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Five Horror Movies We’re Dying to See at Sundance (Professor Horror Goes to Park City)

By. Professor Horror

 

    This year’s Sundance feels extra special for us because it marks Professor Horror’s very first time attending in person, and honestly? We are thrilled. Sundance has quietly become one of the most reliable places for horror to sneak in, take over, and absolutely wreck people...in the best way. This is the festival that unleashed Hereditary, The Witch, It Follows, and Talk to Me...films that didn’t just premiere at Sundance but went on to crawl into the collective horror brain and refuse to leave. From slow-burn psychological dread to unhinged Midnight chaos, Sundance consistently proves that horror isn’t a side dish or a guilty pleasure, but it’s doing some of the most interesting work in cinema right now. So heading into this year, expectations are high. Below are five horror (and horror-adjacent) films we’re especially excited to experience in packed theaters, surrounded by snow, nervous laughter, and audiences ready to scream, gasp, and immediately argue about what they just watched. If Sundance history has taught us anything, it’s that at least one of these is going to completely ruin our mood for a week...and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

BUDDY

 

One of the buzziest titles in the Midnight lineup, BUDDY is directed by Casper Kelly and immediately feels like it’s playing in that deliciously uncomfortable space between satire and nightmare. The film centers on a group of kids who become trapped inside a bizarre, seemingly wholesome children’s television show, only to realize that its mascot...Buddy...is not there to help them. What starts as brightly colored, forced-fun programming quickly curdles into something sinister, as the rules of the show begin to warp reality itself. Tonally, BUDDY gives off serious Death to Smoochy energy with a horror twist, but there’s also a hint of Pooka! in its obsession with artificial cheer and creepy creatures gone wrong. With a cast that includes Michael Shannon, Cristin Milioti, Topher Grace, and Keegan-Michael Key, the film looks poised to balance absurd humor with genuine menace. There’s still a lot being kept under wraps, which honestly makes it even more exciting.

 

THE GALLERIST

 

One of Sundance’s major premieres this year, THE GALLERIST leans into sleek, prestige psychological horror with teeth. Directed by Cathy Yan, the film stars Natalie Portman as a powerful art dealer preparing for a high-stakes debut at Art Basel. As the pressure mounts, her carefully controlled world begins to crack, which exposes the cruelty, desperation, and moral rot beneath elite art culture. While the premise suggests a sharp thriller, what makes THE GALLERIST especially intriguing is its thematic undertone: obsession with relevance, exploitation disguised as taste, and the violence embedded in systems that reward prestige at any cost. The film also features Jenna Ortega and Zach Galifianakis, adding an unpredictable edge to the ensemble. This is very much a Sundance horror: stylish, unsettling, and more interested in psychological collapse than cheap shocks. If it delivers on its promise, THE GALLERIST could sit comfortably alongside the festival’s recent run of smart, socially charged genre films.

 

THE UNDERTONE

 

THE UNDERTONE brings mood in spades, this is the film I have already seen and absolutely cannot wait to revisit. Directed by Ian Tuason, this restrained horror-thriller follows Evy, a horror podcaster caring for her dying mother while analyzing a series of increasingly disturbing audio files sent by an anonymous source. What begins as eerie but manageable podcast material slowly takes on a ritualistic quality as Evy listens, rewinds, isolates, and replays fragments that blur the line between investigation and invocation. The film’s terror emerges through sound, silence, and repetition rather than spectacle, with headphones functioning as both sanctuary and trap, allowing Evy to retreat from grief even as they pull her deeper into obsession. Tuason strips away traditional horror cues in favor of darkness, stillness, and sonic disorientation, creating an experience that feels constantly on edge and emotionally suffocating. The result is an intimate, unnerving film that gets under your skin through restraint and atmosphere. Experiencing THE UNDERTONE again at Sundance, especially with an audience encountering it for the first time, feels like a gift. This is exactly the kind of film that benefits from communal viewing, where the tension quietly builds and ripples through the room as listening itself becomes a shared, unsettling act.

 

SACCHARINE

 

Australia continues to quietly dominate modern horror, and SACCHARINE looks ready to carry that torch. Directed by Natalie Erika James, the film centers on Hana, a medical student who becomes entangled in a disturbing weight-loss trend involving the consumption of human ashes. What begins as desperation quickly turns into supernatural terror when Hana realizes she’s being stalked by a hungry spirit with unfinished business. The premise alone is deeply unsettling, but what makes SACCHARINE especially exciting is its potential to blend body horror with cultural commentary...something Australian horror does exceptionally well. Early descriptions suggest a film that’s intimate, eerie, and emotionally raw, using the supernatural to explore obsession, control, and self-erasure. If it leans into atmosphere and psychological unease rather than shock-for-shock’s-sake, SACCHARINE could easily become one of this year’s breakout Midnight titles.

 

 

ROCK SPRINGS

 

After the death of her father, a young girl relocates with her mother and grandmother to an isolated home in a new town, only to uncover a sinister presence tied to the land, the surrounding woods, and a buried local history that refuses to stay buried. Written and directed by Vera Miao, ROCK SPRINGS signals itself as a promising horror debut not just through its supernatural premise, but through its attention to generational trauma, inherited fear, and the way history lingers in place. Drawing on Chinese beliefs about the afterlife and a real historical atrocity, the film appears to frame horror as something accumulated over time rather than suddenly unleashed, letting dread seep in slowly through atmosphere, memory, and environment. Kelly Marie Tran anchors the film as a mother whose concern for her child carries emotional weight, while Benedict Wong brings gravity and menace to the past that resurfaces, suggesting performances that ground the supernatural in lived pain. With cinematography by Heyjin Jun, the film promises a visually restrained but emotionally loaded approach to horror, one that prioritizes unease over shock and atmosphere over spectacle. All signs point to a film that uses genre not as decoration, but as a way to explore racism, migration, and inherited trauma through creeping tension and carefully cultivated dread, making ROCK SPRINGS one of the festival’s most intriguing slow-burn horror prospects.