25 Independent Movies You Should Be Excited About in 2013

With the new year in full swing, eager popcorn-munchers are awaiting the surefire blockbusters and big-deal sequels, namely Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Hangover Part III. Year in and year out, Hollywood's major studios push out as many foolproof moneymakers as humanly possible, and every year audiences show up to fill seats.

But those pricey productions don't speak to the cinephiles of the world, the people who constantly refresh their Internet browsers on their favorite cinema websites to read the latest reviews pouring out of Sundance Film Festival. These are the same people—and count Complex Pop Culture among them—who knew all about current Academy Award darling Beasts of the Southern Wild as far back as a year ago.

Let's even the playing field for everyone: If you're interested in staying up on cinema's hottest low-budget, DIY efforts before they're up for Oscars, get familiar with these 25 Independent Movies You Should Be Excited About in 2013.

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Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

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Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza, Glenne Headly, Rob Brown
Release date: To be determined

What does a young, seriously talented actor do after spending 2012 co-starring in a box office juggernaut (The Dark Knight Rises) and headlining a well-received science-fiction thriller (Looper) alongside Bruce Willis? He writes and directs his debut film, of course.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, preparing to be the next Ben Affleck, made a huge splash last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival with Don Jon's Addiction, a comedy that's been described as Silver Linings Playbook meets Jersey Shore.

JGL stars as Jon Martello, a Garden State guido cut from the same GTL cloth as The Situation. His pursuit of looking good in order to bang "10s" is only rivaled by his obsession with Internet porn, but when he hits it off with two new women, one prudish (Scarlett Johansson) and one much older (Julianne Moore), Jon learns that it's time to grow up.

Unlike many Sundance premieres, Don Jon's Addiction seems tailor-made for the mainstream. But it's asking a lot of a first-time director to make this year's Silver Linings Playbook—can he manage?

(And for the sake of decency, let's cease and desist with the Jersey Shore references.)

Director: Lake Bell
Stars: Lake Bell, Demetri Martin, Rob Corddry, Michaela Watkins, Ken Marino, Fred Melamed
Release date: To be determined

One of the biggest casualties suffered when HBO canceled How to Make It in America: weekly quality time with the charismatic Lake Bell. On that cult-followed Entourage extension, Bell embodied the attributes of your average hipster dream girl, coming across as endearingly aloof, witty, and altogether appealing.

But who knew that she was a full-blown comedic filmmaker too? Written and directed by Bell herself, In a World… also stars the multitalented actress as a down-and-out vocal coach who finds success doing voiceovers for movie trailers, a hustle that's tougher than she initially thought.

Perhaps it's a good thing that there's no more How to Make It in America occupying Bell's time and energy. Because if In a World… ultimately has the goods, she could be the next Lena Dunham.

Director: Jeff Nichols
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Shepard
Release date: April 26

Matthew McConaughey had an amazing 2012, with standout performances in a trio of critically beloved movies: Magic Mike, Killer Joe, and Bernie. Just like that, an actor who'd forever been a walking, talking punch line transformed his public image the old-fashioned way: by showing and proving on the big screen.

And 2013 is looking even better for the chiseled stoner. McConaughey's Academy Award speculations will kick off in late April with Mud, the latest from gifted writer-director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter). It's about two kids (Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland) who cross paths with a slick-talking, likable criminal (McConaughey). Salvation ensues.

Later in 2013, McConaughey will step outside of the independent scene for a pair of high-profile, Oscar-baiting flicks: Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (starring Leonardo Dicaprio) and The Dallas Buyer's Club. Both seem cool, but thanks to the underrated excellence of Nichols' Take Shelter, Mud is still the clear front-runner—at least around these parts.

Director: Sofia Coppola
Stars: Emma Watson, Leslie Mann, Taissa Farmiga, Erin Daniels, Nina Siemaszko, Gavin Rossdale, Stacy Edwards
Release date: To be determined

From October 2008 through August 2009, a group of crafty teenagers (known as "The Burglar Bunch," the "Hollywood Hills Burglars," and the "Bling Ring") made a name for themselves robbing the homes of celebrities, reportedly accumulating upwards of $3 million in the process. Their victims included Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Lindsay Lohan, and Rachel Bilson.

