Sarah Lind has steadily carved out a niche for herself in the world of genre cinema, quietly building a filmography full of complex, layered performances across horror, thriller, and psychological drama. With her latest role in Joshua Erkman’s A Desert, she continues to explore dark and evocative terrain, solidifying her place as one of genre film’s most compelling and underappreciated actors.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Lind about A Desert, and as a big fan of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and A Wounded Fawn, it was a genuine treat to dive into her creative process and her approach to characters who often live in the shadowy spaces between trauma and transformation.
Lind began her career on Canadian television, with early roles in shows like Edgemont and Mentors, but it’s been her recent work in genre films that’s really put her on the radar for cinephiles who seek something beyond the mainstream. In the moody, violent A Wounded Fawn, she played Meredith, an art curator caught in a surrealist spiral of psychological and mythological horror. Her performance there was haunting—measured, vulnerable, and full of quiet strength—and it was one of the key reasons the film resonated so deeply with viewers on the festival circuit.
In A Desert, Lind plays Sam, the wife of a down-on-his-luck photographer whose road trip across the American Southwest takes a hard left turn into chaos. Though the character's arc doesn’t quite land with the same impact as some of her past roles, Lind brings an understated tension that grounds the film’s more extreme turns. Her presence adds a much-needed emotional center to the sun-bleached neo-noir nightmare, especially as the story spirals from Cheap Thrills-style tension into full-blown Rob Zombie-level madness.
Working alongside genre veterans like David Yow and rising star Zachary Ray Sherman, Lind helps guide the film’s strange and shifting tone—from artful mystery to gnarly horror—while contributing to the larger themes of disconnection, cultural decay, and the erosion of identity in modern America.
What makes Sarah Lind such a valuable presence in genre film is her ability to ground the surreal in the human. Whether she’s navigating mythic terror or backwoods brutality, she finds the emotional throughline—and makes sure the audience feels it. And while A Desert may not be the most celebrated title on her résumé just yet, it adds another shade to the portrait of a performer unafraid to venture into the weird, the violent, and the deeply personal.
Talking to her about her journey, it’s clear she’s someone who doesn’t take shortcuts—someone who chooses roles that challenge her, that ask something of the viewer, and that often linger long after the final frame. With more filmmakers recognizing the power of character-driven horror and psychological storytelling, it’s likely we’ll be seeing even more of Sarah Lind in the genre space. And that’s very good news.
Jessie Hobson