Cannes 2026 (Midnight): Species (dir. Marion Le Corroller) | Review
An eccentric, adrenaline-pumped genetic drift takes shape in Cannes Midnight Screening selection Species, a red-tinted horror film that unsettles with its fiercely “out of the box” vision.
The pandemic gave us a million truths. Among them was the realization that life never stops surprising us. A medicinal breakthrough here, a hidden pathogen there, or a mutation no one invited — discovery is always just around the corner. Speaking of mutations, director Marion Le Corroller brings to the 79th Cannes Film Festival a type of transformation that feels unlike anything previously imagined.
Margot (Mara Taquin) is a resident doctor assigned to patients under Professor Virgile’s (Karin Viard) supervision. The hospital already feels relentlessly rushed, but strange cases continue piling up around her. Then Margot begins developing mysterious symptoms of her own: drops of blood, sleepless nights, unsettling skin abnormalities. Trapped between a demanding boss, the emergence of love, and her rapidly deteriorating body, she starts uncovering truths that reshape both her understanding of the illness and the path leading her toward its disturbing essence.
I have to say, blood-and-gore horror has increasingly become an “it” factor in contemporary cinema — almost a movement in itself. Here, the film treats blood as a cinematic medium, channeling it through graphic gore effects, Anne-Sophie Delseries’ production design, and sequences of visceral body horror. This becomes Le Corroller’s mode of expression, redefining “spreading” as a narrative mechanism for impossible outcomes — perhaps even envisioning a post-human future. There is a clear fascination with biological evolution and intervention, guided by the director’s tightly controlled approach. The film feels like an extended howl insisting that the relentless changes humanity faces every day are actively, and often drastically, reshaping human beings from the inside out. In that sense, Sanguine offers a deeply unsettling yet thought-provoking glimpse into what the future of humanity could resemble.
Midnight Screening selection Sanguine (Species) is an adrenaline-driven body horror experience that places genetics inside a maze of bloody possibilities — an unsettling spectacle powered by a genuinely uncanny concept. At times, it feels like The Substance filtered through a Ducournau-esque universe: direct, aggressive, and constantly in motion, never waiting for the audience to catch its breath. Ultimately, it becomes a mutation of its own — one that surprises through sheer audacity, reminding us that with every new discovery, almost any transformation becomes possible.
Our team is on site for the 79th Cannes Film Festival, from May 12 to 23, 2026.
