Southbound
One way in, no way out.
The film contains five stories set on desolate stretches of a desert highway. Two men on the run from their past, a band on its way to a gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister and a family on vacation are forced to confront their worst fears and darkest secrets in these interwoven tales.
Why watch Southbound
A desert highway becomes a purgatorial trap in Southbound, a five-part anthology that locks you into an escalating nightmare with the precision of a Twilight Zone episode filtered through A24's unsettling sensibility. Each story begins as recognizable American dread—a band rushing to a gig, a family road trip, a man desperate to reach home—then warps into something genuinely uncanny, where the highway itself seems to be hunting its travelers.
What makes this work is the deceptive simplicity of its construction. Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead build genuine dread through patient pacing and naturalistic dialogue before the supernatural wrench hits; there's no winking, no wasted time. The visual language is stark and hypnotic—empty asphalt, bruised skies, practical effects that feel tactile and wrong. It's the kind of film that trusts you to sit with discomfort rather than explain it away.
This is for anyone who loved the interlocking dread of Cabin in the Woods or the philosophical horror of Annihilation. Southbound doesn't offer neat resolutions; instead, it builds a mythology where every choice, every transgression, every moment of selfishness echoes across the five tales in ways you won't fully grasp until the final frame clicks into place. You'll be rewinding the ending immediately, connecting dots that suddenly, terrifyingly, align.
— The What2Watch desk · US
Where to watch
The story
The film contains five stories set on desolate stretches of a desert highway. Two men on the run from their past, a band on its way to a gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister and a family on vacation are forced to confront their worst fears and darkest secrets in these interwoven tales.
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Reviews & ratings
If you are looking for a good thriller, with minimal special effects that calls upon the skills of the filmmaker and cast to make you feel the moment, this is a must see. Southbound, created by the independent group radio silence take the genres of thriller and horror to a new level, intertwining five stories that will have you turning on the lights and questioning the sanity of the cast. All five sequences take plac…Show more
Modern Day Southern Gothic Highway-Based is a very specific theme for a Horror Anthology to tackle, and while none of the segments are bad, none of them stand out as particularly good either. _Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._
**The neverending tale(s)!** Five tales, written and directed by four directors. It was a horror anthology that takes place in just one day and night. Firstly, this film was not bad as it looks. Each tale and its interlocking with one another was very nicely done. The layers are not arranged in a column or a row or a circle. It was just like what you see on the poster, a star. Especially one character from each ta…Show more
75/100 An anthology of overlapping stories presented as a series of bizarre, supernatural events along a remote desert highway (presumed to represent purgatory) over a 24 hour period. This one plays out fairly well with excellent pacing and some very creepy stuff ...especially the creatures. I have no idea what these reaper-like things are supposed to represent but they were very cool! Fitting quite snuggly somewh…Show more
I generally do not like anthology-movies, as some stories are always so much weaker than others, and even where they interweave or overlap they lack a narrative thread. This movie was a lot better in that regard, with no 'weak' story among them. They are all unsettling and weird, and not necessarily in the same way, which gives you more a sense of these being in the same world than they being just scary stories stack…Show more
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