Ithaqua - Director Casey Walker

As a brutal winter grips the Canadian wilderness and the fur trade begins its collapse, the isolated inhabitants of a remote trading outpost enlist Cole Franklin, an American mercenary haunted by his past, to investigate the silence that has fallen over a nearby Indigenous settlement. What he discovers is a scene of unimaginable terror and an overwhelming sense that something ancient and unnatural still lingers in the wilderness. As fear spreads back to Fort William, an unseen presence begins to take hold. Paranoia, hunger and violence consume the isolated community, driving neighbor against neighbor as reason gives way to madness. A haunting tale of isolation, folklore and psychological dread, Ithaqua, a gripping survival horror from director Casey Walker (The Void, In a Violent Nature), whose remarkable twelve-year journey to bring the film to the screen has become as compelling as the story itself. Starring Luke Hemsworth (Westworld, Land of Bad), Kevin Durand (The Naked Gun, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come), Craig Lauzon (Trickster, Beyblade), Leenah Robinson (Revival, 1923) and Michael Pitt (Day of the Fight, Ghost in the Shell).

About the filmmaker - As a novice director whose only prior credit was the short film The Morning After, Director, Producer and screenwriter Casey Walker initially had difficulty securing funding to make A Little Bit Zombie, and launched his own independent crowdfunding platform, My Million Dollar Movie, in 2006. The site attracted more than 200,000 hits and secured $20,000 in donations on its first day alone, and was ultimately successful in raising almost $2 million by the time the film entered production in 2011. The film subsequently won several awards from Canadian and international film festivals, most notably Best Feature Film at the 2012 Canadian Filmmakers Festival Both before and after making A Little Bit Zombie, he also worked in television directing episodes of Fool Canada, The Hardy Boys and Overlord and the Underwoods. He has also been a producer or executive producer of films such as The Void, Pyewacket, Die in a Gunfight and In a Violent Nature. His second and third feature films were both released in 2026, with Home Bodies premiering at the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival and Ithaqua, slated for FrightFest London.