The 15 Best Movies Complex Saw At The SXSW 2012 Film Festival

Director: Adam Leon
Stars: Tashiana Washington, Ty Hickson, Meeko, Zoe Lescaze, Sam Soghor

There’s a moment nearly halfway into writer-director Adam Leon’s feature film debut Gimme The Loot (which won SXSW’s Grand Jury prize for narrative movies) where its two leads, teenage NYC graffiti bombers Sophia (Tashiana Washington) and Malcolm (Ty Hickson), debate the efficiency full-member-sized condoms. Malcolm thinks that rubbers should just cover the “head,” like a “fitted cap”; Sophia, as in most of their chats, thinks he’s full of shit. It’s a very funny exchange that doesn’t feel scripted, mainly because of the actors’ naturalistic performances, and that’s what lifts Gimme The Loot above the threshold of excellence as a whole: The film always feels in-the-moment and real.

Living in the Bronx, and, as a result, pledging allegiance to the New York Yankees’ pinstripes, Sophia and Malcolm hatch a plan to “tag” the Mets Home Run Ball at the Queens-located Citi Field, an incredibly ambitious scheme that’s halted when Sophia gets robbed by members of a rival spray-can-toting gang. The theft inspires Malcolm to hatch a heist of his own, one that involves jacking a case of expensive jewelry from an upper-class floozy (Zoe Lescaze) to whom he recently brought drugs.

In Leon’s vibrant, warm, and consistently amusing film, the characters’ sticky-fingered, urban adventure itself ranks secondary to Gimme The Loot fluid direction and breathlessly witty dialogue, spoken by a squad of first-time performers who uniformly come off as real-deal people, not fictional creations. It’s every bit as authentic in spirit as Larry Clark’s similarly presented Kids (1995), only, with its amiability, it’s much more accessible.

Director: Paco Plaza
Stars: Leticia Dolera, Javier Botet, Diego Martin, Ismael Martinez, Mireia Rios, Carla Nieto

Paco Plaza, one-half of the Spanish filmmaking duo behind the double whammy package of [REC] (2007) and [REC] 2 (2009), apparently doesn’t care much for the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Riding solo for [REC] 3: Genesis, Plaza conceived the zombie version of 1982’s Halloween III: Season Of The Witch; you know, the one that has nothing to do with Michael Myers. Here, though, the rabid flesh-eating are still accounted for, but Plaza has totally abandoned the first two films’ claustrophobia, creepiness, and visceral intensity; for the stand-up-and-cheer [REC] 3: Genesis, he’s put together a goofy, balls-out horror-comedy in the vein of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. And the result is a wild blast.

Starting off in the series’ familiar first-person/found-footage style, Plaza quickly abandons that technique for a traditional movie feel, and that’s also when the over-the-top gore and laughs begin. The setting is the wedding of lovers Clara (Leticia Dolera) and Koldo (Javier Botet), a joyous occasion that’s interrupted by the groom’s uncle and his bitten-by-a-dog, infected hand. And before long, nearly the entire party has gone all ghoul, the groom randomly has on Medeival armor, and the suddenly ass-kicking bride uses a chainsaw to cut a zombie’s head in half.

[REC] 3: Genesis is the rare horror-comedy in which all of the jokes connect, especially a running gag about John Sponge, a kids’ entertainer unable to use “Bob” for copyright reasons. Understandably, die-hard [REC] fans cry foul at such a stark thematic departure, yet, for those able to settle into Plaza’s shamelessly ridiculous tone, [REC] 3: Genesis is a gruesome delight.

Director: Mike Birbiglia
Stars: Mike Birbiglia, Lauren Ambrose, James Rebhorn, Carol Kane, Cristin Milioti, Aya Cash, Marc Maron, David Wain, Kristen Schaal, Henry Phillips

Having just (barely) endured the mostly unfunny stupidity of The Babymakers, your trusty SXSW Complex film head needed a comedy that, you know, actually provided genuine humor and didn’t make us want to venture to the nearest exit. Even under more positive circumstances, though, stand-up comedian Mike Birbiglia’s directorial debut—the personal, fictionalized pseudo-memoir Sleepwalk With Me—would still be a rousing success, though Birbiglia deserves some inadvertent credit post-Babymakers.

