The South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and film festival in Austin, Texas, has always been a hotbed for innovative horror, showcasing genre gems that go on to become both cult classics and critical darlings. Last year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival lineup introduced audiences to fresh nightmares with horror movies like Immaculate, Cuckoo, and Oddity, and SXSW 2025 looks to up the ante with a mix of psychological terror, sci-fi horror, and high-concept thrills. This year’s selections include exciting directorial debuts, returning festival favorites, and eerie tales that push the boundaries of fear.
From space-bound paranoia to supernatural revenge, the 2025 SXSW horror slate is packed with features that promise to haunt audiences long after the credits roll. Here are the 10 most anticipated horror films at SXSW 2025.
Top 10 Horror Movies to Watch at SXSW 2025
1. Ash
Directed by Flying Lotus.
Written by Jonni Remmler.
Produced by Nate Bolotin & Matthew Metcalfe.
Main Cast: Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Flying Lotus, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott, & Beulah Koale.
Directed by famed musician, producer, and multimedia artist Flying Lotus (V/H/S/99), Ash follows Riya, a woman who wakes up on a distant planet only to find the crew of her space station brutally murdered. As she pieces together what happened, Riya unwittingly triggers a terrifying sequence of events. With an eclectic cast including Eiza González, Aaron Paul, and Iko Uwais, this sci-fi horror film promises a unique blend of eerie isolation and visceral thrills, all set against a cosmic backdrop.
2. Clown in a Cornfield
Directed by Eli Craig.
Written by Carter Blanchard, Adam Cesare, & Eli Craig.
Produced by Marty Bowen, John Fischer, & Wyck Godfrey.
Main Cast: Katie Douglas, Will Sasso, Cassandra Potenza, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac, Verity Marks, Dylan McEwan, Daina Leitold, Vincent Muller, & Kaitlyn Bacon.
Adapted from Adam Cesare’s 2020 best-selling novel, Clown in a Cornfield brings Frendo the Clown to life in this blood-soaked slasher. Directed by Eli Craig (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil), the film sees a fading Midwestern town reckoning with its own past as its beloved clown mascot turns into a nightmarish killer. With its mix of social commentary and classic slasher thrills, this should be the next true horror hit to come out of SXSW.
3. Death of a Unicorn
Directed by Alex Scharfman.
Written by Alex Scharfman.
Produced by Drew Houpt, Lucas Joaquin, Alex Scharfman, Lars Knudsen, Tyler Campellone, Tim Headington, & Theresa Steele Page.
Main Cast: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, & Jessica Hynes.
A father and daughter’s weekend trip takes a surreal turn when they accidentally hit and kill a real-life unicorn. It’s an unusually comical event that starts a chain reaction involving a billionaire desperate to exploit the creature’s mystical properties. Directed by Alex Scharfman in his feature debut and starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, and Will Poulter, A24’s Death of a Unicorn blends dark comedy and horror in what could be one of the most bizarre and fun entries at this year’s SXSW film festival.
4. Drop
Directed by Christopher Landon.
Written by Jillian Jacobs & Chris Roach.
Produced by Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, & Cameron Fuller.
Main Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, & Ed Weeks.
Beloved horror director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Freaky) returns with Drop, a tech-driven psychological horror movie that plays on modern anxieties. When a widowed mother (Meghann Fahy) goes on a first date, an ominous series of anonymous messages begin to escalate, turning a seemingly normal night into a waking nightmare. With Landon’s knack for mixing clever humor and commentary with genuine horror, Drop may end up being one of the more thrilling — and eerily relatable — films at SXSW.
5. Good Boy
Directed by Ben Leonberg.
Written by Alex Cannon & Ben Leonberg.
Produced by Kari Fischer & Ben Leonberg.
Main Cast: Indy, Shane Jensen, Larry Fessenden, Arielle Friedman, Stuart Rudin, Anya Krawcheck, & Max the dog.
