Film
They Will Kill You: Hell Hath No Fury | SXSW 2026
They Will Kill You sits under the legacy of films like Ready or Not and Evil Dead, but it's wholly original, bathed in non-stop violence.
Michel Abdulaziz
Michel Abdulaziz is a reviewer and film journalist with interest in the intersection between film and culture and all the politics therein.
Film
Basic: So Obsessed (With Your Ex) | SXSW 2026
Are we less because we don't have perfect lips? Or a more stable job? Bad cause we aren't as smart as someone else is? No, as Basic illustrates, how somebody chooses to live their life isn't a funhouse mirror for yours.
Film
Forbidden Fruits: The Summer I Turned Witchy | SXSW 2026
Mean Girls meets The Craft is a common logline, and though it's applicable, Forbidden Fruits is giving more Jawbreaker with how violently it skewers its subject matter, Alloway and Lily Houghton asking how much cruelty we'll file as "solidarity” if it's couched in enough glittery talking points.
Film
Leviticus: It Looked Like Me | SXSW 2026
Leviticus is easily my favorite watch of the festival, creepy, cold, masterful in giving stigma a physical form and keeping you on your toes doing it. Anything could be a danger, at any time, when the line between wanton wet dream and certain death is thin as hell and hellishly dashed all over.
Film
Seekers of Infinite Love: Rip Roaring Cult Comedy | SXSW 2026
Hewing to the indie spirit of Little Miss Sunshine, Seekers Of Infinite Love looks at all of our dysfunctions with relentless understanding, complicated by cracks and all the mistakes we make, but... still good, and better for being glued back together.
Film
Pretty Lethal: Action With A Killer Pointe | SXSW 2026
Do I think Pretty Lethal is especially spectacular? Not really, but I also recognize that it doesn't need to do anything more than what it sets out to do. It's a grisly, solid genre film that lets ballerina girls go apeshit. Sometimes that's enough. The added Uma Thurman doesn't hurt either.
Film
Erupcja: Volcano, So Erupting | SXSW 2026
The film's chimeric construction is as much an asset as it is a weakness; you're never really sure what these characters are gonna do next because, well, neither are the actors. Erupcja doesn't encourage spontaneity; it lives in it, which makes it propulsive but voids it of detail.
Film
I Love Boosters: Fashion Forward Filanthropy | SXSW 2026
There's intentionality to the film using how it looks to propel its story that calls to mind the built-in worlds of Jacques Tati or Demy, but so driven by Riley’s Bay Area idiosyncrasies: here, a sci-fi sprawler that courts the intersection of exploitation in the fashion industry.
SXSW 2026
Preview: Our SXSW 2026 picks
A color-blocked crime caper, an action-packed ballet thriller, a reality-warping romance, and a witchy satire on toxic female friendship make up just a few of our most anticipated festival watches.
Film
Everyone has something to say about Wuthering Heights
4 OBSCURAE contributors, new and old, chime in on Fennell's third Feature.
Film
The Bloody Social Politics of Send Help
Send Help moves at a lightning pace in setting the stage, gnarly, disgusting, with all our favorite practical effects and Raimi-isms to make the blood rush to our ears. And without the costume of modern society, the movie illustrates how much capitalism is a pantomime none of us asked to be part of.
Film
The Baltimorons: Love is One Dental Cavity Away
The Baltimorons is a fresh film, maybe the first improv based film that’s actually good, and it wields a startling emphasis on character conflict behind the public affairs of its loser leads.