Closely based on his own battles with romantic commitment and sleepwalking, all of which has been covered in his on-stage jokes, Birbiglia’s film centers on Matt, a struggling comedian (played by Birbiglia himself) who tends the bar at a local comedy club while dodging marriage to his loving and extremely patient eight-year girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose).

As his career slowly picks up, Matt questions both his relationship and his life even more, and it’s all told with the Birbiglia’s usual dry, unassuming sensibilities—his pleasantness and warmth give Birbiglia a sympathetic edge from the first scene onward. With its subtle humor and likeable sweetness, Sleepwalk With Me is the kind of comedy that easily wins you over by simply appreciating its own characters and simplicities, right down to the film’s honest, bittersweet, yet happy ending.

Director: Austin Chick
Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Nicole LaLiberte, Michael Stahl-David, Liam Aiken, Raul Casso

Nothing says “female empowerment” like firing a bullet into a man’s derriere as he’s cuffed to a bedpost—right? That’s part of the conundrum surrounding Girls Against Boys, a fascinating look at a once-well-meaning college student’s (Danielle Panabaker) descent into vengeful man-killing. Equal parts gruesome horror picture and psychological thriller, writer-director Austin Chick’s midnight movie doesn’t play by any rules but its own, and, though its motivations aren’t always easy to digest, Girls Against Boys makes quite a few lofty statements about a woman’s scorn.

Panabaker’s character, Shay, starts off getting dumped by her older, married boyfriend and ends up getting raped by a dude she meets in a club—all within the film’s first 30 minutes. There to push her toward revenge is co-worker LuLu (Nicole LaLiberte), a sociopathic vixen who treats homicide with a blasé disposition. Together, the blood-lusting ladies go on an all-male-victim murder spree, going so far as to lop one guy’s feet off with a power drill.

Near the film’s third act, Girls Against Boys shifts its narrative toward a familiar angle seen in female-centric genre fare like Single White Female and its rip-off The Roommate. Chick, handling his characters with subtle ambiguity, sprinkles clues that hint at a deeper meaning to it all, and in its closing seconds Girls Against Boys all but asks to be watched again. Sign us up.

Director: Gareth Huw Evans
Stars: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Doni Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Ray Sahetapy, Tegar Satrya, Iang Darmawan, Eka "Piranha" Rahmadia, Verdi Solaiman

The Raid: Redemption is the best video game you’ll, unfortunately, never get to play, because, obviously, it’s a feature film. But that’s the coolest and most irresistible thing about Welsh writer-director Gareth Huw Evans’ balls-to-the-wall action movie, an unstoppable barrage of fight scenes and insane hand-to-hand choreography (in the form of the Indonesian mart art style known as Silat) that’s easily the best film of its kind in years.

The bare-bones plot would make for a great first-person console title: a team of heavily armed police officers is sent into an apartment building overrun with drug dealers and criminals, and it doesn’t take long for the doors to lock and the proverbial shit to hit the fan. Amidst the chaos, The Raid’s central hero, Rama, a rookie cop (Iko Uwais, who deserves to be Hollywood’s next big action hero), gets separated from his colleagues and has to brawl his way to the top floor and take out the bad guys’ overlord.

And that’s all the story that Evans’ phenomenally violent and tightly executed cinematic knockout needs, really. It’s basically 100 minutes of uninterrupted, expertly presented action, with authentic physical combat instead of any distracting CGI trickery. Get ready to knuckle up.

Director: Ciaran Foy
Stars: Aneurin Barnard, James Cosmo, Wunmi Mosaku, Amy Shiels

Like Bram Stoker’s legendary Count craves blood, horror fans fiend for original ideas, which is, ultimately, a mostly thankless approach to one’s entertainment choices. But every now and then, a little genre flick comes along offers fresh ideas while cleverly tweaking classic tropes; at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, that movie is the Irish adrenaline rush called Citadel.

Inspired by his own battles with intense agoraphobia, Irish writer-director Ciaran Foy’s taut creepshow centers on Tommy (Aneurin Barnard), an afraid-of-everything, single, widowed father who’s been traumatized after an attack by a gang of hoodie-wearing kids; turns out, the youngsters aren’t all that young, but, rather, feral, zombie-like ghouls that can only see fear. Which, naturally, sucks for an agoraphobic guy, especially when his infant daughter’s been abducted by the hooded villains.

