Festival season has officially arrived, and that means we finally have the lineup for the one of the biggest celebrations of genre cinema. That’s right, SXSW has announced their film and TV lineup ahead of this year’s festival in March, including a couple of heavy hitters in the horror department — and of course, some underdogs too.
The big ticket item this year is the world premiere of Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the sequel to Radio Silence’s 2019 thriller starring Samara Weaving. The highly anticipated film, also starring Kathryn Newton, joins a lineup that also includes They Will Kill You, the Zazie Beetz led slasher about a housekeeper who must escape a murderous cult, Curry Barker’s Obsession, And Her Body Was Never Found, Forbidden Fruits, the pilots Cold Call and Are We Still Married?, and Family Movie, a horror comedy starring Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, and their children Travis and Sosie Bacon. Also featured is the documentary Black Zombie, uncovering the origins of the zombie film and its roots in Black culture.
Aside from that, SXSW’s horror picks primarily live in their Midnighters category, which focuses on “after dark” picks that highlight up and coming genre films. This year’s Midnighters section includes the world premieres of American Dollhouse, Drag, starring Lizzy Caplan and John Stamos, Fifteen, Barbara Crampton’s Grind, Imposters, Monitor, and the Japanese film Never After Dark. The festival also includes a Midnighters shorts competition, featuring Jealous People Are Ugly People, A Stable Marriage, Tongue, and Wax.
But SXSW isn’t just a horror festival. Among their other high-profile offerings this year are I Love Boosters, from director Boots Riley, the R-rated action comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, Jorma Taccone’s black comedy Over Your Dead Body, and the supernatural romance Wishful Thinking, starring Lewis Pullman and Stranger Things alum Maya Hawke.
This year’s SXSW Festival will take place in Austin from March 12-18. For more information and to purchase tickets, you can check out their website.