It's one hell of a news story, and now, thanks to Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation), it's a feature film starring Harry Potter-alum Emma Watson in a role that should decimate all of those sweetie-pie Hermione implications. After her nuanced performance in last year's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, there's little doubt about whether she'll be able to do it or not.

Director: Harmony Korine
Stars: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, James Franco, Heather Morris, Gucci Mane
Release Date: March 22

Harmony Korine's isn't known for making accessible movies, and that's not a bad thing. As unwelcoming as they seem, his previous films—the youth-in-decay breakthrough Gummo (1997), the celebrity impersonator romp Mister Lonely (2007), and the Jackass meets garbage fetish oddity Trash Humpers (2009)—are the singular byproducts of a warped, gifted mind happily working outside of Hollywood's confines.

So what's he doing working with Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Pretty Little Liars-star Ashley Benson? We presume nothing, but we can't wait to see the results. In Spring Breakers, Korine's three bikini-clad, young actresses (along with his wife, Rachel Korine) play co-eds who meet a Riff-Raff-esque drug dealer named Alien (James Franco) in jail and start carrying out illegal jobs for him. They stay in swimwear, and occasionally take breaks to hook up with each other.

If that doesn't sound like the greatest movie ever made, you may want to visit a different website. There's always the AARP.

Director: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Juno Temple, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Chris Noth, Adam Brody, Hank Azaria, Wes Bentley, James Franco, Eric Roberts, Chloë Sevigny, Bobby Cannavale
Release Date: To be determined

Tired of stuffy, conventional biopics? Lovelace looks like the necessary remedy. After all, it's based on the life of Linda Boreman, better known as Linda Lovelace, the porno icon who starred in the 1972 skin flick Deep Throat. Any worries about its potential prudishness were destroyed in December when star Amanda Seyfried, during an interview on Conan, discussed how she simulated oral sex by sucking on ice pops. Three cheers for independent cinema, where the MPAA wields considerably less power.

Director: James Ponsoldt
Stars: Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kyle Chandler
Release date: Sometime this summer

Movies about teenagers don't have to be idiotic. Case in point: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, last year's resonant, brilliantly acted sleeper hit about a tortured high school kid's (Logan Lerman) coming-of-age around a new group of eclectic friends. Treating his youthful characters with the respect filmmakers usually reserve for older protagonists, writer-director Stephen Chbosky (who also wrote the original novel) made an adult film that worked for younger and older audiences.

In 2013, filmmaker James Ponsoldt (the writer-director of last year's criminally slept-on Smashed) is keeping progress alive and well with The Spectacular Now, an adaptation of novelist Tim Tharp's book about a hard-partying guy (rising star Miles Teller) who reevaluates his life after connecting with a cute, sci-fi-loving outcast (Shailene Woodley, your future Mary Jane Watson in next year's Amazing Spider-Man sequel).

Following its triumphant Sundance premiere last weekend, The Spectacular Now was swiftly picked up for summer 2013 distribution by the burgeoning A24 (the company that's behind Spring Breakers and The Bling Ring, both found elsewhere on this list). Expect to hear plenty more enthusiastic claims about it in the coming months.

Director: David Lowery
Stars: Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Nate Parker, Keith Carradine
Release date: To be determined

Every year at the Sundance Film Festival, one film emerges as the clear critical darling and, more often than not, goes on to become a major contender in the forthcoming awards season. In 2012, it was Beasts of the Southern Wild; this year, a serious contender for such distinction is Ain't Them Bodies Saints, a Malick-esque meditation of love, betrayal, and regret from fresh-voiced filmmaker David Lowery.

The cast hums with greatness. Academy Award nominees Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James By That Coward Robert Ford) star as lovers who are forever running afoul of the law—until the authorities catch them and send Affleck's character, Bob, to prison. After four years in the clink, he escapes and sets out to reunite with Ruth and their infant daughter.

It sounds like Bonnie and Clyde without the (by now) played-out commentary on celebrity. If the game's top film critics are to be believed, it's an emotional powerhouse.