Citadel jumps right into the macabre, showcasing the badass creature-like antagonists right away and never leaving them in the shadows; clearly confident about his self-conceived horror, Foy generates a slew of wicked set-pieces, the best of which turns a public bus into a bloodbath. He’s a genre filmmaker to watch.

Director: William Friedkin
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, Juno Temple

The power of a thunderous movie ending should never be underestimated. Even if everything that precedes a film’s closing scenes underwhelms, the last shot can send audiences out on a high that’ll make them forgive all of the inadequacies. Yet, what makes acclaimed director William Friedkin’s (The French Connection, The Exorcist) extremely pulpy and grimy, though unfairly NC-17-rated, Killer Joe such a complete success is that, yes, it has one of the craziest, entertainingly off-the-rails endings in recent years, but the film as a whole is a victory.

In screenwriter Tracy Letts’ adaptation of his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Matthew McConaughey serves a smoldering, combustible turn as a seedy Dallas cop, nicknamed Killer Joe whose side hustle involves killing folks for cash; his target of the moment is the good-for-nothing mother of a young, in-debt deadbeat (Emile Hirsch) from a dysfunctional trailer park family. Unable to pay Joe, Hirsch begrudgingly gives his cute space cadet of a little sister (Juno Temple) up as a “retainer.”

From there, Killer Joe fires on all trashy cylinders, gleefully offering up sex with a minor, corpses, brutal misogyny, and the most perverted use of a fried chicken leg imaginable. And the best part of it all: It’s a black comedy. One that’s funny as hell, in fact.

Directors: Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe
Stars: Chris Langham, Simon Amstell, Amanda Hadingue, Colin Hurley, Will Sharpe, Anna O'Grady, Helen Cripps

With a title like Black Pond, and a story that explores the events that led to British media to dub the Thompson clan the “Family of Killers," you might expect something bloody and grotesque. What you get in first-time feature filmmakers Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley’s black comedy, which received a nomination for Outstanding Debut at this year's BAFTAs (awards presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts), is something far more subtle and rewarding.

The Thompson family is on the verge of collapse, thanks to resentment lingering between mother Sophie (Amanda Hadingue), father Tom (Chris Langham), and their two daughters (Anna O'Grady and Helen Cripps), when an eccentric but genial stranger, Blake (Colin Hurley), wanders into their lives. He is a bit morbid, but he also puts smiles on the faces of Sophie, an unfulfilled poet, and Tom, a businessman who does soul-crushing work so he can enjoy a pool and tennis court for a little while each year.

Then the family's charming, three-legged dog, named “Boy” because he responded when Tom called him that once, mysteriously drowns in front of Blake in what is described as either a fit of hysterical flailing for survival or an ecstatic dance to celebrate departure from a depressing existence. When the daughters and their friend Tim (co-director Will Sharpe, who also co-wrote the story and wrote both the screenplay and the film’s poetry) come home for the beloved pet’s burial, things get even stranger, and eventually the group finds itself burying Blake as well.

Full of wonderfully dry British humor (Tim's sadistic, belittling psychotherapist, played by British comedian Simon Amstell, is particularly hilarious), poignancy found in the mundane, and beautiful surreal visuals that defy the film's £25,000 budget (roughly $40,000), Black Pond is a near-death experience that makes you want to celebrate life and the meaningful moments that sneak up on you.

Director: Katie Dellamaggiore

If this year’s SXSW Film Festival had one predominant theme, it’s certainly been that of gloomy fiction; seriously, even the majority of the lineup’s comedies had dark edges along with the laughs (or lack thereof). Thus, a film like documentarian Katie Dellamaggiore’s Brooklyn Castle is a welcome change-of-pace.

Though it touches on some no-joke issues, Dellamaggiore’s touching look at the NYC borough’s I.S. 318 junior high school chess team glides through its consistently entertaining 100 minutes with the buoyancy of 12-year-old kids just trying to have fun and enjoy life. Matters such as budget cuts and educational deficiencies are there, and given their proper stand-up-against-the-man attention, but Brooklyn Castle isn’t all about woes—it’s a celebration of how afterschool programs benefit today’s youth.

