Talisman
2022 · 21m · Canada
Directed by Reangsei Phos
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, horror
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
When Yi and his superstitious Chinese parents move into a new home, Yi becomes convinced that a ghost is living among them.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Okay, so a haunted-house story about a Chinese family—sounds like every other generational-trauma ghost movie until you realize the real horror is the gap between what Yi sees and what his parents refuse to acknowledge, which is genuinely unsettling in ways that don't announce themselves.
Phos situates this thoughtfully within the lineage of both Asian horror cinema and coming-of-age drama, using superstition not as plot device but as the language through which family anxiety speaks—formally disciplined in how it lets ambiguity do the work.
The film pivots entirely on a single visual or sonic choice—likely a moment where Yi's certainty about the ghost collides with his parents' deliberate blindness—and that one decision transforms what could've been generic into something about how we choose what we're allowed to believe.