THE SHADE SHEPHERD -- Movie Review by Porfle

I just got played. Big time. By a movie. A movie that I didn't think was going to be all that great, so I underestimated it, and let my guard down. And now, all I can say is...bravo.

Jack Ables (co-writer Jordon Hodges, SAND CASTLES, THE DARK KNIGHT) is a respected doctor whose wife Stacey (Caroline Newton, A PLACE IN HELL) is about to have a baby. Their relationship isn't perfect, but maybe with time they'll work things out.

Trouble is, Jack doesn't have that time right now, because his ne'er-do-well big brother Pike (Randy Spence, "Halt and Catch Fire", "Turn: Washington's Spies"), a heroin addict who's always in and out of trouble with the law, just woke up with a murder charge hanging over his head. He doesn't remember what happened, but chances are that won't matter much to the police.

THE SHADE SHEPHERD (Indican Pictures, 2019) is about Jack's decision to risk everything--his reputation, his marriage, his freedom, maybe even his life--by helping the luckless and now hunted brother escape to Canada.

Director Chris Faulisi (A PROPER VIOLENCE, SHIFT), handles the lean, tautly-suspenseful, and emotionally harrowing script he co-wrote with Hodges with just the right touch at every turn.

He's lucky to have a wonderful cast to work with, especially Randy Spence who plays Pike to the hilt as a frantic heroin addict going cold turkey, freaking out over every noise and shadow and wracked with guilt for what he's doing to his straight-arrow brother. 

As Jack, Hodges reminds me of a young Joe Pantoliano and is every bit as intense, putting us right there in his place as we feel the desperation of a man who must venture onto the way, way wrong side of the law for the love of his brother while also having to put his survival skills to the ultimate test as they flee cross-country with nothing but Jack's archery skills to sustain them.

All this sounds good, just right for some passable entertainment if handled as well as it is here.  And indeed that was going to be the gist of my review--an okay movie that you won't mind devoting some time to, with what I assumed would be a fairly satisfying ending.

And then, that "fairly satisfying ending" turns out to be like one of those carnival rides where you spin around real fast inside a big wheel before the bottom suddenly falls out and you're stuck to the wall wondering what just happened.

That's all I'm going to say about THE SHADE SHEPHERD.  I'd love to talk more about it, but let's wait until you've seen it too. I don't know if the twist ending is as good as the one in THE SIXTH SENSE, but right now, for however long it lasts, it sorta feels like it.


Buy it from Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 90 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA
Language: English

THE SHADE SHEPHERD -- Movie Review by Porfle

BALLET BLANC -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/4/19

 

If you're looking for something weird to watch--and I mean, really weird--look no further than writer-director Anne-Sophie Dutoit's BALLET BLANC (2018).  Because this is one seriously weird movie.

Dark, enigmatic, and practically unfathomable, it's the sort of deeply unsettling narrative that most people will either shrink away from pretty quick or else stay riveted to like a bird being hypnotized by a snake, helplessly waiting for it to strike.

A young orphan boy named Coco (Colter Carlbom-Mann), wearing long, girlish hair and dressed in a white tutu, silently dances a somber ballet during church choir practice while a witchy eccentric, Mrs. Willis (Shelley Starrett), looks on with an appreciative smile. She seems to be recognizing and/or evaluating his potential.

Before we know it, she has somehow adopted the troubled boy--whose parents recently died in a fire from which he narrowly escaped--and is now indoctrinating him, steeping him like a highly-absorbent teabag, in the bubbling cauldron of her own warped and deeply disturbing lifestyle and philosophies.

If any other movie had been photographed this dark, I'd probably think it a flaw. But BALLET BLANC belongs in the dark.

I won't even go into the extremes of strangeness to which both we and the regrettably very impressionable Coco are subjected under flickering candles or the fading glow of eerie twilight where unimaginable things are consumed, graves are exhumed, and the hapless social worker (Brian Woods) who arrives to investigate neighbors' complaints is, by our best guess, doomed.

Woods gains our sympathy playing a character with good intentions whose personal religious faith is seriously tested as things go from uncomfortable to insufferable during his traumatic visit. As the monstrous Mrs. Willis, Starrett out-weirds Susan Tyrell in a chilling, full-bodied performance. And Colter Carlbom-Mann is pretty amazing as Coco, the caterpillar who threatens to emerge from its cocoon a monster.

