Slanted Heads to Theaters March 13 From Bleecker Street — SXSW Body Horror With a Razor-Sharp Edge

Shirley Chen stars in Slanted, a SXSW-winning body horror satire arriving in theaters March 13.

One of the most quietly unsettling films to come out of last year’s festival circuit is finally getting its moment. Slanted, the SXSW Narrative Grand Jury Prize winner written and directed by Amy Chang, is set to hit theaters March 13 via Bleecker Street.

Premiering at South by Southwest, Slanted didn’t arrive with the usual genre hype cycle, but its impact lingered long after the credits rolled. That slow-burn attention feels fitting for a film that isn’t interested in easy shocks or disposable commentary. Instead, Slanted leans hard into social discomfort, body horror, and cultural critique — and it does so with unnerving clarity.

The film stars Shirley Chen as Joan Wong, a high schooler obsessed with popularity, legacy, and the promise of acceptance represented by the prom queens whose portraits line her school halls. When Joan discovers Ethanos, a mysterious cosmetic surgery clinic offering a horrifyingly simple solution — transforming people of color into white, blonde ideals — she makes a choice that reshapes everything. What follows is not a fantasy of reinvention, but a reckoning.

McKenna Grace, Vivian Wu, Amélie Zilber, Fang Du, and Maitrey Ramakrishnan round out a cast that grounds the film’s satire in lived-in emotion. Chang’s approach blends sci-fi concepts with body horror imagery that feels deliberately restrained, letting the implications do most of the damage. The result is a film that doesn’t scream its message — it lets it crawl under your skin.

What makes Slanted stand out within the current wave of body horror is its specificity. This isn’t about abstract transformation or viral grotesquerie. It’s about assimilation, internalized standards, and the generational weight placed on women of color to conform to an image that was never built for them. The horror isn’t just in the surgery — it’s in how familiar the desire feels.

With Slanted, Chang delivers a film that sparks conversation rather than chasing consensus. It’s uncomfortable, incisive, and very much of the moment — the kind of genre work that lingers because it refuses to soften its edges.

Slanted opens in theaters March 13. Trailer and additional materials are expected to drop soon.