Even though I've never actually been to Canada, I first started watching horror movies in the early 80's "slash-for-cash" era when a lot of horror films were made in Canada, thanks to government tax breaks there, and distributed in the US. Of course, a lot of these films tried to LOOK as American as possible, but being low-budget efforts, they often didn't succeed. Now, of course, Canada is pretty much "Hollywood north", but Hollywood movies filmed in Canada today are completely indistinguishable from Hollywood movies filmed in Los Angeles, so the essential "Canadian-ness" of movies like "Black Christmas", "Funeral Home" or "Curtains" has really been lost. What really made a lot of these low-budget films is the wintry Canadian settings and the ATMOSPHERE. These films aren't slick and bombastic and hyper-edited like bigger-budgeted Hollywood films. They let the tension build up slowly (too slowly perhaps for many people today) instead of bludgeoning you with loud music, countless "jump-scares", and expensive CGI effects. They're spartan, but often strangely effective.As far as things like acting and dialogue, low-budget Canuck indies are definitely inferior and at times even incompetent. The plot of this movie is pretty weak and the ending is really weak. But this movie has a great setting of a wintry, isolated B-and-B where SOMETHING creepy is going on with the sick daughter of the innkeeper, who a young male guest becomes infatuated with after finding her diary. Strangely, the mother of the sick girl seems to be sexually pushing the guest towards her daughter (in a plot reminiscent of another obscure Canadian film called "Cold Comfort"). The resolution of the mystery is very dissatisfying, but this doesn't add up to the entire movie being worthless. It's actually quite effective in places.Mention should also be made of actress Kimberly LaFerriere. Yes, she's probably not a great actress based on this and the only other thing I've seen her in (the TV series "1,000 Ways to die" where she plays a nympho who has a fatal encounter with a cucumber). She has a very good LOOK though, a very interesting combination of creepy and sexy (particularly memorable is her flashback ice-skating scene which graces the film poster). Except for the flashback scenes, she spends most of this movie literally in bed, but she still has more nude scenes than the ridiculously "hot" actresses that headline most Hollywood horror movies. (I also find it annoying that the obscure Canuck actresses of the "slash-for-cash" era have been replaced by Hollywood actresses like Meagan Fox, Alexandra Daddario, and Odette Yustman, who really aren't any more talented, but are just so "hot" they don't have to actually do nude scenes in lowly horror movies).None of this makes this movie any kind of low-budget masterpiece (far from it, really), but it has some refreshing, kind of old-fashioned virtues of a truly Canadian horror indie. I definitely didn't hate it.

I admit it. On a recent Monday I was so deplorably bored that I sat through this entire movie. I wanted to change the channel but could not. I tried to leave but something made me stay until the mystery of Lily was (thank god) finally unraveled.There's no real way of describing why this movie is so bad. There's worse acting out there, worse camera-work. There might even be a worse screenplay. That's stretching it, however. Maybe it has something to do with the unbelievability of the characters and the setting. Maybe too much of it seemed like a blatant attempt to disturb an audience with taboo subjects that have been handled dozens of times in better movies and more realistic scenarios. Or maybe it's because I get upset seeing someone locked inside a room for hours at a time (a room on the second storey with a large window opening outside), and they give up trying to escape after jiggling the handle a couple of times.Please, take my advice and save those two hours of your own life by avoiding Winter Lily.

They should have named this "What's the Matter with Lily?," as a nod to 60s and 70s horror films that ask such rhetorical questions about their female pro/antagonists. Clive, a young photographer, stays at a secluded Canadian bed & breakfast in the dead of winter. The hotel is run by a very off-kilter woman who talks non-stop about her bed-ridden daughter, Lily. Clive finds the girl's diary and becomes obsessed with her. Lily's story unravels and Clive discovers what horrifying events led to the girl's current predicament. This is a creepy little movie with a wintry atmosphere that works in its favor, but it moves at a snails pace and is rather predictable. The lead actor (and his character, for that matter) is annoying, though Dorothee Berryman is delightfully wacky as the innkeeper.

This movie is pretty good throughout, but it's the ending that's really cool; it's how a thriller should end. The setting and cast are also great assets to the film, especially Danny Gilmore, NICE! I did find a few lame parts to the film though, such as Clive's "connection" to Lily, I'm not exactly sure where that came from. As an interesting film I give it a 6 out of 10, but add a great ending and I give it a 7. I'm not sure why it's considered a horror film though. It does have an eerie feel to it, but if you're looking for gore, there's not much here. Not that that's a bad thing, I think the coldness and eeriness do it justice. A twisted thriller? Yes. Horror? Not really.