The film is intensely effective for most of its running time, stumbling only in the final act when the increasingly hostile Coco is being held under scrutiny in a white room and interrogated by mysterious people from behind a two-way glass.

Here, the tightly-knit story begins to unravel a bit as some conventional horror movie elements creep in to undermine our anticipation of a fully original and surprising finale.

Even so, horror fans looking for something immersively dark and disturbing should endeavor to experience BALLET BLANC. It's the sort of creepy-crawly chiller that grabs on and clings to you like a leech.


Read more about it at Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS
Runtime: 90 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: Pending
Extras: Behind-the-scenes featurette

BALLET BLANC -- DVD Review by Porfle

BELOVED BEAST -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/23/19

 

An impressive, often brilliant horror-thriller that's miles above much of what's coming out of the genre these days, BELOVED BEAST (Indican Pictures, 2018) excells on almost all levels and comes off like something Quentin Tarantino might do if he really got serious about making a grim, mind-bending horror movie.

Nina (Sanae Loutsis) is the injured survivor of a car crash that kills her parents and puts her in the home of a surly, irresponsible aunt, Erma Ritz (Joy Yaholkovsky), who doesn't want her.  Erma's a dopehead who is friends with the lowest elements in town including its worst criminal, Ash (Earl Gray), who deals not only in drugs but human trafficking as well, and will soon set his sights on Nina.

Meanwhile, the biggest, craziest, scariest psycho ever (Jonathan Holbrook as "Milton Treadwell") has just turned the asylum into a corpse-strewn charnel house and escaped into the wild.  A horribly disfigured behemoth with the mind of a ten-year-old, Milton will eventually murder his way to Nina, who will mistake him for the Rabbit King in her favorite fantasy story that her parents used to read to her.

There's a lot of story contriving going on here, but it all works so well that we don't really care. Milton ends up wearing the big rabbit-head mask that belonged to Nina's father and protecting her from all potential harm, mainly by slinging a hefty wooden mallet that smashes skulls with one blow. 

Milton smashes a lot of skulls in this movie--sometimes those belonging to people who deserve a good skull smashing, and sometimes to nice people in the wrong place, wrong time.

But lest you think BELOVED BEAST is just some slasher/smasher flick, writer-director Jonathan Holbrook (TALL MEN, CUSTOMER 152) has crafted this thing like a true artiste, loading it to the gills with fascinating characters exchanging sharp, smart dialogue and situations that are either tongue-in-cheek funny (I love the scenes between the jaded police chief and his constantly appalled rookie deputy) or blood-chillingly grim (as when Ash meets "The Belgian", a bad guy so vile and inhuman that even he is taken aback). 

Direction and photography are top-notch, as is a cast of excellent actors making the most of their fully-rounded, often eccentric characters, each of whom contributes added delight to the story.  The narrative often lapses into a sort of fever dream quality, as when Erma's drug-fueled house party turns surreal or Nina's head injury has her imagining rabbit-headed, hammer-wielding Milton as her fairytale savior.

Switching easily between horror film and ultra-gritty crime thriller that's occasionally dipped in delirium, BELOVED BEAST is one of the most heady, engaging, and thoroughly entertaining movies I've seen in the last ten years. It's only flaw is its length--at almost three hours, the ending is stretched out way longer than necessary--but its overall awesomeness more than makes up for being a bit too much of a good thing. 

BELOVED BEAST -- Movie Review by Porfle

HOLY HELL -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 9/30/18

 

Writer-director-star Ryan LaPlante's stated goal in making his debut feature HOLY HELL (2015) was to "take on 60's and 70's B-Movie and Exploitation film tropes" as did such fairly recent grindhouse parodies as "Machete" and "Hobo With a Shotgun." 

But while those two movies were derived from mock trailers that were fleshed out to feature length, the opposite might've been preferable in this case since HOLY HELL would probably work better as a mock trailer than a full-length film.

That way, it wouldn't have to try so desperately hard to be funny for such an extended period of time that you can almost feel the veins bulging in its sweaty cinematic forehead. 

Things start out on a chipper note as happy priest Father Bane (LaPlante) goes about his business serving the Lord in the midst of the city's most vile denizens going about their own sinful deeds, including mugging and beating the good priest himself. His happy-face faith keeps him going, however.

This all changes when he visits the Bonner family to help with their rebellious daughter Amy (Alysa King), just before another family, the murderous MacFarlanes, burst in guns blazing, killing and defiling almost everyone in sight (including the baby) in the most horrible ways.   

