BREEDER
(director/writer: Alex Goyette; cinematographer: Jaryl Lim; editor: Alex Goyette; music: Hannah Parrott; cast: Daniel Doheny (Russell Burr), Dot Marie-Jones (Patti Kolb), Maddie Phillips (Ainsley), Tanaya Beatty (fiancée of Russell); Runtime: 138; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Byron Ashley, K. Asher Levin, Brian Mitchell, Ian Start, Chris Wilkinson; Shudder; 2026-Canada/USA)
“A clever horror pic about scientific exploitation.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The film debut of Alex Goyette results in a clever horror pic about scientific exploitation. It has an excellent script and performances that explore science ethics, as its twisted and unsettling horror pic tells a wild story about a breeder’s unconventional and questionable money making research project that centers around illegal human breeding practices.
The respected Canadian poodle breeder Patti (Dot Marie-Jones) secretly operates from her secluded Canadian ranch an experimental eugenic lab of breeding humans. She lives there with five adolescent adopted girls. The anxiety-ridden, spineless, 20-something Russell (Daniel Doheny), is an MIT drop-out of its doctoral program, who is working as an independent science researcher for four years and is seeking a grant for saving rare bees from extinction. He’s heavily in debt because he hasn’t paid off his big student loan, and receives no income from his work. After hearing about his research through the Internet, Patti reaches out to him with an excellent financial offer that has stipulations which they discus over dinner at her ranch. The catch is he must agree to be the brainy stud with one of her adopted female children before getting the needed aid. Despite not comfortable with the offer and not getting approval from his gf (Tanaya Beatty), the naive Russell stays at the ranch after talking with his agreeable child partner Ainsley (Maddie Phillips) and working out an escape plan with her while they pretend to go through the sex act.
Patti plays a menacing, domineering character, who has strange motives for her project.
The unsettling pic is entertaining but not for all tastes. It has a polarizing but not a satisfactory ending, as it has us rooting for an unlikable character, a flawed character male under sexual duress, to act heroic and run away from the ranch and report the criminal activity.
It played at the Tribeca Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 10/30/2026 GRADE: B+
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