[Fantasia International Film Festival 2025]: Hold The Fort

Ever wondered what would happen if Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) left the isolated crumbling cabin in the woods and entered a new realm of neighbours, HOAs and suburban living? That’s the rough outline of director/writer William Bagley’s Hold The Fort.

Having celebrated its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, Hold The Fort centers around the hapless (and slightly Ash Williams coded) Lucas (played by Chris Mayers) who has recently moved from city life to a seemingly picture-perfect suburbia with his cynical wife Jenny (played by Haley Leary). On hearing their street is lorded over by a Home Owners Association (HOA), Jenny expresses her doubts which falls on the deaf yet optimistic ears of her golden retriever partner. When attending the HOA meeting, the couple soon discover that they have moved to the edge of a hell mouth, which every year at Equinox, spews forth demons, witches and all sorts of monsters. And turns out, the HOA do a lot more than just build community pools and criticize people’s choice of front garden decor. With the help of a few of the locals, which includes a soldier called McScruffy (Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson), the plucky head of HOA Jerry (Julian Smith), and the drug obsessed Leslie (Tordy Clark), Lucas and Jenny must fight off the forces of evil and protect their new home.

With plenty of nods to the aforementioned video nasty classic The Evil Dead, as well as Peter Jackson’s splatter-fest Braindead (1992), Hold The Fort is a short but punchy horror comedy that proves that sometimes being part of an HOA is actually hell on earth. There are plenty of gory practical effects gags and utterly silly comedic sequences which are bound to be a hit with audiences looking for horror which has early Raimi and Jackson running through its veins. With the pacing slightly losing its focus two-thirds of the way through its 75 minutes run time, it's difficult to not feel as if Hold The Fort would have benefitted from an even shorter run time, focusing solely on the action and bloodshed. 

Fun, kitsch and with a splattering of satisfying gore, made all the more ridiculous (in a positive way) with cartoonish character performances Hold The Fort is a welcome break from the recent proliferation of horror concentrating solely on trauma and grief. 

3 Screams out of 5