The sun is blaring white. The air is thick as water. Behind the mangroves and swamp grass, a man and a woman fight like animals. There’s trouble in the trunk. The cause of the commotion is unclear. The woman (rising indie star Kate Lyn Sheil) passes out in the muck and the man (Kentucker Audley) sets to driving shirtless before they reveal anything. With the heat so palpable and the landscape a teeming jungle that’s creepily calm, the whole thing could be a fever dream. Many moments in Sun Don’t Shine have an ethereal quality—a shirt flutters away from a car window, the sounds of the world melt into noise. But this is the danger-tinged dreaminess of Badlands, and the film truly grips you by carving vivid details out of an authentic Southern locale.

Writer / Director Amy Seimetz grew up in this territory, by her own admission a hardscrabble land where violence was necessary for survival. Seimetz is an acclaimed actress who has worked with both leads, and she based the story on a recurring nightmare of hers. But the plot is not fantastical; it is grounded in irrevocably stark terms—the smell of a body, an over-heating car, the tension between friendly passerby and these two desperate characters.

A deathly blow is behind them, following them, cloaking them, and their mission of escape drifts along disturbingly. How exactly they got into this post-crime situation is vague: the objective truth is uncertain, perhaps (the film posits) impossible. More importantly, that truth is irrelevant. Blame, cause, rationale are all in the past, concepts that don’t carry the same weight as their secrets. This engaging and taut thriller compels the viewer to question how they would react in such a dire situation, because once you’ve started down the road in Sun Don’t Shine, there’s no stopping.

- Mark Elijah Rosenberg

Presented by Rooftop Films and SXSW