A Guide to SXSW: Late Night Screenings

For the second straight year, JoBlo.com will be heading down to Austin for SXSW, which, for my money, is one of the best damn film festivals you can attend. It’s not as chic as Sundance nor as star-studded as Toronto, but if you’re a geeky fan of actual movies, you can’t do better than SXSW.

That’s not to say that SXSW and the experience in Austin isn’t overwhelming. Even on my second go ’round, I want to do so much more than time is allowing and figuring out how to manage it all hasn’t been easy. Enter the SXSW All-Stars.

JoBlo.com has teamed up with Cinematical, UGO, HitFix, Film School Rejects, Badass Digest, Gordon and the Whale and Ain’t It Cool News to provide readers and attendees an all-encompassing guide to the fest. It’s not just about movies, but what panels to see, the best places to eat, the best places to party and much more. We’ll kick it off with our guide to SXSW After Dark and the infamous midnight screenings. They’re broken up by day so you nite owls can see what lies ahead when the clock strikes midnight.

As previously mentioned, I’ll be at SXSW starting today until next Thursday so whether you’re a reader, filmmaker, publicist or bartender, drop me a line at mikesampson [at] joblo.com! I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that I’m both honored and excited to be moderating the “A Conversation With Paul Reubens” panel on Sunday at 12:30pm in Austin Convention Center Room 18ABCD. I promise a great conversation with the man behind Pee-wee Herman!

Must See Panels // Good Eating at SXSW // SXSW Nightlife // The Survivor’s Guide for Out-of-Towners // Everything You Need to Know About the Venues // Non-Movie Fun at SXSW // Films You Can’t Miss

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Midnight Shorts
[11:30pm, Alamo Ritz 2]

A collection of 14 provocative short films that cover such diverse topics as martial arts, suicide, ghosts, love and anal sex.

INSIDIOUS
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

The creators of SAW and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY team up to reinvent the haunted-house genre for a new generation with INSIDIOUS, paying tribute to such horror classics as CARNIVAL OF SOULS, THE EXORCIST and POLTERGEIST. Renais (Rose Byrne) and her husband Josh (Patrick Wilson) are still unpacking boxes in their family’s new home when she first senses a sinister presence. Eerie events steadily escalate into supernatural attacks, until one day their oldest son slips into a mysterious coma. Renais and Josh abandon their ghost-ridden home and attempt to heal their broken family, turning to an unorthodox expert in supernatural occurrences (Lin Shaye). They soon discover: It’s not the house that’s haunted.

LITTLE DEATHS
[Midnight, Alamo Lamar A]

A provocative, cutting-edge horror/thriller that explores the lives of three couples who are immersed in twisted games of psycho-sexual obsession and revenge resulting in a price, which inevitably must be paid.

ATTACK THE BLOCK
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

A funny, frightening action adventure movie that pits a teen gang against an invasion of alien monsters. It turns a tower block into a sci-fi playground. It’s inner city versus outer space.

KILL LIST
[Midnight, Alamo Lamar A]

Beginning 8 months after a disastrous job in Kiev left him physically and mentally scarred, ex-soldier turned contract killer Jay, is pressured by his partner Gal, into taking a tough new assignment. As they descend into the dark, disturbing world of the contract, Jay begins to unravel once again – his fear and paranoia sending him deep into the heart of darkness.

THE FP
[Midnight, Alamo Lamar B]

Jason Trost & Brandon Trost For years an underground war has raged for dominance over the town of Frazier Park between two clans. Dominance isn’t determined through fistfights or petty brawls, but the dancing video game Beat-Beat Revelation.

BRIDESMAIDS
[Midnight, Paramount Theater]

Kristen Wiig leads the cast as Annie, a maid of honor whose life unravels as she leads her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), and a group of colorful bridesmaids on a wild ride down the road to matrimony. With one chance to get it perfect, she’ll show Lillian and her bridesmaids just how far you’ll go for someone you love.

THE DIVIDE
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

To survive the end of the world…you must first survive each other. The segments include a post-apocalyptic thriller set mostly in an apartment building fallout shelter, a serial-killer thriller about a woman afflicted with “face blindness,” and a coming-of-age story about a young girl seeking out her birth mother.

PHASE 7
[Midnight, Alamo Lamar A]

Coco (Daniel Hendler) just moved to his new apartment with 7 months pregnant wife Pipi (Jazmin Stuart) when their building is quarantined due to the outbreak of a deadly flu. Soon the residents become unexpected enemies, and Coco is forced to join forces with his next-door neighbor, the loony but well prepared and stocked Horacio, to defend the contents of his fridge and keep his pregnant wife safe. Meanwhile, outside the quarantined building, the world as we knew it is disappearing. No wonder no one came when they dialed 833.

GEORGE THE HEDGEHOG
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

Jez Jerzy is a skateboarding hedgehog who likes to drink beer and fondle breasts. He finds it hard to pursue his passions, however, while being tormented by neo-nazi skinheads, mad scientists and a drooling, flatulent clone of himself.

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city’s crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how – with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation. Street justice will indeed prevail.

COLD SWEAT
[Midnight, Alamo Lamar A]

What do you do if you are a right-wing Argentinean terrorist and your state-sanctioned organization is disbanded? We can’t say, but it involves chat rooms, bare breasts and a generous slathering of nitro-glycerine.

THE INNKEEPERS
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

After over one hundred years of service, The Yankee Pedlar Inn is shutting its doors for good. The last remaining employees -Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy)- are determined to uncover proof of what many believe to be one of New England’s most haunted hotels. As the Inn’s final days draw near, odd guests check in as the pair of minimum wage “ghost hunters” begin to experience strange and alarming events that may ultimately cause them to be mere footnotes in the hotel’s long unexplained history.

DETENTION
[Midnight, Alamo Ritz 1]

DETENTION is a teen horror-comedy where the local students of Grizzly Lake must survive their final year of high school. Standing in their way is a slasher movie killer who has seemingly come to life. It becomes a race against time to stop the killer and save the world – if only they can get out of detention. The Detention cuts through prom. Most of them don’t have dates anyway.