At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Witch, The Nightmare, and Entertainment challenge old ideas of how horror films can look and feel.

The Witch

Jarin Blaschke/A24

PARK CITY, Utah — There are horror movies, there are art movies, and then there are those that fall within the sweet spot between where fans of the scary and fans of the exquisitely shot come together. And that usually happens at a film festival.

Like most fests, the annual Sundance Film Festival has a midnight section where most of its genre selections — including Eli Roth's latest, Knock Knock , and David Robert Mitchell's beautiful, terrifying sexually transmitted haunting movie It Follows — are grouped. But this year, the most talked about horror film in Park City, The Witch, premiered in the bright light of afternoon in Sundance's largest theater, courtesy of its place in the main dramatic competition. And in addition to The Witch, two other movies also pushed the boundaries of what horror could be with innovative filmmaking and a willingness to show the many different types of fears people grapple with.

Jarin Blaschke/A24

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