The heartwarming doc follows a group of I.S. 318 chess champions, showing how the love of kings and rooks bonds them, inspires helpfulness, and makes them both better students and sources of pride for their hard-working parents. There’s a sense of uncontrollable joy that comes from seeing teenage Rochelle, one of the film’s central youngsters, winning a full ride to a major university, or Pobo, a lovable extrovert with a heart of gold, consoling a defeated teammate. The kids, like Brooklyn Castle as a whole, are natural crowd-pleasers.

Director: Amy Seimetz
Stars: Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley, AJ Bowen, Kit Gwinn, Mark Reeb

Everybody’s got baggage. Some folks just have the kind that can get you the death penalty in Florida. In the unconventional road trip movie Sun Don’t Shine, Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and her boyfriend Leo (Kentucker Audley) drive tensely from Jacksonville to Tampa trying to keep a trunk full of trouble secret so they can lighten their load, literally if not mentally, in the Everglades.

Carried by Sheil and Audley's stellar performances, which are believably trashy, self-defeating, and hopeless, Sun Don’t Shine feels like a crime documentary following two people who, as criminals, are fish out of water (a theme that is paralleled charmingly in scenes at a real-life roadside mermaid attraction, about which filmmaker Amy Seimetz (pictured above) made the 2008 documentary short We Saw Such Things). As Crystal’s dim-witted inability to recognize the stakes, and her jealousy of a woman Leo seeks help from, threaten to ruin them both, their bond and the fantasy of happily ever after begins to melt under the stifling sun.

A native Floridian, Seimetz does a magnificent job capturing the flavor of central Florida. Watching her marvelous film, you can practically 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.

Directors: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Joe Swanberg, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence
Stars: Calvin Reeder, Lane Hughes, Joe Swanberg, Sophia Takal, Kate Lyn Sheil, Joe Sykes, Hannah Fierman, Mike Donlan, Drew Sawyer, Drew Moerlein, Jason Yachanin, Helen Rogers

The horror anthology is a tricky beast to wrangle. Comprised of multiple short films, all rolled into one something-for-everyone package, the genre omnibus inherently brings with the risk of over-indulgence; if you’ve got three or four mini-movies in one package, there’s a strong chance of one or two inferior segments.

V/H/S, the new found-footage anthology backed by some of horror’s most exciting young filmmakers, has five stories, plus a wraparound framing narrative, and not all of them are entirely successful. Touching on various subgenres, the free-spirited and crowd-pleasing V/H/S finds the most success in classic tropes, particularly the haunted house (YouTube collective Radio Silence’s remarkably insane closing segment, the no-holds barred funhouse ride “10/31/98”) and the slasher (Glenn McQuaid’s inventive killer-in-the-woods chiller “Tuesday The 17th”) conventions.

Far less successful is “Tape 56,” the Adam Wingard-directed wraparound that’s initially intriguing but goes nowhere. Even in “Tape 56,” though, which follows four douchebag pranksters as they break into an empty home and watch old videotapes next to a dead body, V/H/S exhibits the reckless merriment of daring filmmakers all having a blast, not “working,” per se. It’s in the ambitious visual devices that freshen up the found-footage conceit (i.e., video-glasses and ghosts seen via laptops’ Skype cameras), and it’s in the outbursts of extreme gore and exposed female breasts that frequently appear. Flaws or not, V/H/S reminds us how wicked horror can be when it’s just about fun.

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake M. Johnson, Karan Soni, Mary Lynn, Rajskub, Jenica Bergere, Jeff Garlin, Kristen Bell

Safety Not Guaranteed is a testament to the fact that, when you’ve got a fine cast and a smart screenwriter, the most overdone of concepts can work like gangbusters. The subject of time travel isn’t revolutionary, nor is the Amblin-esque theme of “dream big,” but first-time director Colin Trevorrow’s quirky and heartfelt comedy breezes through its scant 85-minute duration with a delightful freshness.

Aubrey Plaza, adding subtle complexities to her usual awkward demeanor, plays a Seattle-based magazine intern who, along with an arrogant reporter (New Girl’s Jake M. Johnson, whose comedic timing is impeccable here) and a nerdy fellow intern (Karan Soni, who’s also spot-on with his one-liners), track down an eccentric grocery store worker (Mark Duplass) after he requests a partner for time travel through the classifieds.