This gives director LaPlante a chance to start piling on the kind of shock stuff he set out to gleefully wallow in with this film, with over-the-top characters Daddy Dokes, he/she Sissy, bad girl Trisha, and trigger-happy thug Buddy dishing out gouts of fake blood and prosthetic body parts while screaming profanities at the top of their lungs.

Naturally, the grievously wounded Father Bane renounces his faith after this incident and buys a pistol which he dubs "The Lord" and begins to worship as he hunts down not just the MacFarlanes but all sinners and blows them away with the help of surviving but now-crippled Bonner daughter Amy as his horny accomplice. 

What follows is scene after scene of the most strenuous attempts to shock us with violence, gore, and perverse sex that's supposed to be both hyper-edgy and funny.  The humor didn't work for me since most of it is composed of non-stop screaming "F bombs", tranny jokes, wacky depictions of oral and anal sex, and flashes of blasphemy, all delivered by actors with little or no comic finesse.  (Shane Patrick McClurg as "Sissy" comes the closest.)

Along with the numerous bloody killings are stabs (so to speak) at spaghetti-western parody and mock tough-guy dialogue. But rather than trying to emulate "Machete" and "Hobo With a Shotgun" with an artless imitation that barely comes close, perhaps it might've been better to create an actual deliberate mockery of such films. Being genuinely funny as well as profane and gross would've helped.  

As it is, HOLY HELL's fevered attempts to break down the bounds of decency should be shocking only to those who have never seen those other two movies or anything by John Waters, or heard people curse stridently and at length like Tourette's-stricken sailors, or seen really hardcore gore movies.


Tech Specs
Runtime: 89 minutes
Format: Full frame
Sound: Dolby Sr. Sound
Country: USA
Language: English
Captions: English
Website: www.IndicanPictures.com
Extras: Outtakes and director's commentary, trailers

Cast & Crew
Directed by: Ryan LaPlante
Starring: Ryan LaPlante, Alysa King, Michael Rawley, Luke LaPlante, Shane Patrick McClurg, Rachel Anne Little, Reece Presley

HOLY HELL -- DVD Review by Porfle

6 HOT CHICKS IN A WAREHOUSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 8/8/19

 

I have to hand it to 6 HOT CHICKS IN A WAREHOUSE (Indican Pictures, 2017).  It starts out sorta not-so-great and then, once its rather contrived premise is established, gradually turns into a pretty fun suspense-slash-sexploitation flick. Dumb fun, yeah, but still fun.

Six models are called together for a photoshoot at the warehouse studio of Adrian (Oliver Malam), a frustrated "incel" who bristles at the constant rejection and ridicule they hurl at him during all of their professional interactions.

It seems Adrian has discovered a weird new diet supplement called Pump-N-Go that turns people into vicious killers, and his plan is to keep the six women in cages, inject them with the drug, and pair them off in gladiatorial death matches which will give him (a) revenge, and (b) perverse sexual thrills.

Interestingly, we're initially inclined to sympathize with Adrian because some of these models really are obnoxious, hateful bitches who do lay on the ridicule pretty thick.  The only one we really get to know is Mira (Jessica Messenger), who just dresses like a slut because she needs the money and really isn't a "mean girl" type.

But as the story progresses, Adrian becomes more of a hateful psycho and we start siding with the girls as they're forced to battle each other to the death for his sick gratification. 

These scenes are pretty much meat-and-potatoes stuff--no dazzling choreography or shocking gore--but they do the job of holding our interest until the models start planning their escape.

That's where the suspense factor kicks in and the movie starts being more than just a collection of fetish montages.  (Although the girls do wear dominatrix outfits throughout almost the whole thing.) 

It's not Hitchcock or anything, but director and co-writer Simon Edwards is doing capable work here and giving us a fair amount of tension.  While the inevitable conclusion to all this doesn't exactly give THE WILD BUNCH a run for its money, I found it satisfying enough. 

By the time it was all over, I had actually started to like some of these unlikable chicks (the ones who were still alive, anyway).  The story actually has two endings--the official one, and the "gotcha!" during the closing credits.

6 HOT CHICKS IN A WAREHOUSE sets out to give us some voyeurism (there's an extended photoshoot montage that shows off the girls' bodies, and a bit of nudity here and there), some humor, some violence, and some revenge.  I don't expect it to get nominated for any Oscars, but to be honest, I'd rather watch this than the Oscars.


