Having its world premiere in the Septentrion Shadows section of Fantasia International Film Festival 2026, Home Bodies, written by Adrian Murray (Retrograde) and Marcus Sullivan (Withdrawn) and directed by Casey Walker (A Little Bit Zombie), ensures audiences want to do anything *but* sit at home.
L-R: Emma Ho as Red and Ian Ho as Blue in HOME BODIES. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.
Blue and Red (Ian Ho and Emma Ho, respectively) are raised within a house, never getting to see outside of its walls. Their “father,” for lack of a better term, is behind a door as an ominous voice. Food magically appears (literally) in their fridge and cupboards and they are provided gifts and tapes to pass the time. They get punished if they don’t behave. Life moves on. As the audience, we aren’t given a reason for their not being allowed outside, a tale of how they were born or where they came from. But neither the audience nor the movie are as concerned with that as they are about what starts to happen once Pal (Ess Hödlmoser) arrives and things slowly start to come undone.
Ian Ho as Blue in HOME BODIES. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.
While neither Ian or Emma, despite their young ages, are new to acting, having a near 70 credits amongst the two of them, being able to carry a movie is a daunting task for any young actor, especially when there is almost no other supporting cast. Twins in real life, Ian and Emma are truly excellent in their roles, their chemistry as brother and sister believable, grounded, and exceptional. Their undying love for one another and their unrelenting annoyance with one another is palatable. Hödlmoser’s Pal, who is not only thrown into the middle of this but clearly is out of place, demonstrates that perfectly with their performance. While feeling robotic and almost manufactured, there is never a moment with Pal that doesn’t feel intended and fleshed out — Pal is there to disrupt everything and Hödlmoser does that effortlessly.
Emma Ho as Red in HOME BODIES. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.
The majority of the film keeps the audience within the same confines as Ian and Emma, a choice that does pay off later. The script penned by Murray and Sullivan delivers on some form of answers it teases but also leaves them largely unexplored, sending an unsatiated audience back to the films that inspired Home Bodies which not only deliver, they do it tenfold.
Screened during Fantasia International Film Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official Fantasia International Film Festival Home Bodies webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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