‘Ivan’ Brings AI Possession Horror to Manchester for International Premiere

Smart-home technology becomes a weapon against the family it was supposed to help in Ivan, the Canadian sci-fi horror from writer-director Damien Fannon that will receive its international premiere at Grimmfest next weekend.

The new feature screens at Odeon Great Northern in Manchester on Saturday 10 October, introducing audiences to a story that begins with a seemingly generous gift and steadily turns the home into a place of surveillance, manipulation and control.

Ivan is centred around 16-year-old Abigail, who is struggling with the separation of her parents and the absence of her father, Jim. When he unexpectedly reappears after dance class and gives her a box containing an advanced home AI device, Abigail sees an opportunity to reconnect with him despite her mother Kim’s warnings.

The device, named Ivan, is presented as cutting-edge technology and the first of its kind. Abigail does not initially realise that Jim has a much more disturbing reason for bringing it into the house.

That night, he undergoes an experimental procedure that transfers his consciousness into Ivan, leaving his physical body behind but allowing him to remain embedded within the family home. What begins as an unsettling technological presence soon becomes a means for Jim to interfere directly with Abigail and Kim, exposing private information and gradually tightening his control over both of them.

Fannon co-wrote the film with Michael Schwartz, expanding and substantially reworking an earlier short film of the same name. Grimmfest audiences may already recognise the director from his previous shorts Cry Baby and The Keeper, both of which explored domestic spaces becoming increasingly uncomfortable and threatening. This feature pushes those concerns yet further, combining contemporary fears around AI, surveillance and smart-home devices with stranger science-fiction ideas involving consciousness transfer and ethically dubious experimentation.

Grimmfest has compared the film’s mix of domestic unease and biological horror to the early work of David Cronenberg, while highlighting Fannon’s use of shadow, ambient sound and familiar household spaces to make Abigail’s surroundings feel progressively less secure.

The cast includes Stephen Bogaert, Tanya Clarke, Julia Tomasone, Anna Mirodin and Jordan Kronis. For Fannon, Ivan marks his feature directing debut after several years working in short-form horror.

Ivan receives its international premiere at Grimmfest 2026 at Odeon Great Northern, Manchester, on Saturday 10 October at 2.35pm. For more information and tickets, visit: grimmfest.com/

Ivan trailer