“The Lodge“‘
Remember the utterly disturbing 2014 Austrian horror “Goodnight Mommy” by filmmakers Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz? Well, they’re back with another creepy chiller and they’ve bagged Riley Keough, Richard Armitage, and Alicia Silverstone as their stars. Their latest sounds “The Shining“-esque and centers on a soon-to-be-stepmom is snowed in with her fiance’s two children at a remote holiday village. Just as relations finally begin to thaw between the trio, strange and frightening events being to occur. Note the presence of DP Thimios Bakatakis, known for Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “The Lobster,” “Dogtooth,” and his ability to create eerie and haunting moods that should fit in quite perfectly with this drama.
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“Little Monsters”
Before Jordan Peele will be able to say he introduced the world to Lupita Nyong’o in a horror film, that distinction will go to Abe Forsythe, an Australian writer/director known for “Down Under,” a black comedy set during a race riot. Comedy is Forsythe’s bread and butter and though while it’s in the midnight section, this horror, about a washed-up musician who teams up with a teacher and a kids show personality to protect young children from a sudden outbreak of zombies, sounds like it will have a ton of laughs. Alexander England and Josh Gad co-star.
“Hala”
A U.S. Dramatic Competition film that sounds seriously Sundance-y, insofar as its topicality, “Hala” centers on a Muslim teenager who must cope with the unraveling of her family as she comes into her own. Written and directed by Minhal Baig (the short “Pretext” and “After Sophie“), the movie doesn’t really feature any stars to speak of, but it’s already gaining a lot of insider buzz. However, to put that posit to the test, the film does star Geraldine Viswanathan, to which you’ll say, who? And we’ll counter with the rocketing breakout star of the 2018 comedy “Blockers.” Viswanathan was fantastic in that underrated comedy, so it’ll be fascinating to see what she can do in a dramatic role. The movie co-stars, Jack Kilmer, Gabriel Luna, Purbi Joshi, Azad Khan, and Anna Chlumsky. Note the up-and-coming cinematographer Carolina Costa, who worked second unit on “Suspiria,” shot “Flower” and “Crystal Swan” and is already being touted as the next big thing in indie lensers.
“The Death of Dick Long”
What happened to writing/directing duo DANIELS won the best director at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival for their feature film “Swiss Army Man?” Well, they broke up, or at least, have gone their separate ways for the time being. One half, Daniel Scheinert is the director behind “The Death of Dick Long” which stars Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia Newcomb, Jess Weixler, Andre Hyland, and the filmmaker himself as the titular Dick Long role because screenwriter Billy Chew dared him to. The film’s score is by Andy Hull & Robert McDowell the principal members of Manchester Orchestra, and you’ll remember the music and sound, was integral to the story of “Swiss Army Man” and its dazzling audio/visual storytelling so we could be set for something similarly bold and striking. ‘Dick Long’ is in the Midnight section of Sundance, but it sounds too uncategorizable and weird to be just straight up horror.
“The Wolf Hour”
When Naomi Watts gets down and dirty in what sounds like a dank, dark indie drama at Sundance, well, we’re all going to pay attention. “The Wolf Hour” is set during hell, or at least that’s one way to put the incendiary 1977 New York “Summer of Sam” that led to the nightmarish blackout riots. Watts plays once well-known counter-culture figure, cut off from the outside world in her South Bronx apartment. With the brutal summer heat brewing outside violence escalates in the city and from there it sounds like you have a kind of sweaty, paranoiac, self-contained psychological thriller. Alistair Banks Griffin, the filmmaker behind “Two Gates of Sleep” which starred Brady Corbet and screened at Cannes in 2010 directs, and picked to write the sure-to-be chilling and creepy score are indie superstar composers Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi known for scoring anxiety-inducing psychological films like “Enemy,” “Christine,” and working on shows like “The O.A.,” “Ozarks” and many more (including the aforementioned horror “The Lodge”)
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