Director: Shane Carruth
Stars: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, Thiago Martins
Release date: April 5

Want to look cool in front of your friends? Suggest a movie night and track down a copy of writer/director/actor Shane Carruth's mind-bending 2004 thriller Primer. An ingenious exercise in time travel, Carruth's debut is airtight, a dizzying puzzle that will leave your friends spellbound and impressed with your good taste.

And then you can take them to see Carruth's highly anticipated follow-up, Upstream Color. Just prepare yourself—this one sounds like a real head-scratcher. In the best way possible, of course. Fittingly, it's official synopsis reads vague, something about a female protagonist (Amy Seimetz) who is "unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again."

Oh, draw us a map, guys. But really, there won't be anything else like Upstream Color this year.

Director: Ryan Coogler
Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz, Ahna O'Reilly, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray
Release date: To be determined

In addition to potentially turning Friday Night Lights graduate Michael B. Jordan into a full-on movie star, Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale could be one of the year's most harrowing and emotionally devastating indies. Its story certainly invites the adjectives.

Based on real events, Fruitvale focuses on Oscar Grant (Jordan), a 22-year-old guy living in the Bay Area and raising his young daughter, whom his mother knows nothing about. But on New Year's Day 2009, at the Fruitvale subway station, Grant is shot to death by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department) officers. The public captured the shooting on camera phones.

It's a little-known American tragedy that deserves the attention of a feature. The fact that the Weinstein Company scooped it up at Sundance, with plans for a big theatrical unveiling, guarantees that it'll be seen, too. Add a charismatic actor like Jordan as its anchor, and Fruitvale should leave no heartstring un-plucked.

Director: Shaka King
Stars: Amari Cheatom, Trae Harris, Tone Tank, Colman Domingo, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Adrian Martinez
Release date: To be determined

Smashed was one of 2012's most slept-on independent movies. Starring one-time Complex cover girl Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), the film follows a married couple put to the test when their shared dependency on alcohol sends one of them spiraling out of control. It's a character study that, despite the substance abuse, invites all viewers in to share in the turmoil of the troubled relationship.

This year's relationship-on-the-rocks picture, Newlyweeds, a new dramedy from writer-director Shaka King, puts two lovers (Amari Cheatom, Trae Harris) in bed with a third troublemaker: Mary Jane.

Something tells us that King has more on his mind than just stoner-comedy tropes, and Newlyweeds—hokey title notwithstanding—could be a potent blend of marijuana humor and serious human drama. Or so we hope.

Director: Zal Batmanglij
Stars: Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell, Shiloh Fernandez, Patricia Clarkson
Release date: To be determined

In hindsight, our 25 Best Movies of 2012 list is missing a few worthy films. But that's the way year-end lists go. Had there been extra slots to work with, Sound of My Voice definitely would've made the cut. The rare psychological thriller that gets better with multiple viewings, Sound of My Voice is a hypnotic, bewildering look at two journalists who become intimate with a cult leader who claims she's from the year 2054. Brit Marling, who played the cult leader, co-wrote the screenplay with first-time director Zal Batmanglij.

It's that special kind of picture that warrants must-see loyalty to the pair's next project, which is why The East is a top priority in 2013. Marling, once again, stars in this Batmanglij-directed film, about an ex-FBI agent (Marling) who goes undercover to infiltrate a terrorist group that's forcing corporate big-wigs to partake in the dangerous products they've been manufacturing.

Whereas Sound of My Voice dabbled in lo-fi science fiction, The East expands Marling and Batmanglij's sensibilities to encompass the globalized world of white-collar nastiness. A big-name cast (Ellen Page, Patricia Clarkson, True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård) raises the stakes, too.

Director: John Krokidas
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Ben Foster, Michael C. Hall, Jack Huston, Elizabeth Olsen
Release date: To be determined

Released last month, the long-awaited big-screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac's classic novel On the Road was, sadly, a dud. A stiff, plodding screenplay stripped the momentum from Kerouac's prose and wasted a few first-class performances (namely Garrett Hedlund's) in the process. The misadventures of the Beats deserves a much more engaging movie. Hopefully that movie is Kill Your Darlings.

