Jun 20, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 15 segments
Some critics have approached *At the Place of Ghosts* as either a horror movie or a psychological drama and found it wanting on those terms. But what if that's the wrong question? What if the more…
Bretten HannamGuest
Alex HeeneyHost
At the Place of Ghosts is the story of two estranged adult siblings, Antelay played by Forrest Goodluck and his older two-spirit sibling Mizell played by Blake Alec Miranda.
Mizell lives in the city with their husband Barry and hasn't been home to the reserve in a very long time.
When Mizel gets visited by a malevolent spirit in the city that leaves them really shaken, they decide to return home to persuade Antelay to join them on a journey through the forest, which is the titular place of ghosts.
In the forest, they encounter younger versions of themselves, ancestors, descendants, figures from colonial history, and the spirit of their abusive father, all occupying the same space.
Which means the boundaries between the past, present, and future become really porous.
Okay, so the setup sounds like a horror movie, and I have seen the film build that way in a lot of places.
Mizelle gets visited by this spirit, goes home, drags Antelay into the woods, and you're thinking they're going into a haunted forest.
One thing I found fascinating reading some reactions to the film is that people kept evaluating it as either a horror movie or a psychological drama and finding it wanting on those terms.
But what if that's the wrong question? What if the interesting question isn't whether At the Place of Ghosts follows the conventions of horror, but what do those horror elements allow it to do? because the horror elements situate the siblings' personal story within much larger histories.
They connect the abuse the siblings experienced as children to colonial history, to intergenerational trauma, and to the histories embedded in the land itself.
And they allow the film to imagine healing not as something the siblings achieve alone, but through their relationships with each other, their ancestors, and the land.
Since the siblings don't know how to talk to each other about what they're going through, the horror elements also externalize those struggles, making them visible both to us and to each other.
And ultimately the horror elements give Mizal and Entele access to a really satisfying catharsis.
So let me unpack a little about what I mean when I say the horror elements help the film to make something visible that otherwise wouldn't be.
At the Place of Ghosts is the story of two estranged adult siblings, Antelay played by Forrest Goodluck and his older two-spirit sibling Mizell played by Blake Alec Miranda.
Mizell lives in the city with their husband Barry and hasn't been home to the reserve in a very long time.
When Mizel gets visited by a malevolent spirit in the city that leaves them really shaken, they decide to return home to persuade Antelay to join them on a journey through the forest, which is the titular place of ghosts.
In the forest, they encounter younger versions of themselves, ancestors, descendants, figures from colonial history, and the spirit of their abusive father, all occupying the same space.
Which means the boundaries between the past, present, and future become really porous.
Okay, so the setup sounds like a horror movie, and I have seen the film build that way in a lot of places.
Mizelle gets visited by this spirit, goes home, drags Antelay into the woods, and you're thinking they're going into a haunted forest.
One thing I found fascinating reading some reactions to the film is that people kept evaluating it as either a horror movie or a psychological drama and finding it wanting on those terms.
But what if that's the wrong question? What if the interesting question isn't whether At the Place of Ghosts follows the conventions of horror, but what do those horror elements allow it to do? because the horror elements situate the siblings' personal story within much larger histories.
They connect the abuse the siblings experienced as children to colonial history, to intergenerational trauma, and to the histories embedded in the land itself.
And they allow the film to imagine healing not as something the siblings achieve alone, but through their relationships with each other, their ancestors, and the land.
Since the siblings don't know how to talk to each other about what they're going through, the horror elements also externalize those struggles, making them visible both to us and to each other.
And ultimately the horror elements give Mizal and Entele access to a really satisfying catharsis.
So let me unpack a little about what I mean when I say the horror elements help the film to make something visible that otherwise wouldn't be.
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