In just a few days, SXSW is set to take over Austin, Texas with a flurry of music, movies, and tech. But what’s most exciting for us at Dread Central are all the genre titles making their way to the SXSW film festival! Every year the festival showcases some of the year’s most exciting and bizarre horror titles, and it looks like 2025 won’t be an exception.
Ahead of the festival’s start, we’re sharing the 13 titles we’re most excited about playing at this year’s SXSW. From tales of far-off planets to a man’s obsession with a mermaid, we can’t wait to see what these films have in store.
Ash (dir. Flying Lotus)
A woman wakes up on a distant planet and finds the crew of her space station viciously killed. Her investigation into what happened sets in motion a terrifying chain of events.
Clown In A Cornfield (dir. Eli Craig)
Adapted to a screenplay by Carter Blanchard and Craig, Clown In A Cornfield follows Quinn and her father, who have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time. Welcome to Kettle Springs. The real fun starts when Frendo the Clown comes out to play.
Descendant (dir. Peter Cilella)
Set in present-day Los Angeles, Descendent follows Sean Bruner, an elementary school security guard grappling with past trauma while preparing for the birth of his first child with his wife, Andrea. Haunted by his mother’s death in childbirth and his father’s suicide, Sean fears he’s destined to fail. After a beam of light appears in the sky during a late-night shift, Sean wakes in the hospital with an inexplicable talent for vivid, unsettling drawings of extraterrestrials and desert landscapes. As his visions blur the line between dreams and reality, Sean’s grip on sanity unravels. With time running out, he must confront his fears to escape his family’s tragic legacy.
Fucktoys (dir. Annapurna Sriram)
Join AP on a bubblegum grindhouse adventure through sunny and romantic Trashtown, USA. In this raucous odyssey across a dreamy landscape of smut, filth, and psychics, wanton minx quests hard to make $1000, find love, and lift a curse.
Good Boy (dir. Ben Leonberg)
Good Boy started with a simple high concept: a haunted house film, where the main character is the family dog—and the only one who can see the forces that haunt us. Our canine hero, Indy, finds himself on a new adventure with his human—and best friend—Todd, leaving city life for a long-vacant family home in the country. After moving in, Indy is immediately vexed by empty corners, tracks an invisible presence, perceives phantasmagoric warnings from a long-dead dog, and is haunted by visions of the previous occupant’s grim death. When Todd begins succumbing to the dark forces swirling around the house, Indy must battle a malevolence intent on dragging his beloved Todd into the afterlife!
Hallow Road (dir. Babak Anvari)
Two parents receive a distressing late-night call from their teenage daughter, who has just accidentally hit a pedestrian. They jump in their car, racing to get there before anyone else stumbles across the scene. As they head deeper into the night, disturbing revelations threaten to tear the family apart as they soon realize they might not be the only ones driving down Hallow Road.
Holland (dir. Mimi Cave)
In this wildly unpredictable thriller, Nicole Kidman is the meticulous Nancy Vandergroot, a teacher and homemaker whose picture-perfect life with her community pillar husband and son in tulip-filled Holland, Michigan tumbles into a twisted tale. Nancy and her friendly colleague become suspicious of a secret, only to discover nothing in their lives is what it seems.
The Home (dir. Mattias J Skoglund)
Many years after leaving the small town behind, Joel returns to move his mother Monika, a home for the elderly struggling with dementia. However, Monika’s health takes a turn for the worse soon after her arrival. She experiences terrifying visions of her late husband, Joel’s abusive father, and begins exhibiting violent behavior. Joel begins to believe that something malevolent and supernatural has taken control of his mother. But with his own history of substance abuse and mental instability, can he trust his own perceptions? As Monika’s memories fade, Joel must confront the demons of his own past, dredged up by his return to the home where he grew up.
It Ends (dir. Alexander Ullom)
A group of recent grads head out on a late-night drive for grub, hoping to enjoy one final hangout before their paths diverge. Instead, they accidentally turn onto a never-ending, two-lane hellscape surrounded by untold horrors and cosmic forces beyond their understanding. Cramped together inside a Jeep Cherokee and with the miles stretching infinitely ahead, they face a choice: embrace their new existence or fight to escape it.
Mermaid (dir. Tyler Cornack)
Doug is an awkward Florida drug addict. Divorced and alone, he shares custody of his young daughter with his ex. Doug’s reeling from losing his job at a local strip club, where he takes care of the fish in the aquarium. Things are beyond bleak – so Doug zips his boat out into the Gulf to end the pain of his reality. But at his lowest point, he discovers an injured Mermaid creature clinging to life. For Doug, it’s a sign from the Universe – so he brings her home, gives her shelter in his tub and begins to nurse her back to health. He even names her Destiny. As their rapport blossoms, word of his secret gets out and he is forced to protect his new friend by any means necessary.
Odyssey (dir. Gerard Johnston)
Odyssey follows Natasha Flynn, a sharp-tongued, coke-fuelled London estate agent, who juggles debts, danger, and deception. Her seemingly glossy life—flashy clothes, posh loft apartment, and endless champagne—hides a spiraling mess of broken dreams, addiction, and a business on the brink of collapse. Enter Dan and Will, smooth-talking loan sharks with a sinister edge. Their offer? Easy cash, if she hides a kidnapped fellow estate agent. What follows is a wild, neon-soaked ride through London’s seedy underbelly, as Natasha searches for The Viking, an old ally with violent tendencies. A bloody, chaotic showdown ensues, leaving bodies—and morals—shattered.
Redux Redux (dir. Kevin McManus and Matthew McManus)
In an attempt to avenge her daughter’s death, Irene Kelly travels through parallel universes, killing her daughter’s murderer over and over again. She grows addicted to the revenge streak, putting her own humanity in jeopardy.
The Surrender (dir. Julia Max)
A fraught mother-daughter relationship is put to a terrifying test when the family patriarch dies, and the grieving mother hires a mysterious stranger to bring her husband back from the dead. As the bizarre and brutal resurrection spirals out of control, both women must confront their differences as they fight for their lives – and for each other.
SXSW starts on March 7, 2025, and goes until March 15, 2025. Keep an eye on Dread Central for all our coverage out of the fest!
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