Nominated for Discovery Award
Q&A with Dax Norman
While doing crimes in small town Texas, Brea Dunlee and her friends stumble upon a QAnon-like cabal that preys on the poor and the powerless. Through a series of interrogations led by a gaslighting local sheriff named Cole Mack, we discover not everything is as it seems.
Only the Good Survive starts with a seemingly familiar scenario. A woman runs screaming to the police; something terrible has just happened and she must tell the detective. The usual suspects: a haunted house, a murderous cult, and… a rogue baby?
At one point the detective, played with gusto by Frederick Teller, asks whether the narrative is a horror or a comedy. But a single-dash term does not do director Dutch Southern’s film justice. ‘A hallucinogenic-horror-comedy-thriller’ comes close but doesn’t quite do the trick; Southern settled for calling it ‘punk rock’ when it premiered at SXSW. Purists be warned, this is punk rock à la Austin, Texas, not the safety pin in the ear variety, yet it is no less youthful.
It features a roster of talented rising stars led by Sidney Flanigan (Never Rarely Sometimes Always) and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs). Though Flanigan’s back and forth with Teller provides the structural backbone of the film, Southern is wise to not let it go to waste. Instead, he fills it with playful referential dialogue that matches his stylistic choices beat for beat.
A film bursting at the seams with new ideas that marks its director as one to watch.
Santiago Tricks
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