Starting a new life in a new city is difficult.  Moving takes time, money, and effort. You leave your support circle behind, and start fresh in a new place with few—if any—friends.  It is a challenge, to say the least. Then consider that younger people also have to go to a new school in a new culture. 

While immigrant experiences have been cast in past horror stories, this added wrinkle gives Ava Maria Safai’s Foreigner an extra edge, and for good reason: kids are cruel, and the popular girls might be the worst of them. 

Yasamin (Rose Dehgan) has arrived with her family in Vancouver circa 2004.  Things are difficult. Her father and grandmother (Ashkan Nejati and Maryam Sadeghi) are well-meaning, but as with any story centring a teen, they don’t really understand what Yasamin is going through, especially in the wake of her mother’s death.  

The first day at school, Yasamin befriends Rachel (Chloë MacLeod) and her two followers, Emily and Kristen (Victoria Wardell and Talisa Mae Stewart).  Rachel is the queen bee of the school, prim, proper, confident, and mean. Emily and Kristen are her loyal drones, who are so similar in appearance and characterization that one would be forgiven for believing them twins.

The film then becomes a push-pull of cultures: Yasamin’s family pulls to make sure she doesn’t remember who she is, while the plastic girls at school push for her to assimilate. Yasamin herself descends slowly but surely into the kind of madness that only loss of identity can conjure. 

There are good performances all around, but the film relies on both Dehgan and MacLeod in their respective roles. The former does a great job of portraying how maddening it is to be caught between two major influences, which MacLeod is truly excellent as the manipulative, debatably sociopathic, and insidiously racist Rachel.  The real star here, though, is Safai, who directs the film with the confidence of a seasoned veteran. The film wears its influences on its sleeve, and cribs great moments, shots and aesthetics from iconic sources like Stanley Kubrick, The Exorcist, Stranger Things, and Mean Girls.  

Unfortunately, the film does falter a little towards the end.  There is a supernatural element introduced that serves as a metaphor for what Yasamin is going through, but its appearance comes too late.  Furthermore, the resolution of this may not satisfy when the actual racism Yasamin is being subjected to, the pressure to assimilate with these superficial girls, and the question of whether she has inherited her mother’s mental health issues are all horrific enough.

Still, despite this muddying the waters of the third act, Foreigner remains an impressive debut feature for Safai. It’s a cool, slick, and confident bubblegum horror feature with a firm point of view. It’s a close examination of the immigrant experience, the insidiousness of racism and privilege, and is sure to leave a lasting impact on audiences. 

Foreigner had its world premiere at the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival.