This year’s edition of SXSW kicks off on March 12 and runs through March18 in Austin, Texas, and along with horror films are some horror-adjacent offerings. Although reviews are embargoed until after the films have their debuts at the fest, I’ve been fortunate to have an early peek at the following four offerings and can recommend them to The Scariest Things readers.
Descriptions are from official press information and the SXSW site, and links are to the films’ SXSW pages.
Bagworm
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE. Comedy/Drama/Horror. Carroll’s worldview is dominated by the threat of catastrophe and the decline of morality in the face of human extinction. Then he steps on a rusty nail. He stumbles through the modern world, searching for romance, shedding toxic friendships, and fighting for truth . . . all while struggling to maintain his deteriorating health and sanity. As his moral crusade edges closer to self-destruction, Carroll is confronted with the ultimate existential question: are we really doomed, or is he just dying of tetanus?
https://schedule.sxsw.com/2026/films/2249930
Ugly Cry
WORLD PREMIERE. Horror/Thriller/Comedy. When Delaney’s boyfriend leaves town to shoot a splashy zombie movie, she becomes obsessed with a character she’s auditioning for after she learns the producers think she has an “ugly cry.” But when she tries to make her cry prettier, her performance suffers. Can she contort herself, and her face, to have the perfect cry? Her attempts to change herself cause Young Delaney to haunt her, catapulting present day Delaney deeper down the rabbit hole. She isolates herself and grows increasingly delusional, and interested in physical fixes to her acting problem. How can she make the world see her as she sees herself? How can she become and become and become? She will become famous. Or die trying.
https://schedule.sxsw.com/films/2249913
Note: The following two features are not straight horror, but should be of interest to genre-film aficionados looking for something decidedly different.
Anima
WORLD PREMIERE. Comedy/Sci-fi. After being let go from her robotic companion start-up, Beck, an anti-social engineer, finds herself in the offices of a new company claiming to preserve a person’s consciousness inside a cloud system. Her first assignment: drive the company’s most valuable client, Paul, a lonely button manufacturer, to his final appointment.
https://schedule.sxsw.com/2026/films/2249863
Sinner Supper Club
WORLD PREMIERE. Comedy/Experimental/Horror. Nora is late. Alice unceremoniously brought her partner, whose name no one can remember. Jayae doesn’t want to be around “these” people . . . but came anyway? And Genevieve, the host, has put an unhealthy amount of pressure on this eviction funeral (kinda cringe, right?) to solve all of their problems. As they barrel through the evening, this disintegrating friend group, delirious from the heat and lack of food, desperately throws Hail Marys, caution to the wind, and lamb against the wall, trying to harness some semblance of what they used to have . . . and then their dead friend shows up.
https://schedule.sxsw.com/films/2254957
For more SXSW previews check here for feature films and here for short films.