Canadians turn up on Sundance horror program

Sarah Polley will be headed to the Sundance Film Festival in Splice, a Canada-France co-production about genetic manipulation.

It is one of three Canadian horror films announced Thursday in the Park City at Midnight program, devoted to horror films and crazy comedies, at the annual festival of independent film.

Polley appears with Adrien Brody and David Hewlett in Splice, directed by Toronto filmmaker Vincenzo Natali, whose former works include Cube. Polley plays one of a group of young genetic engineers who splice together human and animal DNA and get something totally unpredictable.

The other two Canadian films:

• 7 Days (Les Sept Jours du Talion) directed by Quebec's Daniel Grou, about a doctor seeking revenge for the murder of his daughter.
• Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,  a Canadian co-production by American writer-director Eli Craig about two hillbillies who are accused of being killers by a group of college kids camping near their cabin.

7 Days has already been sold in Mexico, Indonesia, the U.S. and to a Latin American TV station.

Other Canadian actors set to appear at Sundance include Kiefer Sutherland, star of 24, who plays opposite 50 Cent in the crime drama Twelve, the closing night film.

Montreal's Elias Koteas appears alongside Casey Affleck and Kate Hudson in The Killer Inside Me and Vancouver-born Ryan Reynolds stars in the Spain/USA co-production Buried, about a U.S. contractor working in Iraq who awakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin.

Richmond, B.C., actor Shawn Ashmore and Woodstock, Ont.-born Kevin Zegers  appear in Frozen as skiers that are mistakenly stranded on a chairlift.

Twelve and The Killer Inside Me appear in the Premieres program at Sundance that highlights the diversity of contemporary independent cinema from around the world.

Also to screen in the high-profile lineup:

• Abel, directed by Mexican actor Diego Luna, about a dreamy young boy who assumes the responsibilities of a family man in his father's absence.
• Jack Goes Boating, directed by American actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, a tale of love and betrayal that begins with a  limo driver's blind date.
• Nowhere Boy, British director Sam Taylor Wood's portrait of a teenage John Lennon.
• The Runaways, directed by Canada's Floria Sigismondi, a portrait of  Joan Jett in the 1970s as a tough teen who wants  to form an all-girl band. Cast members include Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.
• Shock Doctrine, British director Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross have created a documentary based on the book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein.

This year Sundance has added a section called Next, featuring eight films shot on ultra-low budgets of less than $500,000.

"We're a discovery festival, but we're not just about the discovery of films. We're about the discovery of talent," said festival director John Cooper. "We wanted to make sure talent wasn't getting past us because they're working in a low-budget form."

The Sundance Film Festival, created originally by Robert Redford, is scheduled for Jan. 21 to 31 in Park City, Utah.