handmade movie (fewer and fewer every year) with great characters (hard to find even in the major studios these days) and a clear love for the genre (the #1 pre-requisite for a rock-solid horror movie).
Not unlike the demon monster of Insidious or Lights Out‘s Diana, the big bad of It Feeds is classic supernatural evil. It feeds on the pain and suffering of the people it attaches itself too, it jumps out from the shadows when you least expect, and it’s damn near unstoppable. When Cynthia’s (Ashley Greene) daughter Jordan (Ellie O’Brien) breaks her mother’s rules about getting too close to their patients, Jordan finds herself in the grips of a demonic spirit that threatens to consume her like literal hellfire. With her back against the wall and no one else to turn to, Cynthia is forced to roll up her sleeves and go toe-to-toe with the most powerful presence she has ever encountered.
“…an ambitious indie project punching above its weight class with a killer monster and great script.”
A Horror movie like It Feeds is catnip for me, If I’m being perfectly honest. My ears perk up when you mention Canadian Indie Filmmaker. I’m adding it to my Letterboxd watchlist as soon as I overhear it’s got hints of Wes Craven in multiple nightmare(ish) sequences. And I’m emptying my dang wallet when I discover that a therapist also has the ability to walk through the darkest corners of a person’s mind a la Tarem Singh’s The Cell. Needless to say, It Feeds checks a lot of boxes for me, and I haven’t even gotten to the creepy long-fingernailed shadow entity yet! Or the parade of instantly recognizable Canadian actors littering this cast, including Student Bodies star Mark Taylor, and NOFS favourite Julian Richings (Anything For Jackson, The Witch, Urban Legend, and on and on and on).
I bring that all up because I’m already coming into this movie with rose coloured glasses. It’s practically a conflict of interest, but who among us doesn’t want to support some Canadian creatives right now? And if you can also get a few good scares while you’re at, that’s a win-win fur sure, bud. That said, It Feeds also has Ashley Greene from the Twilight saga (who took home Panic Fest’s Best Actress Award) and X-Men‘s Shawn Ashmore front and centre, but the creature (another award winner at this year’s fest) is what we’re all coming out for.
“It Feeds features a stacked cast of recognizable faces and a boat load of clever genre-bending ideas”
It Feeds features a stacked cast of recognizable faces and a boat load of clever genre-bending ideas. Although cut from the same cloth as so many recognizable influences, the film spins those inspiration into new ideas and always strives to find the originality in its own spooky premise. It Feeds is a spooky gumbo stew that’s thrown in hints and sprinkles of so many Horror faves. The end result is something of its own creation but serves up a satisfying mix of heavy hitting horror tropes and few rad scares that me grinning from ear to ear.
Chad Archibald’s It Feeds, from Black Fawn Films, celebrated its World Premiere at Panic Fest 2025, and hits theatres April 18. Click HERE to follow our continued coverage of the festival, and let us know all about your favourite Canadian Horror movie in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord!
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