12 Genre Films We Can’t Wait To See At the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival
This week marks the beginning of the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, which brings all genres and types of films to New York City. And the best parts of the fest, in our humble genre-loving opinion, are the Midnight and Escape from Tribeca programs. They are packed with weird, wild, and wonderful examples of what it means to make a unique horror experience.
While there are so many new titles coming to Tribeca this year, we’d be remiss to at least not mention two retrospectives we’re excited to see as part of the festival. The first is the 4K remaster of Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto’s Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. It’s essentially a visual companion to Daft Punk’s second album, Discovery, and it’s perfect for the big screen. The second is a 70 mm restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic thriller North by Northwest.
Check out the 12 genre films we can’t wait to see at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
The A-Frame, dir. Calvin Reeder
Starring Johnny Whitworth, Dana Namerode, Nik Dodani, Laketa Caston
In this mind-bending sci-fi comedy, a quantum physicist’s groundbreaking machine inadvertently opens a portal to a subatomic universe while attempting to prove its efficacy. During his experiments on rats, he stumbles upon a radical cancer treatment that could revolutionize modern medicine. Driven by ambition and the desire to legitimize his work, the physicist begins human trials, raising the stakes and blurring the lines between science and ethics.
#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead, dir. Marcus Dunstan
Starring Jade Pettyjohn, Jojo Siwa, Jennifer Ens, Ali Fumiko Whitney, Michaella Russell, Julian Haig, Justin Derickson, Cardi Wong, Jack Doupe-Smith
It should be the best party of the year: Karmapalooza, a massive music festival. When a group of college friends score tickets to the event, they set out on a road trip, packed into a minivan stashed with all the booze and weed they need. But a vehicular mishap forces them to spend the night inside an isolated Airbnb, which seems cool enough — after all, where better to party hard than in someone else’s house? Not so fast. Being stuck indoors together causes their internal rifts and shared past to surface. Even worse, an uninvited guest joins the party and decides they need to pay for their transgressions by murdering them in extremely gory ways tied to their specific sins.
Beacon, dir, Roxy Shih
Starring Demián Bichir, Julia Goldani Telles
Driven by an overzealous sense of adventure, young sailor Emily (Julia Goldani Telles), quickly runs into trouble when she shipwrecks on a remote island off the coast of South America. She’s rescued by the island’s lone inhabitant, Demián Bichir’s mysterious light keeper Ismael. With communications down due to incredibly stormy conditions, they try to work together to ensure each other’s survival, but tension grows once Emily begins to question Ismael’s lack of answers and the bizarre occurrences they encounter as time passes.
The Damned, dir. Thordur Palsson
Starring Odessa Young, Joe Cole
In this atmospheric period drama set in the 19th century, Eva, a young widow, faces an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing village during a cruel winter. With their food supplies dwindling, Eva and her town must decide whether to rescue the shipwrecked sailors or let them perish to ensure their own survival. As the consequences of their actions begin to manifest, the villagers find themselves grappling with the weight of their decisions and the mounting unease that permeates their close-knit community.
A Desert, dir. Joshua Erkman
Starring David Yow, Kai Lennox, Sarah Lind, Zachary Ray Sherman, Ashley B. Smith, Rob Zabrecky
Driving across the American Southwest, struggling photographer Alex is hoping to revive his career and find inspiration within the vast landscape of deserts and abandoned roadside structures. A pit stop at an otherwise inconspicuous motel alters his plans, thanks to a younger couple whose devil-may-care attitude initially attracts Alex but quickly proves to be something more dangerous than he thought. Before long, what began as a restorative road trip descends into a nightmare that spirals beyond his control.
The Devil’s Bath, dir. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
Starring Anja Plaschg, Maria Hofstätter, David Scheid
In 18th century Austria, Agnes (Anja Plaschg) embarks on a new life as she marries her beloved Wolf (David Scheid). However, her hopes for marital bliss are quickly shattered by a controlling mother-in-law and her husband’s apparent disinterest in her. As Agnes struggles with the isolation and despair of her unfulfilling existence, she descends down a dark and disturbing path that leads her to contemplate the unthinkable.
Kill, dir. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Starring Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Tanya Maniktala
Special Ops commando Amrit (played by supreme badass Lakshya) is madly in love with the beautiful Tulika, but there’s a big problem: her family has put her on a train heading for New Delhi and toward an arranged marriage. Determined not to lose Tulika, Amrit boards the train and professes his love. Unfortunately for all involved, 40 armed bandits also board the train, terrorizing the passengers and eventually spilling blood, forcing Amrit to take a 1-against-40 stand against the criminals. And by “stand,” we mean a complete evisceration of everyone in his path via hand-to-hand combat and the carnage-fueled deployment of whatever foreign object is within reach.
She Loved Blossoms More, dir. Yannis Veslemes
Starring Panos Papadopoulos, Julio Giorgos Katsis, Aris Balis, Sandra Abuelghanam Sarafanova, Alexia Kaltsiki, Dominique Pinon
Losing a parent is never easy. Trying to bring a deceased parent back to life is even harder. Yet that’s exactly what a trio of brothers attempt to do to their late mother, whose passing has weighed on all of them immensely and put a strain on their relationship with their domineering father. They’ve built an elaborate time machine in hopes of bringing their mother back from the grave, but the machine’s intricacies, along with their dad’s increasingly strange demands, plunge them into a deliriously bad trip, one fueled by body horror and mind-bending imagery.
The Unknown, dir. Todd Browning
A masterclass in subversion, Tod Browning’s 1927 silent film classic shocks and awes through Lon Chaney’s towering performance as carnival knife thrower “Alonzo the Armless.” It’s also an early watershed moment for disability representation in horror cinema, its power remaining potent nearly 100 years later.
After the screening, there will be a conversation between actor, writer, and disability advocate Mat Fraser and fellow actor and disability advocate Christine Bruno.
Vulcanizadora, dir. Joel Potrykus
Starring Joel Potrykus, Joshua Burge, Bill Vincent, Solo Potrykus
In this intense tale from provocateur Joel Potrykus, two friends (Potrykus and Joshua Burge), embark on a disturbing mission in the Michigan woods. As they trudge through the forest, their intentions become increasingly clear. When their plan ultimately unravels, one of the friends must return home to face the surreal and unsettling consequences of their actions, grappling with the legal and emotional repercussions that follow.
The Weekend, dir. Daniel Emeke Oriahi
Starring Uzoamaka Aniunoh, Bucci Franklin, Meg Otanwa, Keppy Ekpeyong Bassey, Gloria Anozie-Young, Damilola Ogunsi
Orphaned at a young age, Nikya has finally gotten the family she always wanted in her fiancé Luke. Now, there is only one thing that would make her life complete: to meet his parents and relatives. However Luke is reticent, having not been home in over a decade. Longing for connection, Nikya pushes him to reconcile with his past and soon they are off to Luke’s childhood home. While there Nikya learns that family baggage can be harder to stomach than she assumed.
Witches, dir. Elizabeth Sankey
Following up her acclaimed 2019 documentary Romantic Comedy, filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey turns her attention to another genre of cinematic depiction of particular interest to women: the witch. How have witches been characterized and shown across the history of film, television, and culture? How has this representation changed and evolved? And most importantly, what is going on just beneath the surface?
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