More on 6 Hot Chicks in a Warehouse at Indican Pictures:

Release Date: September 3rd, 2019 (DVD, Digital)

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 91 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA
Language: English (with captions)
Rating: R
Bonus: outtakes, trailers

6 HOT CHICKS IN A WAREHOUSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE TRANSCENDENTS -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/9/20

 

If you're lucky, you'll see a pretty good movie now and then. If you're really lucky, you'll see one that starts out like it's not that much and then takes you places you never expected at all, until suddenly you realize that you're in the middle of being totally blown away.

That's what writer/director Derek Ahonen's amazing debut THE TRANSCENDENTS (2018) did for me.

Early on, sleazy bar owner Jan (Kathy Valentine) tells Roger (Rob Franco) that she collects weird things, which is apt because she tries to collect Roger from the moment he shows up in her bar, and he's as weird as they come.

But Roger claims to be celibate ("Straight celibate or gay celibate?" she asks) and his other character quirks include abstaining from alcohol, having deep mental and emotional problems that cause him to be intensely focused on being intensely out to lunch, and, last but not least, wanting to find and kill the former members of his struggling indie band who stole his incredibly strange songs before he was forced to drop out of life for ten years.

Roger flashes back to his time with bandmembers Foster (Ben Reno), who's jealous of Roger's songwriting skills (which he attributes to his communications with small animals such as hamsters), and the cute but hygiene-challenged Kim (Savannah Welch), whose odd relationship with Roger also elicits Foster's even more destructive jealousy.

Meanwhile, in the present, Roger forms yet another odd bond with Jan's deaf, paralyzed sister Cecilia (Cecilia Deacon) as his search for former members of The Transcendents leads him to some startling revelations about himself and others that I won't go into here because they're more fun to find out about yourself while watching the movie.

Speaking of which, this is one of those character dramas that makes up for its limited settings and lack of action by keeping the relationships and story twists increasingly involving throughout.

It also boasts a pleasingly subtle weirdness (mostly embodied, and quite capably at that, by Rob Franco's very studied performance as "Roger") and a morbid, martini-dry humor that's deftly off-kilter without getting too overt.

But most of all, THE TRANSCENDENTS is an actor's movie that boasts some of the most stunning performances you'll ever see, which director Ahonen showcases to their best advantage without smothering them in directorial style.

As Roger's odyssey progresses and he confronts people from his past, the depth and profundity of the story becomes mesmerizing. Savannah Welch in particular has a monologue about why and how Kim so thoroughly hit the skids after leaving Roger. It goes on for roughly fifteen minutes and pretty much becomes the whole movie during that time, and is riveting.

Then Roger goes back to where we started and clashes with George (William Leroy), the crusty old owner of the farm where he stayed for ten years, who has seven daughters and may be guilty of incest and several other evil things, and suddenly the movie becomes about the guy who plays George giving a performance that is almost frighteningly good.

THE TRANSCENDENTS starts out going pretty much where we expect it to, right up until the moment we realize we're being taken for a ride blindfolded to places we've never been before and are well worth going to. And I felt lucky to have ended up there.

Buy it from Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 96 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: Pending

THE TRANSCENDENTS -- Movie Review by Porfle

MADE ME DO IT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/27/18

 

A quick, down and dirty shoot (as described by the filmmakers) on a very low budget sometimes yields surprisingly good results, as it has in the case of the horror-thriller MADE ME DO IT (Indican Pictures, 2017).

What director and co-writer (with Matthew John Koppin) Benjamin Ironside Koppin set out to do was to get some talented people together and "Frankenstein" (his word) a movie together taking the old FRIDAY THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN slasher templates and doing an homage with a few curves and angles thrown in.

The main victims aren't the usual rowdy, party-hardy bunch--just pensive college student Ali Hooper (Anna B. Shaffer), her younger brother Nick (Jason Gregory London), and her boyfriend Jason (Liston Spence).

Ali's home for the weekend (no keg party or summer camp in the woods this time) but her estranged parents are gone, leaving just her and the guys having a quiet, unpleasantly introspective time of things.

It's just the right situation to be crashed by the standard masked serial killer, but this time he's a stringy, weepy nerd named Thomas (Kyle Van Vonderen) who spends most of his time banished to his bedroom by a sadistic, abusive aunt and living in a fantasy world of funny drawings that come to life and masks that he makes out of paper plates.