The expected beats are all hit: There’s an obvious love connection, the geek caps off his first drunken night with some sex, and the douchebag betters himself. Fortunately, screenwriter Derek Connolly’s characters are well developed, and the actors uniformly sell every quieter moment and sillier, punchline-dependent gag. A real actor’s showcase, Safety Not Guaranteed charms more than enough to allow you to overlook any minor qualms.

Director: Eduardo Sanchez
Stars: Gretchen Lodge, Johnny Lewis, Alexandra Holden

Modern-day horror doesn’t get much creepier than Lovely Molly, the latest effort from Eduardo Sanchez, one-half of the team behind 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. Which is, of course, a classic, but it’s perfectly in line to say that Lovely Molly is Sanchez’s best film to date. Pitch-black in its darkness and slickly ambiguous, the best genre film currently showing at SXSW moves along at an incredibly unnerving pace, slithering its way along until reaching a completely satisfying payoff.

Newcomer Gretchen Lodge is dynamite as the titular Molly, a newlywed who moves into her family’s old, spooky home with her new husband (Sons Of Anarchy vet Johnny Lewis); there, memories of her deceased father and the horse stable nearby settle into her mind, triggering a violent mental breakdown. Is it possession? Or an old drug addiction resurfacing?

Sanchez drops several clues for every possible explanation, along with seriously effective deaths, hints of the supernatural that aren’t telegraphed, and several haunting set-pieces, one of which keeps nails bit as Molly hears an unseen someone crooning a macabre tune.

Lovely Molly gets under your skin from its first moment through its eerie conclusion; it’s sophisticated genre material, and deserves to be this year’s Insidious if given the right marketing push.

Director: Megan Griffiths
Stars: Jamie Chung, Beau Bridges, Scott Mechlowicz, Matt O’Leary, Mariana Klaveno

There are still five screening-filled days left in the SXSW 2012 Film Festival, yet it’s tough to think that we’ll come across a delightful revelation as big as former Complex cover girl Jamie Chung’s performance in the excellent, hard-edge drama Eden. The beautiful actress’ post-Real World days have been spent populating unbearable comedies (Grown Ups, The Hangover Part II) and providing eye candy in critically panned action flicks (Dragonball: Evolution, Sucker Punch); given her first chance to hold down a leading role in Eden, though, she rises to the occasion in eye-opening ways.

And she’s been given one hell of a role to inhabit. Based on the real-life experiences of Chong Kim, Eden follows a sweet, naïve, brace-faced Korean-American teenager (Chung) as she’s kidnapped, placed into a secret prostitution ring, and forced to work her way up the ranks, from sex provider to glorified receptionist, for over a year.

Griffiths and screenwriter Richard B. Phillips present the underground world of human trafficking with unflinching harshness; one scene, in which Chung’s raised arms are cuffed and a whip comes out, is especially disturbing. Fortunately for Chong Kim, whose bravery in sharing such a horrific memory is admirable, her decision to relive her 1994-1995 nightmares is rewarded by Griffiths’ superb and nuanced direction, Phillips’ expertly paced script, and Chung’s fearlessness. In terms of SXSW, Eden is the fest’s most pleasant surprise thus far.

Director: Drew Goddard
Stars: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, Amy Acker

In terms of the horror genre, The Cabin In The Woods goes out of its way to please crowds. Directed by Cloverfield screenwriter/Lost veteran Drew Goddard (who co-wrote the script with Joss Whedon), the SXSW 2012 Film Festival’s opening night flick reconnects with that old meta, self-aware, darkly comedic Scream vibe, though it’s arguably better at pulling off the wink-wink nature than Wes Craven’s slasher classic. Reportedly penned over three days, spent in a hotel room, The Cabin In The Woods represents Goddard’s and Whedon’s passionate fanboy love for scary movies, and, subsequently, it’s catnip for like-minded movie heads.

The set-up is right out of films like The Evil Dead, and intentionally so: Five stereotypical party-seeking college students head off to the titular abode for a weekend of drinks and sex, but, unbeknownst to them, there’s a conspiratorial plot underway, and that’s all we’re going to say here. A major part of Cabin’s enjoyment lies in its constant unspooling of vintage horror movie references, which all lead into one of the grandest payoffs you’re likely to ever see.

The best part of all: Unlike most of the films that screened at SXSW last week, The Cabin In The Woods will actually hit nationwide theaters in the near future—April 13th, to be exact. Mark your calendars and call friends to accompany you with the quickness.