PopHorror’s 2026 Sundance Catch-Up!

Documentary

Troublemaker – Antoine Fuqua gives us an emotionally turbulent but honest look over the life of Nelson Mandela. The film was helped by beautiful interstitial art and truthful reflections on Mandela’s life. For fellow Americans like myself, our schooling system did not teach us much about Apartheid, so this was equal parts harrowing and enlightening.

Ghost in the Machine – Wow. This film was received so differently than I thought it would be. I thought it very prescient and warned of the rapid rise of the technology without ethical safeguards, but from one look at its Letterboxd page, the majority of the audience did not think the same…It’s a good way to provide a start to an in depth discussion of the inherent negative biases of AI and the necessity of ethics alongside scientific advancement. The wealthy tech bros emphasize in interviews that they want to create a God, but they wish to create it under their own biases, not seeing the paradox of that statement or having an ounce of self awareness or recollection of over a century of speculative fiction on this stuff. Hell, if you want to get into it, Frankenstein was a progenitor of these stories and even it shows the fallacy of that thinking.

Everybody to Kenmure Street – In a year and festival loaded with heavy themes, it was nice to see so many people coming together for a common cause to save 2 from the Scottish equivalent of ICE. I could not imagine things going so peacefully here if ICE raided a Catholic church after Easter mass. A few surprise cameos help sell the importance of this story being shared. 

Joybubbles – This film touched my heart. I struggle with chronic health issues and am on the spectrum myself, and in a time and place where we’re often suppressed and tamped down, seeing someone disabled not only prove himself worthy of respect in his area of expertise, no matter how unique; but to also see him find true self-love and share both with others was absolutely beautiful.

Fiction

Extra Geography – An equally touching and funny look at the growth of two teen girls in boarding school. From first love to finding one’s own personal niche, development is never easy, but at least the journey of our leads can serve as a heartfelt and hilarious reflection on the folly of all our youths.

Lady – Following the struggles of an impoverished cab driver in Lagos, this film had wonderful cinematography and a strong first two acts. When the resolution started presenting itself for the second act turn, however, the film lost its focus and I lost my intrigue, unfortunately. The ending was fine, in a way, a perfectly logical conclusion to the events within, but it was not necessarily as fulfilling or impactful as it seemed to want to be.

Levitating (Para Perasuk) – On the flipside, this film impressed me with its final act and resolution. A story about a young man learning spiritual trance sessions in X; caught between gentrification and modernization. His family discourages his passion for its impracticality, especially his wealthy relatives, all the meanwhile he is pressured to master his art as soon as possible due to corporate developers risking destroying the land it’s been attached to for generations. T

Night Nurse – A wicked psychosexual thriller about a live-in nurse at an elderly care residence and her patient’s “games” he plays to feel alive. Initially coerced into assisting him in conning his fellow residents, our lead X gets a thrill herself from it, and eventually things escalate… The dynamic of X and her patient Y starts out as an out and about abuse of the nurses, but both the lead and the other staff become seduced and things escalate beyond “simple” kinky games…

Rock Springs – The only horror film I was able to watch this festival, yet horror feels more like a subgenre rather than the main genre. But pitching it to audiences as a ghost story focused on intergenerational ghosts and their psychic pain haunting us in the present may be a harder task. It was a delight to see Kelly Marie Tran back on the big screen after the nonsense she had to deal with for working on a Star Wars, and her performance should show even racists and nonbelievers she takes the craft seriously.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the festival this year had an energy unlike any other Sundance I have ever attended, virtually or in person. It could be from my limited perspective as a virtual attendee (for those unaware, many festivals, including Sundance, save some exclusivity for certain films for in-person attendance only); but from what I was able to view between health issues, this year was certainly focused on the fire going on amongst this whole planet. The pain of being the outsider, the pains that linger, and fear of what the future could bring if we don’t handle the systems that alienate and dehumanize us. The world is on fire, and we need to come together to put it out, not continue to segregate and destroy.