Horror • NR • 87 Minutes • 2025
There are those nights when you’re sound asleep and deep in your REM cycle, when your dreams become less ephemeral and more complex, breaking the barrier between dream-logic and reality. Then, you wake up, and you’re not sure where you are or where you’ve been; the question you pose to yourself is: was any of that real?
In an Icelandic cabin, Vera (Hera Hilmar), an artist, suffers from recurring dreams of her father venturing out and disappearing somewhere in Newfoundland. She leaves everything behind and travels to the Canadian coast, where she meets Jack (James Frecheville), a financially burdened fisherman, stuck with hunting seals — a dirty job no one likes. Together, Vera and Jack strike up a romantic relationship, seemingly overnight, as Vera tells him about retracing her father’s footsteps and chasing the ghost to a place she’s only seen in her dreams.
When writer/director Justin Oakey shows us the cold Atlantic water crashing against the shore in Newfoundland and drives us through the snow-laden town, I felt a cold rush down my spine. When he takes us inside the wood-panelled jellybean houses with the wood stoves burning in the background, I could feel a wave of warmth pass through me. It’s an ability I rarely see; to control temperature and have it add such a strong presence to the atmosphere and setting.
Built around the town and its residents, both cinematographer James Klopko and director Justin Oakey create an image that disorients the surroundings through dense fog, moody lighting, and a wide split-room composition that separates their characters. The negative space’s quiet contribution to the unease and haunting tone helps isolate the loneliness and helplessness many of the characters experience and try to break from.
While there is no amount of set decorating, cinematography, or editing a film can do to make a film feel completely lived in and have that real-life documentary feel, many of the extras occupying the film, with their regional accents and presumably local flair to them, all sell the film by purely just existing in the place around us. Listening to accents, seeing the weathered faces of characters who had been at sea for years, and its small community, that, at a glance, is a beautiful tableau caught in a foggy postcard.
While two leads technically exist in Hangashore, Hera Hilmar and James Frecheville, the film hinges on their relationship for the plot to progress, which is one of the few things the film rushes through instead of taking its time. It’s a little jarring to have their relationship jump from strangers to lovers in the span of a few scenes. Not to say it doesn’t or couldn’t happen, but with a film that takes its time to unravel everything else, their relationship crosses the finish line before the rest of the film has heard the gunshot go off. However, once in the throes of each other, Hilmar and Frecheville have great chemistry with each other. While Hilmar does an excellent job at conveying her ambition and resilience to stop at nothing and to get what she came for, Frecheville keeps his cards held close to his chest and plays the familiar trope of a quiet but disgruntled man trying to get through life. It’s not a knock on his performance or character; in fact, Frecheville’s ability to play the straight man and hold the ship together against unruly and unforeseen circumstances builds a character that audiences can latch onto.
Beyond the two leads, Hangashore’s co-stars, Stephen Oates as Donovan and Bridget Wareham as Kelly, bring two extra pieces together. Oates brings the chaos to the forefront, like a wild animal you can’t control. His unpredictability and unhinged performance are what make him the quiet villain of the film. Wareham, on the other hand, is in complete contrast with a down-to-earth, hardworking character that helps establish more of the day-to-day aspects of fishing. Yet, taking a step back, you can see where both Oates and Wareham converge. Oates’s maelstrom persona acts like a bad omen whenever he is around; chaos can and will ensue when his character is with you. The same goes for Wareham’s bad omen, which comes from old fishermen’s stories of having women on board a ship; always a bad idea according to the weathered anglers back on shore.
Much of the film can be broken down through its act structure (prologue, act one, etc.), but some may feel a light snag on the fishing line at the beginning of act three with its unusual breakdown in time in what almost feels like a film within a film. Where I have criticized pacing issues many times in the past, Hangashore feels deliberate in its entry into the subgenre of Slow Cinema. While only standing at eighty-seven minutes long, much of the film feels like time has stood still, like you’re lost at sea and your only way to tell time is through the stars. It’s not that it’s slow; it’s that it feels quiet in its attempt to tell a folk ghost story at sea. Further venturing into Act Three is where the film will make or break for you. Some will love its forays into a more classic ghost story, while others will walk away with more questions than answers. Whether the ambiguity is honest and intentional or left open-ended is for you to decide. Like a man marooned on an island, I have spent days trying to connect the film’s themes and ending. Hopefully, a ship will come my way with the answers.
Where to Watch
Hangashore was screened via private screener.
Also worth checking: CBC Gem (often carries Canadian titles not listed elsewhere).
about the author
Merrick Gajdics is founder, publisher and editor of The Canadian Film Reviewer.