The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival announced its midnight features and short film slate Wednesday, a horror and sci fi-heavy list of films that includes Jessica Biel going up against a child abductor in "The Tall Man," a gory anthology from directors including Ti West and Joe Swanberg called "V/H/S" and a comedy about Nazis on the moon starring Udo Kier called "Iron Sky."
SXSW's Midnighters section tends to reflect the festival's genre-friendly ethos, with an even more independent streak. ("Can college dropouts John and Dave save humanity? No, they can't," reads the tagline for "John Dies at the End," a midnight premiere from director Don Coscarelli.) It's the part of the Austin festival that helped launch the careers of horror directors West and Eli Roth, for instance, and last year premiered Joe Cornish's British sci-fi sleeper "Attack the Block."
The SXSW shorts slate is also a quirky mix -- a documentary narrated by Tom Waits called "A Brief History of John Baldessari" from "Catfish" and "Paranormal Activity 3" filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, and animated films from cartooning world stalwarts Don Hertzfeldt ("it's such a beautiful day") and Bill Plympton ("Bummer Summer").