Lucid

In Lucid, first-time directors Milligan and Fendall use a grunge-punk aesthetic and plenty of ‘90s music video flair to illustrate the pressure faced by a young art school student battling creative block. The film expands on their earlier short (itself inspired by the screenwriter’s real experiences in a 1990s art school), which premiered at Fantasia back in 2020 to 2021, where Fendall served as cinematographer. Now, after being developed through the Shorts-to-Features Lab, it returns to the festival in 2025 as a full-length feature, screening as part of the Septentrion Shadows section, Fantasia’s showcase for unconventional work by Canadian filmmakers.

And unconventional it is. It follows Mia, a frustrated art student who’s on the verge of being kicked out unless she delivers a final project that finally shows who she is. Desperate and out of ideas, she turns to a mysterious, candy-colored elixir called Lucid that promises to unlock her potential and clear whatever’s holding her back. The drug sends her spiraling into a full-on trip through repressed memories, surreal visions, and grotesque manifestations of her inner world. Her past, her fears, and her mother’s voice all bleed into a dream-logic space packed with practical monsters, stop-motion effects, musical numbers, and chaotic visuals.

Within these sequences, the film blends Lynchian surrealism with riot grrrl zine culture, messy sets, distorted voices, analog textures, and raw, unpolished rebellion. There’s a bit of Cronenberg body horror thrown in, plus elements of drag performance art (drag artist Vivian Vanderpuss helped design some of the creatures). The trip scenes jump from childhood flashbacks to awkward talent shows to extremely abstract, colorful imagery. There’s even a Fried Chicken Monster. These sequences, taking over half the film, can feel like being dropped into a long basement punk or hardcore show from the ‘90s. If that’s not your wavelength, it will get exhausting.

That full-throttle approach to style can sometimes drown out the character arc, which is too bad, because it’s where the film really shines. Mia, played by Caitlin Acken Taylor (a revelation), who also starred in the short, fully commits and stays captivating throughout. She gives weight to the chaos, and we believe she’s really going through it: the rage, the confusion, the collapse. The more grounded scenes, like her banter with a co-worker, the rage-inducing moments with her professor (who’s a perfect caricature of not just art teachers, but every self-indulgent college professor who thinks they’re king of the world), and a touching moment with her grandmother, are captivating. The way she gets her hands on the elixir is mysterious enough that it would fit well in a more direct fantasy flick. Finally, the moment the film reveals what’s behind her creative block is extremely effective and truly lands.

Taylor single-handedly bridges the craziness to the accessible, walking perfectly between those two lines. The directors, however, go all-in on their vision, and some of the visuals are genuinely impressive, especially given the low budget. There’s stop-motion, layered textures, and a hand-crafted look that feels completely their own. That commitment is admirable, but it gets in the way of the story underneath. Saying that they should have toned it down can seem to go directly against what they were going for. But the truth is that, with a tighter cut and a smoother progression into the craziness, these moments probably would have landed harder. As it is, I didn’t fully slip into the lucid dream with them, but still admired a lot of it.

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