TAGGED AS: festivals, Horror, movies
The South by Southwest Film Festival is over, and with it came a whole lineup of exciting debuts, anticipated premieres and big surprises that had people in Austin, TX hooting and hollering for something other than BBQ for a change. Even if SXSW isn’t considered one of the big prestige festivals when it comes to awards season, it does traditionally see the release of plenty of genre fare that goes on to earn the hearts of audiences. Titles like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Don’t Breathe, The Cabin in the Woods, and A Quiet Place all debuted at SXSW before going on to become big hits.
This year was no different, as the annual festival and conference had an impressive lineup of films from around the world, showcasing different genres and tones and coming from fresh new voices in the horror genre. Here are the best horror and genre films you need to put on your radar from South by Southwest.
Good Boy (2025)
It’s a haunted house horror movie, but the protagonist is a dog. That’s it. That’s the story. And yet, Good Boy is more than its gimmicky premise; instead, it delivers an experience that somehow both terrifies the audience and tugs on their heartstrings. The titular good boy is Indy, a shockingly good animal actor with a wide range of expressions and emotions who carries this story with grace. You can feel the confusion in Indy’s eyes when he sees things he can’t understand, the sheer resolution when he decides to confront whatever dark entities lurk around his home to protect his human, and the terror of being powerless against them. Even when it verges on the familiar, Good Boy has enough new twists on old formulas to feel fresh and unpredictable.
Bloody Disgusting critic Meagan Navarro called the film a “heartrending portrayal of how utterly terrifying it can be for a dog when his whole world is upended and he’s unable to understand why.”
Clown in a Cornfield (2025)
Eli Craig, director of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, is back, and he’s changing gears to deliver a delightfully gnarly YA horror movie that’s fun for teens and adults alike. Adapting Adam Cesare’s best-selling book of the same name, Clown in a Cornfield follows a young girl moving into a small, quiet town, hoping for a fresh start. Unfortunately, what she finds is a simmering tension between the youth and the local authorities… and a killer clown who’s hunting down teens. The film offers some timely and poignant social commentary, as well as an ensemble of relatable, well-written characters. Don’t let the YA label fool you — this movie is gory. Just like the Fear Street trilogy, Clown in a Cornfield has mean, bloody, thrilling kill scenes to delight veterans of the genre.
As Daily Dead‘s Matt Donato described the film, “It’s gateway horror targeting up-and-coming genre fans that’ll be a lot of teens’ first violent slasher romp, and that rules.”
We Bury the Dead (2024)
Think zombie movies are stale? Well, think again. The genre has been delivering inventive, fresh new takes on the old bain-eating tropes for years, and We Bury the Dead is no exception. Daisy Ridley stars as a woman searching for her husband as part of a “body retrieval unit” in the aftermath of a military experiment that goes wrong and decimates the people of Tasmania. There is hope that her husband is alive, however, due to reports that corpses have suddenly come back alive. Writer/director Zak Hilditch gives the zombie genre an air of indie prestige, mixing spooky moments with compelling drama, even showing disarming flashes of humanity inside the undead. It’s a surprisingly fresh take that manages to comment on grief and letting go while still offering plenty of zombie horror.
Writing for ScreenAnarchy, Josh Hurtado said “[T]he film is bolstered by Ridley’s powerful lead performance, who brings a gravitas to a very gritty, dirty, and unexpectedly bloody film.”
Death of a Unicorn (2025)
Alex Scharfman’s directorial debut boasts an impressive ensemble cast, cool creature design, and some hilariously gnarly deaths. The story takes clear inspiration from Steven Spielberg’s two Jurassic Park movies to deliver a film that goes from awe and wonder to utter terror in the face of fantastical creatures. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega lead the ensemble as a father and daughter who accidentally crash into a unicorn on the way to a weekend retreat with the boss’s family. When the unicorn turns out to not be entirely dead, its parents go on the attack. Death of a Unicorn is vicious, and its spectacle is over-the-top and fun. Its message has been told many times before, but the ensemble keeps everything feeling fresh.
Den of Geek‘s Alec Bojaland said of the film, “If something can be done with a unicorn horn, Death of a Unicorn endeavors to try it out. That commitment to the bit alone puts this debut effort from writer-director Alex Scharfman firmly into ‘charming B-movie’ territory.”
Hallow Road (2025)
What would you do for your child? How far would you go to help them? That is the question plaguing two parents when they receive a distressing call in the middle of the night from their teenage daughter after she accidentally hits someone on a desolate road in the forest. Racing to get there before anyone else stumbles upon the scene, the two parents face disturbing revelations, and heated arguments threaten to tear the family apart. Babak Anvari, who already terrified audiences with Under the Shadow, crafts a nail-biting thriller set in one location, with Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys delivering spectacular performances and a slow-burn story that dips its toes into folk horror. This is destined to be a great annual Halloween tradition.