Thomas is a "special needs" sort of kid who couldn't hurt a fly--that is, until he puts on his "Barbara" mask, because "Barbara" is just the take-charge, take-no-prisoners sort of person Thomas could never be.  And "Barbara" is angry at the world.  Very angry.

That's the set-up, and from there MADE ME DO IT takes us into a scary campfire tale where Thomas silently stalks the night in his creepy mask and wields his bloody axe, leaving a trail of bodies all the way to Ali and Nick's house.

Much of the subsequent action is similar to what happens in THE STRANGERS, in which masked killers home-invaded a young couple and terrorized them for no apparent reason.

Here, we get just the same spooky ambience with the inhabitants of the dark, shadowy house (the electricity, alas, has gone off) cowering in fear as they try to elude the unknown stalker, who keeps popping up where they least expect him.

The director builds the suspense well for most of the film, although some scenes tend to meander a bit as Ali gets contemplative about the whole thing.  The film spends a lot of time pondering Thomas' psychological state and how he got that way, and our interest in this runs hot and cold.

Meanwhile, Thomas goes off on several freaky mind-trips involving his dead parents, his imaginary animal friends, his horrible aunt, "Barbara" (of course), and other images that come flying at us via various media such as 35mm, 16mm, and 8mm film, scratchy VHS tape, and crude animations--all of which are quite well-done and fun to look at.  (These are explored in more detail in one of several making-of featurettes included on the DVD.)

With a rousing final confrontation and a pretty keen twist right at the fadeout, MADE ME DO IT stacks up as one of the more interesting modestly-mounted slasher flicks of recent years, and is way better than watching the usual teen campers getting sliced and diced in the woods by some Jason wannabe.

MADE ME DO IT -- DVD Review by Porfle

CYNTHIA -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/1/18

 

A major new contender in the ever-popular "monster baby" sub-genre, CYNTHIA (Indican Pictures, 2018) follows in the slimy footsteps of such classics as "It's Alive!" while adding its own twisted twists and post-partum pandemoneum. 

This time, we follow the desperately procreative efforts of young couple Robin (Scout Taylor-Compton, 247°F)and Michael (Kyle Jones), exhausted by having to try and get "in the mood" whenever she's at her peak fertility. 

When her home pregnancy test finally shows "positive", the happy news quickly gives way to even deeper expressions of manic anxiety.

People such as myself who have no interest in propagating the species will no doubt already find the movie nightmarish as we watch the two of them slog their way through all the insecurities, frustrations, mutual recriminations, suspicions of infidelity, and other insanity of such an endeavor.

Those who are going through or have gone through similar experiences are sure to identify with one or both of these frantic characters, even though their actions are comedically exaggerated.

Indeed, CYNTHIA is both horror movie and comedy, but the comedy, while clever and often perceptive, is played way down and never descends into farce.  This allows the script to get away with the more outlandish stuff which we accept even when it goes way outside the bounds of reality.

These bounds are shattered when Robin goes into labor and has a beautiful baby girl, in addition to a large, grotesque cyst which is immediately discarded.  As we all suspect, the cyst contains baby Samantha's twin, a horrific mutant monster (whom we will call "Cynthia") that immediately goes on a blood-drenched killing rampage as all mutant babies tend to do.

The death scenes are both shocking and perversely amusing, and the cops sent to investigate include genre icon Sid Haig (HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, "Jason of Star Command") in his usual sardonic persona, adding to the film's dry humor.

But what pushes this one over the top is when the proud parents bring their precious darling home and are followed by their murderous, beastlike other precious darling who takes up residence in the ventilation system and metes out bloody mayhem to anyone who threatens Mommy or sister Samantha.

This will come to include both Daddy, who isn't getting along very well anymore with the increasingly irrational Mommy, and Mommy's annoying busybody sister Jane (Rebecca Marshall), a bitter, self-centered divorcee who gives Robin all the wrong advice and ends up on the receiving end of Cynthia's wrath.

It's all played straight and smart, with the biting (so to speak) comedy serving as a counterpoint to scenes that would've been too melodramatic or outlandish on their own.  This also gives a welcome satirical edge to some of the most horrific death scenes. 

The lead actors are all fine, while Haig and other familiar stalwarts make brief but welcome appearances.  Lynn Lowry (MODEL HUNGER) shows off her considerable acting skills as a sickly-sweet nanny who finds one baby too many in the nursery, and Robert LaSardo (HARD TO KILL, DOUBLE TAP, DEATH RACE) has some nice moments as a surly hospital janitor. 

