Film festivals are a thrill, but they can also be a roulette. There are instances where a film might garner quite a bit of buzz or a blind selection seems promising, but ultimately, these two instances oftentimes lead to disappointment. I saw several great films at SXSW, but the festival also wasn’t without some disappointments. Let’s look at five of them.
The Astronaut
There was a lot of buzz around this opening night sci-fi/horror feature. It seemed a hot ticket leading up to its premiere screening at the ZACH Theatre in Austin on March 7. A promising start was in place, detailing the story of an astronaut (Kate Mara) crash landing in the ocean after completing her first mission. During a remote recovery period at a lavish home surrounded by a desolate forest, strange occurrences abound, leading our protagonist to believe something came back with her from the cosmos. While not short of a few effective jump scares, the film suffers from hollow storytelling and ultimately, a forced tonal change that feels like anything but organic. Where it starts off wanting to be a visceral and terrifying horror feature, it soon decides it wants to be a sentimental Spielberg imitator ultimately defined by a rather ludicrous twist. While imitation is a form of flattery and there is nothing wrong with channeling influence, it works best when it feels natural. This had a Netflix original movie written all over it and I would not be surprised if that is the platform it lands on. Score: 2/5
O’Dessa
A post-apocalyptic Western musical set in a dystopian existence sounds promising. Have it star talented Stranger Things alum Sadie Sink and be from the director of the 2017 hip hop musical dramedy Patti Cake$ and you seem to have a recipe for success. I should have known better when I realized this was a Hulu original movie already due out for release on March 20. What a romp. Every song sounded like its own rendition of “House of the Rising Sun.” There was no chemistry between Sink and her co-lead Kelvin Harrison, Jr., and the best part of the movie was Regina Hall doing her rendition of Auntie played by Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The problem is, she is not in the movie as much as she should be and instead, she takes a back seat to a main villain who is much less compelling than she is. My friend who attended the screening with me managed to get a good nap in during part of the movie and when he went back to watch it upon its release on Hulu, he rated it half a star less because he had to sit through the scenes he missed the first time around. Streaming-era movies of this caliber are nothing more than big ideas that were not good enough for the big screen and are relegated to being watched at home flavors of the week that are simply enticing because they are conveniently available from the comfort of your own home in lieu of trekking to a theater to be disappointed by them. Score: 2/5
Magic Hour
There’s talent here and that’s a fact. Out of all the disappointing films on this list, this one is among the least disappointing. Written and directed by Katre Aselton and produced and co-written by her husband Mark Duplass (they both co-starred on the sitcom The League), Aselton stars as a grieving widow who goes out to the desert for a personal retreat to help her. The thing is, she is constantly visited by the ghost of her late husband played by Daveed Diggs and it makes the process more difficult for her as she fights between keeping his ghost around for comfort and letting go as a means to move on. Diggs is great and the script really hits a lot of points to balance out its emotions, notably shifting between serious melodrama and lighthearted comedy. The issue is it doesn’t make an overall impact, the characters aren’t exactly interesting outside of Diggs, and it just plays out like a remake of Ghost set in the desert with no real punch from start to finish. The resolution makes its point but does not marinate after a singular viewing. Score: 2.5/5
Death Of a Unicorn
I wanted to love this. I really did. Conceptually and cast wise, there was promise. What I ended up getting was an uneven Jurassic Park imitator that thrived to be a great horror/action/comedy, but ultimately left its concept and aspects of its cast to go to waste. While this has things to say thematically such as a warning about messing with creatures in their natural habitat and the greedy, self-interested nature of wealthy elites, it just lacked the overall punch it needed to be great. Will Poulter, Tea Leoni, and Richard E. Grant had their moments, but Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega just felt tried and tired as they played the same characters we always see them play. The offbeat goofy dad and his angst-ridden daughter. But among the cast, there is one real winner. Anthony Carrigan. Being the character with less dialogue than most around him, it is what his character represents and how his frustrations are expressed nonverbally that really stand out in this less than stellar film. I almost wish the story was just told from his perspective. You can have a fun concept and a great cast, but it also takes a compelling movie to bring it all together, which was mostly absent here. Score: 3/5
Fucktoys
The grand champion for the worst film I watched at SXSW goes to this aesthetic pleaser that just gets lost in the fact that it feels like a creative indie with potential but ultimately feels like what was shown was a rough edit for an art piece that really needed a tighter edit. It takes more than aesthetics to craft a great film. Beyond its use of 16mm, influence from the works of John Waters, and actually deep exploration of gender dynamics and struggles of being a woman, the film just often felt flat in its presentation. A collection of scenes that feel like drawn out explanations around what it’s trying to say to the point of exhaustion, there was a good film inside of it all that never had a chance to reveal itself and flourish. The dialogue was hoaky, the pacing was slow, and just when things had potential to be interesting, the film fell flat just as quickly. Score: 1/5
For more SXSW 2025 Coverage, click here. To check out more of our reviews, click here. If you have suggestions for movies we should check out, email [email protected]!
Adam Khromachou has been a lifelong film watcher. It all began in 1989 at the age of 6
when his mom took him to see Tim Burton’s Batman. From then on, he knew cinema
was his passion. By the age of 8, he was learning about actors, directors, and even
began exploring the history of cinema. At the age of 12, a big turning point occurred
when he watched Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. It was the moment he really started
diving deep into films outside of the action and comedy genre and looked to explore
more classic cinema through breaking down the film’s notable influences. He obtained a
Bachelor's and Master's degree from Arizona State and in 2021, he launched his TikTok
channel Sunset Loner Cinema where he reviews and ranks films, as well as providing
in-depth cinematic retrospectives. His content can also be found on Instagram and
YouTube. He is also an avid user of Letterboxd and considers himself a cinema purist,
believing that films should be experienced in theaters without interruptions or
distractions. His favorite films include Pulp Fiction, GoodFellas, Cinema Paradiso, Jaws,
and The Big Lebsowski. He is also the co-host of the podcast Before We Were
Streaming.