Fantasia Fest 2025 Review Roundup: Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo, The Serpent’s Skin

We’re in the home stretch of the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival. This year’s festival has continued to impress over the past week and as we head into the final weekend, there are still some great-looking movies to come.

I’ve been busy with reviews of the genre offerings this year’s festival and you can see a couple of my recent reviews in the trippy cat-and-mouse dark comedy Every Heavy Thing here, as well as my personal favorite of the festival thus far in the multiversal revenge thriller Redux Redux here. We may be in the final days but I still have some reviews to go; in the meantime, here are a couple more capsule reviews for films that were screened over the past week.

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo

Image Credit: Fantasia IFF

Chia-Ying Tsai’s horror film Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo mines plenty of atmospheric mood and an emotional core, but it gets a bit too busy for its own good. The Taiwanese film takes its inspiration from an urban legend to tell a story about a troubled couple who go on a hike into the mountains that turns tragic when Yu Hsin (Angela Yuen) dies shortly after the trip. Chia Ming (Jasper Liu) then finds himself back on the mountain as time loops back, and he must watch his love died until he can determine why this is happening – and hopefully appease the angry spirits on the mountain who have turned their attention on him and Yu Hsin.

Haunted Mountain gets off to a strong start, with a creepy opening scene and a strong time loop concept used to decent effect. Tsai’s film is telling a story about grief and loss, but it avoids the often-ruminous roads that American grief horror films can take. Yuen and Liu are both delivering fine work as our couple-in-peril and the emotional core resonates.

However, it’s the back half where things get tripped up. Tsai relies on a number of well-worn horror tropes and this can work in the right situations, but it adds a familiar edge to a story that throws too much into the pot. A mid-film addition of a character with a similar experience to Chia Ming’s complicates matters at a time when the story should be gathering momentum and while it all more or less makes sense in the end, it also degenerates into pretty standard ghostly fare. There are several good moments where and the production elements are strong – the gorgeous cinematography in particular deserves a shout-out – but by the end of the film, much like Chia Ming, it’s become something we’ve experienced before.

Rating: 5.0

The Serpent’s Skin

Image Credit: Fantasia IFF

Alice Maio Mackey widens her DIY cinematic lens with The Serpent’s Skin. Mackey has long been a unique voice in queer and trans horror, and she deepens her storytelling with a tale about two young women who bond over their supernatural powers, only to find that a demonic force is coming for their friends.

Mackey’s script shows her continued evolution as a filmmaker, delving deeper into the characters and relying less on tropes. There’s plenty of inspiration from the likes of Buffy, Scanners, and The Craft but it always feels more like homage than a simple cut-and-paste.

With performances that understand the assignment and energetic editing from fellow DIY star Vera Drew, Serpent’s Skin is another Mackey production that won’t work for people who need their horror polished but resonate well otherwise. We need voices like Mackey’s in the genre, and this represents another step forward for her.

Rating: 7.0

The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal from July 16th through August 3rd.