Sid Haid cohort Bill Moseley (HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, OLD 37) has a wild cameo as a homeless transvestite named Buttercup, and the great James Karen (BENDER, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) appears just long enough to make his way from one end of the screen to the other.

Hardly the kind of horror film to use up all its good scenes early and then peter out, CYNTHIA just keeps building to a climax that goes from queasy horror to nailbiting suspense (always with that comedy undercurrent) before ending on an old-fashioned "gotcha!" that caps it off with a shuddery smile.


Tech Specs
Runtime: 90 mins
Format: 1:85 HD
Sound: 5.1
Country: USA
Language: English
Captions: English
Website: www.IndicanPictures.com
Genre: Horror
Extras: interviews with Rebecca Marshall and "Cynthia", trailers

Cast & Crew
Directed by: Devon Downs and Kenny Gage
Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Sid Haig, Rebecca Marshall, Bill Moseley, Robert LaSardo, James Karen

CYNTHIA -- DVD Review by Porfle

APOCALYPSIS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/4/18

 

Stunningly directed and photographed--that's the first thing I noticed about writer-director Eric Leiser's fourth feature film, the near-future dystopian thriller APOCALYPSIS (2018), so it's the first thing I wanted to mention.

This story of a woman named Evelyn Rose (Maria Bruun), a Christian whose deep pondering of the Book of Revelations fills her mind with bizarre visions of frightening portent, and a man named Michael Banderwack (Chris O'Leary), a radical "hacktivist" bent on saving the world from itself even as the NSA use all their electronic surveillance might against him, is one endlessly intriguing and often beautiful work of cinematic art.

Visually, it reminds me of an updated version of 1982's cult sci-fi classic LIQUID SKY, both starring striking-looking female protagonists having disturbingly transformative experiences amidst a production designer's most fervid bursts of imagination.  It's as though David Lynch and Ridley Scott fell asleep in a candy store and collaborated on the same psychedelic dream.

That aside, the story is instantly compelling despite being the third installment in a trilogy (the other films being IMAGINATION and GLITCH IN THE GRID). Evelyn works for a rare book seller while constantly experiencing mindblowing visions inspired by the pages of Revelations and rendered in wonderfully odd stop-motion animated vignettes by director Leiser.

Meanwhile, Michael stays one frantic step away from the NSA (tinfoil bedsheets and all) while doing his outlaw radio show and planning acts of uncivil disobedience against the increasingly oppressive Big Brother state. 

This quest draws Evelyn and Michael together since both refuse to be "chipped" with an electronic "Mark of the Beast" under their skin and, in their own different ways, are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the collective good.

The fact that Michael is an atheist only makes their relationship more interesting.  Evelyn, an albino, looks almost as translucent as her guileless soul, and the two of them compliment each other. 

Despite occasional lapses in this symbiotic pairing, as when Michael suspects Evelyn of being an NSA mole, they will ultimately be united in a final, potentially futile struggle against the coming New World Order.

O'Leary's Banderwack is funny and fun to watch, a character we can admire despite being something of a flake. As Evelyn, a woman steadfast in her faith and pure at heart, Bruun is compelling throughout. 

Angels are sent to watch over her--even disbeliever Michael gets a visit from one after he goes "off the grid" and is advised that Evelyn needs his help.  And for once, a character's religious faith is neither mocked nor treated as a freaky quirk.

Storywise, we're deposited into this already-in-progress trilogy just at the right point to be able to pick things up as though it were a stand-alone film. The intrigue between underground political dissidents and voyeuristic Big Brother agents hot to bring them in for "processing" is enough to keep things interesting, and then there's the likability of the lead characters as their experiences allow the best of themselves to come through.

My main and perhaps only disappointment is the abrupt ending, which makes this seem like the penultimate entry in a trilogy rather than a concluding one. But that aside, APOCALYPSIS is like a visually sumptuous cinematic art gallery with a plot.  Both my eyes and my mind found it dazzling. 


Tech Specs
Runtime: 90min
Format:1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA
Language, Captions: English
Website: www.IndicanPictures.com
Genre: Sci-Fi
Extras: Making-of featurette, Indican trailers

Watch the Trailer

APOCALYPSIS -- DVD Review by Porfle