The ‘Night Shift’ at MIFF

Last week, Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) revealed their genre-focused ‘Night Shift’ program for this year’s festival, that includes supernatural sensation GOOD BOY that’s told entirely from a pooch’s perspective, WYRMWOOD filmmaker Kiah Roache-Turner’s latest BEAST OF WAR and highly-anticipated THE TOXIC AVENGER reimagining with Peter Dinklage in the titular role.

BEAST OF WAR
Dir. Kiah Roache-Turner 2025 | Australia | World Premiere
Leo (Mark Coles Smith), the only Indigenous soldier on an Australian World War II corvette, bonds with 17-year-old Will (Joel Nankervis) after each has been subjected to the bullying of other troops. As the ship heads across the Timor Sea, ready to join the frontlines, it’s suddenly attacked by Japanese warplanes. Amid the floating wreckage, those lucky enough to survive face an even more deadly foe: a great white shark that can smell blood in the water.

DEAD LOVER
Dir. Grace Glowicki 2025 | Canada | Australian Premiere
The gravedigger is good at her job, but has one major problem: she constantly smells of corpses and dirt, and it’s affecting her dating life in a big way. The cure for her loneliness appears to come at last in the form of a new man who doesn’t mind her smell, her teeth or her ghostly complexion. But when he dies attempting to find a cure for his low sperm count, she must dig deeper than ever before to revive him – and their love.

EXIT 8
Dir. Genki Kawamura 2025 | Japan | Australian Premiere
An unnamed protagonist steps off a busy Tokyo train into a nondescript subway passage: white-tiled walls, a handful of advertisements and one lone salaryman striding down the corridor. After walking ahead and taking a few corners, the commuter finds himself back where he started. Then he notices a sign with an ominous set of rules: if you find an anomaly, turn back immediately; if you don’t find an anomaly, keep going. The longer he stays, the weirder things get, and his only hope of ever leaving this purgatory is by playing a deadly game of spot the difference.

GOOD BOY
Dir. Ben Leonberg 2025 | United States | Australian Premiere
Indy the retriever and his human, Todd, leave the bustle of the city behind to move to a dilapidated country cabin that Todd’s grandfather once owned. But from the moment they arrive, Indy can sense something’s off: he sniffs out a malevolent presence lurking in the shadows, and growls at looming dark figures in the woods. At night, his doggy dreams are haunted by visions of an unfamiliar phantom pooch with an urgent warning.

HALLOW ROAD
Dir. Babak Anvari 2025 | Multi-territory | Australian Premiere
Maddie (Rosamund Pike) and Frank (Matthew Rhys) wake up to a chilling call from their daughter, Alice (Megan McDonnell), in the dead of night. After storming out of their house earlier that evening following a family argument, she’s hit a pedestrian on a remote forest road an hour’s drive away. Racing to Alice’s location, the couple clash as they frantically advise their distraught daughter over the phone. Maddie, a paramedic, talks Alice through CPR, while Frank insists they avoid calling the police, fearing the consequences. Just when they think the situation can’t get any worse, another voice appears on the line – Alice is not alone.

IT ENDS
Dir. Alex Ullom 2025 | United States | Victorian Premiere
Recent college graduates Tyler, James, Fisher and Day head out for a bite to eat on one of their last nights together before life inevitably sends them off in different directions. But after missing a turn and circling back only to find a dead end that isn’t marked on Google Maps, the friends realise that they’re stuck on an infinite highway…and that something terrifying is lurking in the dense, dark forest on either side of them. Are they in purgatory? Is it a shared hallucination, or a portal to another dimension?

REDUX REDUX
Dir. Matthew McManus & Kevin McManus 2025 | United States | Victorian Premiere
After Irene’s daughter is kidnapped and murdered, there is no force in the universe that can stop her vengeance. When she finds the man responsible, she kills him – then jumps to a parallel universe, where she finds him and kills him again. But when her dimension-hopping vendetta accidentally saves a different teen, Mia, from the man’s clutches, Irene begins to find a new purpose in her soul-sapping multiversal journey – and, perhaps, a means of rediscovering her humanity.

REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND
Dir. Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani 2025 | Multi-territory | Australian Premiere
Waves crash and the drinks fizz as a lonely old man (prolific Italian genre star Fabio Testi) lounges on the beach terrace of his luxurious hotel, nestled on the sparkling curve of the Côte d’Azur. But when the beautiful young woman he’s been ogling winds up dead by the water, time folds in on itself. A quest to uncover her killer ignites cascading flashes of his younger, sharp-suited, shooting days as a secret agent (now played by Yannick Renier) thwarting Fumetti neri-esque pulp fiction supervillains. Diamonds, leather and lashings abound as he battles the cobra’s kiss of shapeshifting agent Serpentik and teams up with glamorous, disco-ball-outfitted sidekick Moth. Chaos awaits in a casino’s gilded glimmer.

TOUCH ME
Dir. Addison Heimann 2024 | United States | Australian Premiere
When a pungent plumbing emergency leaves their place temporarily uninhabitable, Joey and her housemate Craig find themselves stranded. With limited options, they resort to staying with Joey’s mysterious ex Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci, Spring, MIFF 2015), a hip-hop-dancing alien whose physical touch induces an addictive euphoric state – and, soon enough, the pair fall under his seductive spell, forming an intergalactic pansexual polycule with the charismatic otherworldly creature and his live-in personal assistant. But textbook narcissist Brian has more nefarious plans afoot, and a menacing streak lurking underneath his matching tracksuits. Can Joey and Craig resist his intoxicating tentacled embrace long enough to notice the glaring red flags?

THE TOXIC AVENGER
Dir. Macon Blair 2023 | United States | Australian Premiere
Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) is a meek janitor at an environmentally devastating chemical factory. His wife has died of cancer, leaving him stepdad to Wade (Jacob Tremblay), and Winston has himself been diagnosed with a fatal brain disease – but his evil boss, Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon), won’t even cover his medical treatment on the company’s health insurance. Shortly after meeting whistleblower J.J. Doherty (Taylour Paige), Winston accidentally topples into a vat of toxic waste and emerges profoundly, disgustingly changed. Time for this one-mutant EPA to gruesomely protect his village using superhuman strength and a sludge-dipped, glowing green mop!

WE BURY THE DEAD
Dir. Zak Hilditch 2025 | Australia | Victorian Premiere
A catastrophic US military blunder sees a WMD accidentally deployed off the coast of Tasmania, seemingly wiping out the island’s entire population in an instant. Among the dead appears to be Ava’s (Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) husband, caught in the blast while travelling for work. When Ava hears rumours of possible survivors, she flies from the US to Tasmania to volunteer for the army-led body retrieval unit, on the slim chance she might find her husband still alive.

ZOMBUCHA!
Dir. Claudia Dzienny 2025 | Australia | World Premiere
After one particularly catastrophic day at their respective workplaces, busy professionals Maddie and Leo find themselves both unemployed. Dreaming of a fresh start but needing reliable income to support the family they hope to start together, the couple have a chance encounter with Kai, a smouldering kombucha artisan raking in the cash. Seeing dollar signs, Maddie and Leo swipe Kai’s kombucha culture to kickstart their own enterprise, but when they mix in some mysterious herbs from a neighbour’s garden, the culture gains sentience and proves deadly. With their relationship hanging by a thread, can Maddie and Leo unite to prevent a full-blown zombucha apocalypse?

And although not part of the ‘Night Shift’ program, MIFF will also host the Australian Premiere of documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe’s CHAIN REACTIONS that features Australia’s own Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, along with a screening of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE from a scan of a degraded VHS tape.

You check out the full program and ticketing at miff.com.au

Courtesy of MIFF, we’re giving one lucky member of our Monster Fest community the chance to win a double pass to see THE TOXIC AVENGER on Saturday 16 August at IMAX Melbourne.

For a chance to WIN, all you need do is LIKE our Facebook or Instagram posts and EMAIL competitions@monsterfest.com.au with the next film from the Troma library you would like to see imagined and why, along with your Full Name.

Entry details and conditions:
Closes 11:59pm AEST 3 August 2025
Open only to entrants residing in Australia.
One entry per person.
Winners will be notified via email.
This is a game of creativity and skill.
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