Don’t sit too close to the set.

A24’s upcoming horror film I Saw the TV Glow shows what happens when the line between fiction and reality gets blurred until it’s so much television static. In the film, directed by Jane Schoenbrun, Owen (Justice Smith) is a shy, disaffected teen with a deep emotional connection to a monster-of-the-week program, which he shares with an older classmate, Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine).

At first the two welcome the show that offers an escape from their troubled lives, but soon they notice that the universe from the show, called The Pink Opaque, is beginning to overlap with real lives. Owen wants to believe that “it’s just a TV show,” but is forced to confront the blended worlds when Maddy disappears and the series is abruptly canceled.

I Saw the TV Glow pays homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in a meta-commentary way, using the show as a template for The Pink Opaque, the series that Owen and Maddy are deeply invested in. In the trailer, Maddy tells Owen that The Pink Opaque is about teen girls Tara (Lindsay Jordan) and Isabela (Helena Howard), who share a psychic connection and “help each other fight a new monster from across the county,” which is only slightly different than the plot of Buffy.

And director Shoenbrun also wanted the music for the film, which is set in the 1990s, to feel like it could have been part of the series, which premiered in 1997. Schoenbrun told Vulture that she made mixes for all the musicians doing songs for the film, telling them, “I want you to write the song you would have played if you had shown up on Buffy in season three.”

The soundtrack includes new songs from Sloppy Jane featuring former member Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Polachek, Snail Mail, Jay Som, L’Rain, Maria BC, King Woman, Yeule, Florist, Bartees Strange, The Weather Station, Drab Majesty, Hop Along‘s Frances Quinlan, Proper, and Sadurn.

Snail Mail’s Lindsay Jordan and Fred Durst both appear in the film in significant roles, and Sloppy Jane with Phoebe Bridgers perform in the film alongside King Woman. Shoenbrun, who wrote the screenplay, took the name The Pink Opaque from the title of a 1986 Cocteau Twins compilation album that for many Americans was their first taste of the band.

Ian Foreman, Danielle Deadwyler, and Connor O’Malley also star in the film, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Amber Benson has a small role, as do the stars of Nickelodeon’s subversive (and cult-favorite) 90’s kids show The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Michael C. Maronna and Danny Tamberelli.

I Saw The TV Glow premiered at Sundance to rave reviews for Schoenbrun, who also directed 2021’s acclaimed We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Glow opens in the US on May 3rd.