The SXSW Midnighters section is a perennial favorite for SXSW audiences thrilled by the weird, electric, and sometimes terrifying selections. Featuring 10 genre films, including six World Premieres, the slate includes dark comedies, thrillers, Sci-Fi, mystery, and slasher horror from a mix of established and first-time filmmakers. The Midnighters, as well as 12 additional films, which are included in the 132 total features now to be screened at the SXSW 2018 Film Festival.
Scary, funny, sexy, controversial – provocative after-dark features for night-owls and the terminally curious.
Midnighters
Ajin: Demi-Human (North American Premiere)
Director: Katsuyuki Motohiro, Screenwriter: Kouji Seko
Cast: Takeru Satoh, Go Ayano, Tetsuji Tamayama, Yu Shirota, Yudai Chiba, Rina Kawaei, Minami Hamabe
Endless battle between human being and immortal demi-human “Ajin.” A stunning, strikingly original action masterpiece!
Blood Fest (World Premiere)
Director/Screenwriter: Owen Egerton
Cast: Robbie Kay, Jacob Batalon, Seychelle Gabriel, Tate Donovan, Barbara Dunkelman, Nick Rutherford, Zachary Levi
In Blood Fest, fans flock to a festival celebrating the most iconic horror movies, only to discover that the charismatic showman behind the event has a diabolical agenda.
Untitled Blumhouse-Bazelevs (World Premiere)
Director/Screenwriter: Stephen Susco
Cast: Colin Woodell, Betty Gabriel, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Andrew Lees, Conor del Rio, Stephanie Nogueras, Savira Windyani
A 20-something finds a cache of hidden files on his new laptop and is thrust into the deep waters of the dark web. From the makers of Unfriended, this thriller unravels in real-time, entirely on a computer screen. A warning for the digital age.
Field Guide to Evil (World Premiere) (Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Poland, Turkey, U.S.)
Directors: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, Peter Strickland, Agnieszka Smoczynska, Katrin Gebbe, Can Evrenol, Calvin Reeder, Ashim Ahluwalia, Yannis Veslemes
They are known as dark folklore. Created to give logic to mankind’s darkest fears, these stories and others laid the foundation for what we now call the horror genre.
Ghost Stories (United Kingdom) (North American Premiere)
Directors/Screenweriters: Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman
Cast: Martin Freeman, Alex Lawther, Jill Halfpenny, Andy Nyman, Paul Whitehouse.
An arch skeptic debunker of the supernatural embarks upon a terror filled quest when he stumbles across a long-lost file containing details of three cases of inexplicable ‘hauntings.’ Adapted from the Olivier Award-Winning hit stage play.
Hereditary
Director/Screenwriter: Ari Aster
Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Ann Dowd, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro
When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry.
A Prayer Before Dawn (North American Premiere) (United States, France)
Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, Screenwriters: Jonathan Hirschbein, Nick Saltrese
Cast: Joe Cole, Vithaya Pansringar, Panya Yimmumphai, Nicolas Shake
Based on the international best-seller, A Prayer Before Dawn is the true story of Billy Moore, a troubled young British boxer sent to one of Thailand’s most notorious jails.
The Ranger (World Premiere)
Director: Jenn Wexler, Screenwriters: Jenn Wexler, Giaco Furino
Cast: Chloë Levine, Granit Lahu, Jeremy Pope, Bubba Weiler, Amanda Grace Benitez, Jeremy Holm, Larry Fessenden
Teen punks, on the run from the cops and hiding out in the woods, come up against the local authority—an unhinged park ranger with an axe to grind.
Upgrade (World Premiere)
Director/Screenwriter: Leigh Whannell
Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson, Benedict Hardie
In a utopian near-future when technology controls everything, a technophobe avenges his wife’s murder and his own paralysis-causing injury with the help of an experimental computer chip implant – STEM – that turns out to have a mind of its own.
What Keeps You Alive (World Premiere) (Canada)
Director: Colin Minihan, Screenwriters: Colin Minihan, Brittany Allen
Cast: Hannah Emily Anderson, Brittany Allen, Martha Macisaac, Joey Klein, Charlotte Lindsay Marron
Majestic mountains, a still lake, and venomous betrayals engulf a female married couple attempting to celebrate their one-year anniversary.
