The buzziest movies of the Sundance Film Festival so far speak to a new trend in indie cinema: social commentary packaged as genre films.
- The Pedro Pascal-led “Freaky Tales,” playing in the premieres section, is a hyper-violent, VHS-era romp that’s also about the rise of neo-fascist groups in Oakland in the 1980s.
- A24’s trippy “I Saw the TV Glow” is a dreamlike allegory about the trans experience, which follows two teens so uncomfortable in their own skin that they long for the world of a fictional “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-esque TV show to be their reality.
- “Sasquatch Sunset” finds Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough playing the hairy creatures in a tale that’s ultimately about the destruction of the environment.