James Preston Poole said in his review for ButWhyTho, “Babak Anvari’s single-vehicle, two-actor journey through darkness conjures up a suffocating discomfort that will require deep breaths afterward. Whether this dour ride into the forest goes to a satisfying destination, the ride is more than worth it.”
Drop (2025)
Christopher Landon knows how to make a mean, lean horror-comedy and how to create tension with limited space. Drop is less Happy Death Day and instead closer to Landon’s writing work on Disturbia, his Rear Window-inspired thriller. Sure, there are plenty of laughs, but the film is a thrilling mystery about a woman on a first date who is sent ominous messages with deadly consequences. The White Lotus alum Meghann Fahy leads the film as a widowed mother trapped in an impossibly bad first date, desperately trying to piece together clues as to who is sending her anonymous drops on her phone. The film feels like a tribute to Wes Craven’s Red Eye and its theatricality. The result is a movie with incredibly stylized flair and personality.
In his review for Variety, Siddhant Adlakha wrote, “A silly, pulpy mystery entirely sure of its own conceit, Drop combines tech paranoia and the looming specter of abuse to create something surprisingly taut and entertaining.”
Slanted (2025)
A biting satire of race and assimilation that also turns into an effective and electrifying body horror movie, Slanted follows Joan Huang, a teenage girl dreaming of becoming Prom Queen and the embodiment of all-American beauty. Desperate for acceptance into American life, Joan undergoes an experimental racial transformation that changes how people around her treat her. From there, Amy Wang’s film delivers a poignant and deeply relatable story that echoes Eddie Murphy’s “White Like Me” sketch before unleashing a violently gnarly body horror finale that brings to mind the best of The Substance.
ButWhyTho‘s Kate Sánchez said the film “uses genre storytelling to capture a lived experience that resonates deeply. Amy Wang’s directorial debut is a strong stance on identity and, more importantly, a film that embraces the messiness of it.”
It Ends (2025)
Writer/director Alexander Ullom delivers an impressive directorial debut with It Ends, a movie that masterfully captures the existential crisis that comes with being at the cusp of adulthood. Four friends find themselves driving down an ordinary road while contemplating what could be the end of their friendship as they head down different paths in life. Their journey is interrupted when they realize they are on a never-ending road surrounded by hoards of people running out of the forest to desperately try and take control of the cramped Jeep Cherokee that serves as their one refuge from the horrors of the road. It Ends is a fantastic and poignant movie about the unending road of adult life and the different avenues we take to cope with impossible situations. It is a complex, terrifying movie and one that heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in the genre.
Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com wrote that the film is “anchored by four genuinely engaging performances and a concept that understands the benefit of not overexplaining itself.”
Redux Redux (2025)
Time loops and parallel universes can make or break indie filmmakers, as they require and allow for great creativity, but they can also lead to movies drowning under the weight of their initial premises. Thankfully, Redux Redux manages to stand out from the crowd and deliver a blood-soaked sci-fi thriller with not just a good premise but great execution. The film follows a grieving mother who travels through parallel universes in order to kill her daughter’s murderer over and over and over again, slowly putting her own humanity at risk in her all-consuming obsession. The movie features some truly gruesome violence, a delightful tonal change, and great production design that makes this multiversal story appear epic and large in scope with limited resources.
Mary Beth McAndrews from Dread Central said of the film, “Redux Redux treads some familiar ground, but does so in a special kind of way that shatters your heart while bending your mind.”
Ash (2025)
Multihyphenate artist Flying Lotus directs, stars and also provides the score of this thrilling, tense, disturbing space horror movie. Taking inspiration from genre classics like Alien, The Thing, and Event Horizon as well as video games like Dead Space, Ash follows Eiza González as a woman waking up on a desolated planet on board a space station whose entire crew has been viciously annihilated. When a man (Aaron Paul) arrives claiming to be part of the crew, it sets in motion a chain of events as we start learning more about the victims and whether our innocent woman is as innocent as she appears. This is an ultra-violent horror movie with some truly stunning visuals and impeccable vibes, destined to be a midnight-movie obsession.
Inverse‘s Hoai-Tran Bui wrote of the film, “Ash can sometimes feel small due to its limited locations and its standard script. But its breathtakingly otherworldly visuals and smattering of Lovecraftian dread makes it an intriguing new entry into the cosmic horror genre.”
Thumbnail image by ©Amazon MGM Studios
