Tales from the Gimli Hospital1988

Name: Tales from the Gimli Hospital
Genre: Gothic, Comedy Horror, Psychological
Released: 1988-04-15
Rating: 6.7

“It all happened in a Gimli we no longer know.”

Directed by Guy Maddin

6.7

Crypt Score

Blended from 4 sources

IMDb 6.6Rotten Tomatoes 78%Metacritic 71TMDB 5.9

✍ Review

On the charts

#4·Top Horror Movies of 1988

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Year

1988

Runtime

64 min

Box Office

Budget

$25,000

🏆 1 nomination

The premise

While their mother is dying in the modern Gimli, Manitoba hospital, two young children are told an important tale by their Icelandic grandmother about Einar the lonely, his friend Gunnar, and the angelic Snjofrieder in a Gimli of old.

Horror Vault's take

Set against the stark landscape of a Manitoban Icelandic-immigrant community, this avant-garde Canadian oddity unfolds as a grandmother's bedside tale within a tale — a dying woman's children drawn into a strange, folkloric past. Shot in grainy black and white, it conjures a fever-dream world of jealousy, longing, and dark companionship among a small cast of haunted souls. Director Guy Maddin's singular aesthetic blurs the line between fable and nightmare, channeling the mood of silent-era expressionism filtered through deeply personal cultural memory. Strange, mournful, and utterly unlike anything else in the horror canon.

Content: Some Disturbing Imagery, Themes Of Death And Illness