North Delta Filmmaker's Punk Horror Film Hits Canadian Theatres
Deanna Milligan's Lucid, shot on analog formats, explores 90s identity and mother-daughter trauma.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
North Delta director Deanna Milligan's debut feature Lucid is now playing in Canadian theatres from Vancouver to Wolfville, bringing a raw, analog-textured vision of 1990s punk culture and coming-of-age horror to audiences.
Made in collaboration with co-director Ramsey Fendall, Lucid is a surreal blend of horror, genre storytelling, and identity exploration shot across 35mm, 16mm, Super 8, and 90s handycam footage. That mix of formats creates visual texture that grounds the film in its era.
"The movie is really a love letter to the 90s analog world that we call the old world now," Milligan said. "Those film formats really give it a lot of texture. So it's different than watching something digital. It immerses you in a different way."
The story follows Mia, an art student facing expulsion who discovers a magical lucid-dreaming elixir. The potion awakens her creativity but also unleashes dark monsters from her subconscious — including her mother, transformed into a hairy creature Mia must confront.
Milligan reflects on her time at Seaquam Secondary in North Delta, where the drama program became her creative home. "In that theatre, I think I really learned that I wanted to become an actor. Fashion and music were also a huge part of my youth. Before there were cell phones and social media, there were kids hanging out and making music and making weird fanzines and art."
Fendall, a self-described "skater kid" immersed in Victoria's 1980s and 90s alternative scene, brought West Coast punk authenticity to the film — rejecting what he felt were "phony" portrayals of that culture in mainstream cinema. The directors also collaborated with drag performer Vivian Vanderpuss to design and perform the film's striking "hair monster," and with composer Marta Jaciubek-McKeever, who sadly passed away from cancer before the film's completion.
"AI hangs over everything these days," Fendall said. "You can still do stuff with your own hands. You don't have to rely on that stuff. And there's a real power that comes with that of a kind of self-expression."
Lucid is playing now in Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria, Edmonton, Wolfville, and Kamloops. The film is a generational love letter to the era before screens took over — and a call to young people to remember there are still ways to communicate and effect change through art.