Set in 1944, at Columbia University, director/co-writer John Krokidas' film centers on Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), his newfound companion Lucien Carr (Chronicle's Dane DeHaan), William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster), and Kerouac (Boardwalk Empire star Jack Huston) as they try to start an on-the-page movement in the face of a murder they're all connected to.

Director: Chris Nelson
Stars: June Diane Raphael, Casey Wilson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alicia Silverstone, Jon Cryer, Brian Geraghty
Release date: To be determined

June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson are charming and uniquely funny when working apart. The former is part of the always hilarious podcast "How Did This Get Made?," co-hosted by comedians Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas and dedicated to eviscerating bad-meaning-good cinema. As for the latter, Wilson is an integral part of the ensemble behind ABC's admirably eccentric sitcom Happy Endings. But together, Raphael and Wilson haven't fared so well: They wrote the screenplay for 2009's horrendous, brutally unfunny flop Bride Wars. Yikes.

Can these two avenge themselves? With Ass Backwards (in which they also star), they're hoping to do just that. Written by Raphael and Wilson, it's a road trip comedy about two BFFs traveling back to their hometown to clear the reputations they gained years ago after tying for last place in a local beauty pageant. Fingers crossed that Bride Wars was a just a misstep.

Director: Antonio Campos
Stars: Brady Corbet, Mati Diop
Release date: April 5

Moviegoers looking for easy answers and connected-dots explanations didn't take too kindly to 2011's Martha Marcy May Marlene, a challenging look at the difficulties of leaving a cult. It was also one of the year's best movies. Written and directed by Sean Durkin, the divisive film resisted closure and signaled the arrival of a talented, uncompromising new collective of young Brooklyn-bred filmmakers known as Borderline Films (Durkin, Antonio Campos, and Josh Mond).

Next up for the Borderline crew is Simon Killer (produced by Durkin and Mond), written and directed by Campos (who produced Martha Marcy May Marlene). MMMM co-star Brady Corbet is front and center this time, playing Simon, a troubled American grad student vacationing in Paris after breaking up with his girlfriend. There, he starts a sexual relationship with a promiscuous men's club employee (Mati Diop). It's not a spoiler to say that things don't go well.

Director: Amy Seimetz
Stars: Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley, AJ Bowen, Kit Gwin
Release date: April 26

Everybody’s got baggage. It's just that some folks have the kind that can land you on death row in Florida. In the unconventional road-trip movie Sun Don’t Shine, Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and her boyfriend Leo (Kentucker Audley) drive from Jacksonville to Tampa, trying to keep a trunk full of trouble a secret so they can lighten their load—literally and figuratively—in the Everglades.

Carried by Sheil and Audley's stellar performances, both believably trashy, self-defeating, and hopeless, Sun Don’t Shine feels like a documentary. They're two criminals in the vein of the Coens—they don't know what they've gotten into.

A native Floridian, Seimetz does a magnificent job capturing the flavor of central Florida. Watching her film, you can feel the dirt caking on your face, then streaking down muddily as you sweat in the kind of oppressive heat that causes blood to boil and leads people to do very bad things.—Justin Monroe

Director: Ben Wheatley
Stars: Steve Oram, Alice Lowe
Release Date: To be determined

Last year, disturbing horror flick Kill List solidified British filmmaker's Ben Wheatley's status as one of the game's most exciting on-the-rise talents. But cinephiles haven't seen anything yet. Sightseers, which played at one of Fantastic Fest's two "secret screenings," cements Wheatley's place atop the pile of the best directors working today.

Brilliantly written by stars Steve Oram and Alice Lowe, Sightseers exists in the same space as Natural Born Killers, though its morbid sense of humor and quirky characterizations are unique. On a "holiday" road trip, a couple (Oram and Lowe, both superb) works through their relationship's kinks while several others die gruesomely. And it's all in good, twisted fun, a dose of macabre humor from an utterly in command Wheatley.

Director: Ben Wheatley
Stars: Michael Smiley, Julian Barratt, Reece Shearsmith, Peter Ferdinando
Release date: To be determined

The genre film community frequently sees new artists come in, release a few strong flicks, and then crossover into the mainstream. It's a well-worn rite of passage, and one that's often encouraging to watch. In the case of England's Ben Wheatley, though, it's more than encouraging: It's downright thrilling.

