#joebird

By Izzy Wild Merl

By the time the midnight block began, most of the day’s screenings on day one of Sundance were already a blur. Sundance moves fast, and choosing back-to-back late-night films early in the festival may not have been the smartest choice for my health. Lines blurred together, caffeine replaced meals, and exhaustion became part of the viewing experience.

The first of those long nights ended with Sacchrine, my first of the midnight section, directed by Natalie Erika James. The film follows a medical student whose pursuit of extreme weight loss spirals into something gory and supernatural. What begins as a disciplined attempt at control gradually mutates into a spiralling obsession.

Sacchrine, at times, feels weighed down by too many competing ideas; generational trauma, sexual identity, and fitness culture, to name a few. That ambition is both its strength and its weakness. The film wants to say a great deal about the body and the pressures placed upon it, but not every thread receives the space it deserves.

The film’s 112-minute runtime feels long, yet still unable to fully explore every idea it introduces. The committed performances, particularly from Hana (Midori Francis), help anchor the chaos, offering an emotionally grounded portrayal of a character losing control.

If Sacchrine explores the horrors of self-discipline turned inward, day two’s midnight screening offered a different kind of reckoning.

After hours of waitlisting and uncertainty, getting into Leviticus felt like a small victory. By the time I finally made it inside the theater, I was less focused on expectations than simply finding a seat. Going in nearly blind, tired and relieved, turned out to be the perfect way to experience the film.

In his debut feature, Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus proved more than worth sacrificing sleep. The film follows Naim Joe Bird (Talk to Me), a teenager who moves with his single mother to a remote Australian town dominated by a tight-knit religious community.

Chiarella’s direction is remarkably restrained for a debut. Rather than relying on soley overt scares or constant tension, Leviticus finds its horror in silence; long pausesand moments where dread builds without warning. The rural Australian landscape becomes a character of its own, isolating Naim.

What makes Leviticus so affecting is its ability to both externalize and internalize homophobia. The film never frames queerness itself as something monstrous. Instead, the horror comes from shame, fear, and repression from what happens when love is taught to feel like fear. The terror is psychological before it is physical, turning internal conflict into something hauntingly tangible.

With no expectations going in, Leviticus completely blindsided me. Its emotional weight hit harder than its scares, leaving me wriggling in my seat not from jump scares, but the psychological conflict. The performances, especially Bird’s, communicate a depth of pain that lingers long after the screen goes dark.

As I exited into the cold Park City night at 2 a.m., I realized that while Sundance may not encourage healthy sleep habits, it rewards those willing to push through. Some of the festival’s most powerful moments arrive when you are already worn down; when your guard is low, and the films have nowhere to hide.