If New York’s dense assemblage of moviegoers ever faces extinction, someone should call Austin for reinforcements. The youth-oriented city sports a flourishing film culture united by its Alamo Drafthouses, where audiences can order drinks and food from their seats without losing sight of the screen. Such multitasking suits Austin’s evolving South by Southwest Film Festival, which opened the nine-day movie and music orgy on March 9. Programmer Matt Dentler did a stellar job this year with a diverse selection primarily composed of documentary and horror cinema. The two areas of filmmaking have nothing immediately in common—save for microbudgets and inspired starving artists.

Still, that didn’t preclude obligatory commercial entries. My experience at the festival began with a screening of the voyeuristic thriller Disturbia, an interminably dumb reworking of Rear Window. Eager to forget the last 104 minutes, I asked star Shia LeBouf afterward if those reports about his role in the fourth Indiana Jones movie contained any truth. They don’t.

Better unapologetic schlock materialized at midnight screenings. The animal zombie craziness Black Sheep, a promising directorial debut from New Zealander Jonathan King, centers on cannibalistic livestock. King used Peter Jackson’s extensive facilities and culled from the techies behind King Kong to enhance his wool-covered undead. The story has echoes of Jackson’s early genre efforts, decisively intent on silliness.

Unremitting homesickness drove me to check out the riotous hipster spoof Murder Party, a terrifying and funny tale of psychopaths in Brooklyn. Although directed by Jeremy Saulnier, the movie (a big winner this past year at Slamdance) is a genuine collaborative effort of longtime New York friends who call themselves Lab of Madness. They’ve injected their script with simultaneously hilarious and morbid details. When considering what to do with their victim, one character suggests the group of murderers “staple a pancake to his face and throw him in front of the G train.”

Somebody get these folks a distributor so New Yorkers can take their medicine.

Another type of madness—the reefer kind—showed up fresh from Sundance: Gregg Araki’s Smiley Face gives the stoner comedy genre its finest entry. More cheerful than the director’s earlier works, the movie stars Anna Faris as she stumbles through a baked day gone horribly awry. Unsurprisingly, Austin attendees loved it. “Last night’s audience was fucking awesome,” Araki admitted to me in a caffeine-fueled interview the next day, attributing the city’s film scene to local success story (and friend) Richard Linklater. “The storytelling aspect of the culture here is really appropriate.”

Another Sundance export, Craig Zobel’s Great World of Sound, also played well to Austin’s trendy crowd. New York audiences can catch the inventive music scam yarn during Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films series later this month. Zobel’s pal Nate Meyer brought his touching debut Pretty in the Face, a combination of prepubescent woes and decaying relationships. Strong drama overcomes the boundaries of its no-budget production.

There are precedents for that feat, and director Joe Swanberg helped set them. His latest, Hannah Takes the Stairs, was the darling of SXSW. It’s a disarming story of transient relationships executed through improvisation—but the dialogue is strikingly better than most scripted romantic fluff.

My favorite nonfiction entry was Rob VanAlkemade’s What Would Jesus Buy? (WWJB), a portrait of Reverend Billy and his East Village Church of Stop Shopping. Employing an amusing take on the intersection of activism and religion, the Reverend takes his followers on the road to promote an anti-consumer message. The movie has “major clearance issues,” according to several buyers, since its poster features Mickey Mouse bound to an American Express card. But VanAlkemade told me the day after the premiere that he’s mostly concerned about showing the movie to his conservative libertarian uncle. “I expect lots of eye-rolling,” he said. But later he let me know that Uncle Kenny loved it.

The energy at the WWJB afterparty was palpable. “I decided that I couldn’t be in jail for this,” the frequently arrested Reverend admitted during our brief chat. The movie’s strongest selling point is its producer, Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, who arrived in Austin sporting a majestic beard. Apparently, the new look has something to do with Spurlock’s developing project, which is shrouded in super-sized mystery.

“Did you find Osama bin Laden?” asked indieWIRE chief Eugene Hernandez while moderating a spotlight discussion earlier in the day, basing his question on circulating chatter. Spurlock smiled and said nothing. For now, he’s got WWJB to prove his worth; he directed it for a while when VanAlkemade was injured. 

At the party, I ran into the festival’s best-dressed duo, Superman and the Hulk (née Chris Dennis and Joseph McQueen), costars of the gentle and entertaining documentary Confessions of a Superhero. These underemployed costumed actors stride the walk of fame in search of tip-friendly tourists, but now that their struggles have been lovingly portrayed, they’re aiming for more reliable income.

In a darker sense, similar themes of beleaguered careers echo throughout The Last Days of Left Eye, a fascinating account of the 30 days prior to TLC singer Lisa Lopez’s untimely 2002 death in a car crash. Director Lauren Lazin primarily uses footage shot by Lopez herself to assemble a portrait of one star’s fall from grace. (It airs May 19 on VH1.)

Another SXSW success was the eponymous young star of Billy the Kid, a brilliant child whose emotional problems alienate him from typical social development. Director Jennifer Venditti, who won the festival’s best documentary award, shows how the boy’s sincerity overcomes his personal issues.

I missed the actual film awards, but couldn’t resist the after party. Aaron Hillis, codirector of the shopping mall portrait Fish Kill Flea, wandered the room shilling for his movie by adopting intentionally moronic behavior while a camera trailed him for an IFC TV spot. He tackled the clever promotional gimmick with Borat-like finesse, at one point aiming his crosshairs at yours truly. After days of alternating between witnessing onscreen horror and documentary realism, it felt good to get punk’d.