After impressing everyone with a dark comedy about criminals (Down Terrace) and a disturbing horror film about a doomed hitman (Kill List), Wheatley is ready to unleash his excellent lovers-gone-wild oddity Sightseers (as previously discussed here) onto American cinemas. But that's not the only movie he'll debut in 2013.

Switching things up in more ways than one, A Field in England is a period piece filmed in black-and-white that follows soldiers looking for treasure—against their commanders orders. Along the way, they indulge in some magic mushrooms with some undesirable results. Well, undesirable for the characters, not audience members.

Director: Rob Zombie
Stars: Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Philips, Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Judy Geesob, Patricia Quinn, Ernest Lee Thomas, Meg Foster, Maria Conchita Alonso, Barbara Crampton, Michaey Berryman, Sid Haig, Lisa Marie, Andrew Prine
Release Date: April 26

Love them or hate them, Rob Zombie's Halloween movies are the work of a filmmaker who's surgical when it comes to memorable kills, even when the screenplays are sloppy. The rocker-turned-director is at his best when he's handling self-created material, as in the demented House of 1,000 Corpses and its calmer but no less nightmarish follow-up The Devil's Rejects. The Lords of Salem might be his sickest work yet.

Starring his wife (and go-to actress) Sheri Moon Zombie, The Lords of Salem follows a radio DJ who unwittingly awakens a coven of witches after a record spins backwards on the air. Cheeky.

Based on its batty trailer and haunting stills (like the one above), The Lords of Salem appears to be a visually stunning, image-driven throwback to old-school Mario Bava and Dario Argento creepers, with strong doses of anything-goes wackiness.

Director: Franck Khalfoun
Stars: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder, Liane Balaban, America Olivo, Jan Broberg
Release Date: To be determined

Talk about outside-the-box casting. For their remake of the impossibly sleazy 1980 horror flick Maniac, director Franck Khalfoun and producer/co-writer Alexandra Aja (High Tension, Piranha 3D) selected Elijah Wood to play a deranged guy who murders young women, scalps them, and places their bloody hair on mannequins that he then befriends. Yes, Silence of the Lambs has come to Middle-earth.

Think back to Wood's quietly insane performance in Sin City, though, and it becomes clear that he's perfect for Maniac. Viewers who still can't accept the sight of Wood overpowering his victims, take note: Khalfoun shot the film in large part from the first-person POV, putting audiences directly into the killer's twisted mind.

Keep tabs on the release date announcements for this one—having seen it, we can confirm that Maniac is an early frontrunner for 2013's best horror movie.

Director: Kaare Andrews, Angela Bettis, Ernesto Diaz Espinosa, Jason Eisener, Bruno Forzani, Héléne Cattet, Adrián García Bogliano, Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, Jorge Michel Grau, Noboru Iguchi, Thomas Malling, Anders Morgenthaler, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisathanakun, Simon Rumley, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Nacho Vigalando, Jake West, Ti West, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, Yudai Yamaguchi
Release Date: January 31, VOD; March 8, theatrical

It doesn't get more gleefully sadistic than this. Made by 26 directors, each one assigned a different letter of the alphabet to use as inspiration for a four-minutes-or-less short about one kind of fatality, The ABCs of Death is a short-film program straight from hell. It's a depraved treasure chest of morbid curiosities.

The filmmakers, a who's who of international genre craftsmanship, include Canada's Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Britain's Simon Rumley (Red, White & Blue), fellow Brit Ben Wheatley (Kill List), Argentina's Adrián García Bogliano (Cold Sweat), and Mexico's Jorge Michel Grau (We are What We Are).

The ABCs of Death shows no shame whatsoever, offing people via Bigfoot, Nazis, and even a toilet. All bets are off.

Directors: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Edúardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, Jason Eisener
Stars: Adam Wingard, Lawrence Levine, L. C. Holt, Kelsy Abbott, Hannah Hughes
Release date: To be determined

Attention horror fans: There's a new franchise upon us that does not include the words Paranormal or Activity in the title. And it's proving to be the real deal.

