Genre Rules Sundance So Far: Blood, Guts and Sex-Filled Movies Tackle Social Issues

The Park City festival has been marked by films that couch socio-political issues in more marketable genre trappings

sundance-movies-2024
Courtesy of A24 and Sundance Institute

The buzziest movies of the Sundance Film Festival so far speak to a new trend in indie cinema: social commentary packaged as genre films.

  • The Pedro Pascal-led “Freaky Tales,” playing in the premieres section, is a hyper-violent, VHS-era romp that’s also about the rise of neo-fascist groups in Oakland in the 1980s.
  • A24’s trippy “I Saw the TV Glow” is a dreamlike allegory about the trans experience, which follows two teens so uncomfortable in their own skin that they long for the world of a fictional “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-esque TV show to be their reality.
  • “Sasquatch Sunset” finds Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough playing the hairy creatures in a tale that’s ultimately about the destruction of the environment.

Drew Taylor

Drew Taylor is a reporter at TheWrap. Before joining the organization in 2021, Drew was a freelance film journalist with a keen interest in animation and Disney history. Drew has been covering film, television and theme parks for 15 years. He has written for the New York Times, the New York Daily News, Time Out…

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