Episode Description
Junction Row review time, and this Fantasia 2026 world premiere is the one that split us right down the middle.
Meaghan and Arthur close out their Fantasia International Film Festival minisodes with Ashlea Wessel's feature debut, a Canadian sci-fi horror creature feature starring Katharine Isabelle as Juno, an army veteran in recovery who returns to the housing compound she walked away from. Her friend Ruby is missing. A new drug called The Link is tearing through the place. And something underneath Junction Row is a lot worse than the dealers running it.
Junction Row Review: Ashlea Wessel's Sci-Fi Horror Feature Debut
- Ashlea Wessel moves from festival shorts (Tick, Weirdo, and segments in the anthology Creepy Bits) to her first feature, and the ambition is all over the screen.
- Katharine Isabelle plays Juno, an army veteran in recovery who returns to the Junction Row compound to find her missing friend Ruby.
- Co-written by Wessel with Adam Cesare (the Clown in a Cornfield novels) and Matt Serafini.
- Meaghan came out of it satisfied. Arthur wanted the film to reveal more instead of asking him to reverse-engineer it.
Katharine Isabelle as Juno and the Junction Row Cast
- Making Juno an army vet is a real choice, not set dressing. She has the tactical knowledge, she can fight, and she can plan an infiltration.
- Isabelle kicks a genuinely absurd amount of ass here (Ginger Snaps and American Mary fans, this is your action-star era).
- Kyle Mac plays Miles, Juno's former dealer, and steals every scene he lands in. He is an asshole, and he is very funny about it.
- A lot of familiar Canadian faces round out the compound, which Meaghan is never going to stop enjoying.
Sci-Fi Horror Design: Retro Ads, Future Tech, Budget Limits
- The film mixes 60s and 70s styling in its advertising and posters with technology that feels well ahead of ours. The phones and tablets look like sheets of paper.
- A pharmaceutical company is weaponizing addiction inside the compound with a new drug, and what it does to people is where the horror lands.
- Some of the visual effects get wonky, which is what a lower budget buys you. Meaghan is fine with that here and would not be fine with it from a studio sitting on all the money in the world.
Sci-Fi Horror That Withholds: Meander, Coherence, and Ambiguity
- Arthur's whole issue is explanation. He wants a film to reveal more as it goes, even if the ending stays strange.
- Coherence is his counter-example for slow, conversational sci-fi that still tells you what is happening.
- Meaghan raised the same complaint about Home Bodies a few episodes back and it did not bother her at all here. Junction Row's open ending worked for her.
Bagman Short Film Review: Wildlife Cams and Recursive Dread
- Bagman, from brothers Connor Gaston and Vaughn Gaston, screened with Junction Row and Arthur loved it. [LINK: Bagman]
- Nat monitors a wildlife camera feed tracking deer and bears. One frame there is nothing, the next frame there is a black garbage bag in the brush.
- Her supervisor goes to check it out while she watches through the live feed, and it gets very bad very fast.
- The ending did not land for Meaghan. Arthur calls it a solid jump scare with recursive implications that get worse the longer you sit with them.
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