From Backrooms to Remnant, Vancouver horror is having a moment

With low-budget films like Backrooms and Obsession commanding the attention of audiences and Hollywood, it’s a good time to be a horror movie fan. And it might be an even better time to be an indie horror filmmaker.

This development isn’t lost on Nat Boltt.

The South Africa-raised, Vancouver-based actor stars in Remnant, a locally made film making its Canadian premiere at this year’s Vancouver Horror Show. But she has also written her own feature-length horror movie script.

“It’s definitely something I wanted to explore,” Boltt said. “Why do we love horror so much? What is it about horror that gets us excited, but in a safe space, that we want to share screens with other people? And what’s bringing us back into theatres again? I love all of that.”

Boltt wrote the script, a horror feature called Outhouse, following a successful feature directing debut with Holy Days. The 2026 film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, topped the domestic box office in New Zealand, and won Best Motion Picture and Best Director at the 2026 Leo Awards.

She started working on Remnant after taking Holy Days, which stars Judy Davis, Jacki Weaver and Miriam Marbolyes as nuns on a road trip, on the festival circuit.

“It was nice to just be in front of the camera after being behind the camera and all over the place doing every role, because I wrote, directed and acted in Holy Days. All actors should try to make their own films, and they’ll see how wonderful it is to just act.”

In Remnant, Boltt plays the mother of Anna (Talisa Mae Stewart), a paramedic who returns to her family home and discovers that her parents’ stories about a demonic force haunting the family may have been true. The movie is the feature directorial debut of Vancouver filmmaker Ken Kabatoff.

“I’m very lucky because Ken Kabatoff and I really get it as filmmakers,” Boltt said. “He did exactly the thing that I’m going to try with my next film, which is raise quite a contained budget and then write a very smart but exciting and terrifying script.”

Other movies announced for the festival include Drag, a home-invasion horror-comedy starring Lizzy Caplan, and Ithaqua. The latter is set in a remote Canadian outpost in the 19th century. In all, Vancouver Horror Show will screen 15 feature films and over 60 shorts.

Special events include a screening of the 2007 film Trick ’r Treat with screenwriter/director Michael Dougherty in attendance and panels like The First Five Minutes of Horror, in which filmmakers discuss attention-grabbing opening sequences.

Boltt says that she’s proud to be part of the festival, and excited to be in Vancouver, where horror has taken hold thanks to independent theatres like the Rio and the Park and companies like Oddfellows Entertainment, which produced Longlegs, The Monkey and Dangerous Animals and co-produced the A24 hit Backrooms.