If you’ve ever wondered what your dog might be seeing when it barks at seemingly nothing, Good Boy offers a chilling answer. Writer-director Ben Leonberg’s supernatural horror flick follows a loyal pet who perceives the dark entities lurking in the shadows, creating an atmosphere of pure dread. Promising a fresh take on the haunted house subgenre — this time through the eyes of man’s best friend — Good Boy has the potential to be the year’s most unsettling supernatural feature.
6. It Ends
Directed by Alexander Ullom.
Written by Alexander Ullom.
Produced by Carrie Carusone & Evan Barber.
Main Cast: Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, & Mitchell Cole.
A simple wrong turn becomes a waking nightmare in It Ends, the feature debut of Alexander Ullom. The movie follows four friends whose post-college road trip derails when they find themselves trapped on an infinite backroad with no escape in sight. Claustrophobic, unsettling, and playing on existential dread, this indie horror entry looks to be one of the fest’s hidden gems this year.
7. The Astronaut
Directed by Jess Varley.
Written by Jess Varley.
Produced by Brad Fuller, Eric B. Fleischman, Chris Abernathy, and Cameron Fuller.
Main Cast: Kate Mara, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Luna, Ivana Milicevic, & Macy Gray.
Jess Varley’s The Astronaut centers on a space traveler (Kate Mara) who returns to Earth only to believe that something extraterrestrial has followed her home. Co-starring Laurence Fishburne and Gabriel Luna, The Astronaut teases psychological horror with sci-fi overtones, tapping into the fear of the unknown and the paranoia of knowing that we may not be alone. It’s the second mix of space travel and horror to look out for at SXSW this year, next to Flying Lotus’ Ash.
8. The Home
Directed by Mattias J Skoglund.
Written by Mattias J Skoglund & Mats Strandberg.
Produced by Siri Hjorton Wagner.
Main Cast: Philip Oros, Anki Lidén, Gizem Erdogan, Malin Levanon, Peter Jankert, Lottie Ejenbrant, Ayan Ahmed, & Bengt CW Carlsson.
The Home brings a folk-horror twist to the fears of aging, memory loss, and what happens when our loved ones are no longer recognizable — or no longer recognize us. When Joel returns to his childhood town to move his mother into a care home, he begins to suspect that something has followed her back from the other side. With eerie cinematography and a slow-burning dread, this Swedish-Estonian-Icelandic production is guaranteed to bring anxiety-inducing, atmospheric horror to the SXSW film festival.
9. Redux Redux
Directed by Kevin & Matthew McManus.
Written by Kevin & Matthew McManus.
Produced by Michael J. McGarry, Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, Nate Cormier, & PJ McCabe.
Main Cast: Michaela McManus, Stella Marcus, Jeremy Holm, Jim Cummings, Grace Van Dien, Taylor Misiak, & Dendrie Taylor.
Filmmaking duo Kevin and Matthew McManus (American Vandal) take a high-concept approach to horror with Redux Redux, where a grieving mother (Michaela McManus) discovers a way to travel through parallel universes to repeatedly kill her daughter’s murderer. But as her thirst for vengeance grows, so does the risk of losing herself. Blending science fiction, psychological horror, and action, Redux Redux is poised to be one of the most emotionally intense and mind-bending movies of SXSW 2025. Plus, the involvement of the McManus Brothers is enough to make this a hot ticket.
10. We Bury the Dead
Directed by Zak Hilditch.
Written by Zak Hilditch.
Produced by Kelvin Munro, Grant Sputore, Ross Dinerstein, Joshua Harris, and Mark Fasano.
Main Cast: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, & Mark Coles Smith.
Daisy Ridley continues her indie streak after Star Wars in this Australian horror film about a woman searching for her husband in the aftermath of a catastrophic military experiment gone wrong. As she joins a body retrieval unit, she soon discovers that the corpses aren’t exactly staying dead. Directed by Zak Hilditch (1922, These Final Hours), We Bury the Dead taps into military horror with a psychological edge and is a must-see from SXSW 2025.