Last year, the shaggy, lo-fi anthology V/H/S premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to significant buzz. It consisted of five short segments (as well as a frame story), each directed by a genre up-and-comer, including Ti West (The House of the Devil), David Bruckner (The Signal), and mumblecore vet Joe Swanberg (LOL). V/H/S has its passionate supporters (count us amongst them), but there are also plenty of detractors who've attacked the film for being too long, too threadbare, and misogynistic.

Last weekend, the inevitable sequel, S-VHS, debuted at Sundance, and early feedback indicates that the returning producers—co-writer Simon Barrett, co-director Adam Wingard, and producers Brad Miska and Roxanne Benjamin—have addressed those complaints. A full half-hour shorter (95 minutes this time around), S-VHS has been described as leaner, meaner, and far more ambitious.

Here, a new crop of bolder, bigger filmmakers—Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Eduardo Sanchez (The Blair Witch Project, Lovely Molly), Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption), and Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre)—go for broke with shorts about a cyborg eyeball that records everything it sees, a fresh zombie getting used to its new "life," a sadistic cult, and a Goonies-esque group of friends experiencing a close encounter of the nightmarish kind.

Director: Brandon Cronenberg
Stars: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell, Douglas Smith
Release date: To be determined

Brandon Cronenberg, the son of body-horror visionary David Cronenberg, doesn't seem all that interested in people embracing his feature film debut, Antiviral; cold, near-impenetrable, it's a challenging effort from a young director who's clearly studied his father's classics, like Videodrome and The Fly. As tough as it is to crack, the film is impossible to ignore.

Drawing inspiration from our culture's obsession with celebrity, Cronenberg's film creates an otherworldly society where doctors, like the intensely creepy Syd March (a marvelous Caleb Landry Jones), treat patients to injections of their favorite famous person's disease of choice; fork over your hard-earned cash, and you can feel closer to that Hollywood dream girl by battling through her strand of herpes.

Naturally, that process has dire consequences in Antiviral, especially when March indulges in the fatal illness of a starlet (the radiant Sarah Gadon) and has to fight through his deteriorating health to find a cure.

Directors: Jen and Sylvia Soska
Stars: Katharine Isabelle, Tristan Risk, Antonio Cupo, John Emmet Tracy, David Lodgren, Twan Holliday, Paula Lindberg
Release date: To be determined

Around the 40-minute mark in American Mary, one thing becomes clear: directors Jen and Sylvia Soska are not playing around.

Debuting last year with the cheaply made but highly enjoyable exploitation flick Dead Hooker in a Trunk, the Canadian sisters, known as the Twisted Twins, showed tons of potential, and their equally depraved follow-up demonstrates real growth.

Katharine Isabelle, playing the titular Mary, captivates as a med student dealing with school stress and financial troubles who falls down the sick rabbit hole of underground body modification. Carnage, dark comedy, and graphic sexuality coat the screen.

With just two films, these young directors have nailed their unique style, demonstrating that they are beholden to no standards of taste. Get familiar with the names Jen and Sylvia Soska—they're here to stay. A good thing, indeed.

Director: Adrián García Bogliano
Stars: Francisco Barreiro, Laura Caro, Alan Martinez, Michele Garcia
Release date: To be determined

Argentina's own Adrián García Bogliano can't be put into any one kind of box within the horror genre. With each new film, the young writer-director has shifted gears, challenging himself to subvert a common scary-movie trope; in Here Comes the Devil, Bogliano tries his hand at the supernatural, telling an unsettling and unpredictable tale about two loving, though fragile, parents struggling to figure out why their two kids have been acting so oddly after returning from a mysterious cave.

Cultivating a mood of overwhelming dread, Bogliano's latest twists and turns its way into a lane occupied by the most daring of horror movies, where familiar concepts and images play out in unexpected (sometimes questionable) ways; every choice indicates that he's a director unafraid of failing. Here Comes the Devil won every single horror prize at last September's Fantastic Fest awards ceremony, and for good reason: It's an assured effort from an exciting new voice.