For eight days in a sweaty June of 2018, Chicago’s historic Music Box Theater hosted the second annual Cinepocalypse genre film festival. As ever, a packed schedule provided screenings of both repertory (Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, Howard the Duck [in 70mm!], Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Bound) and not-yet-released film selects to the excitable audiences. TV-VCR was once again on-hand to assess a chunk of the new offerings in the most unfairly abbreviated way possible. In order of appearance:
-
- More successful as a deadpan post-apocalyptic film satire (à la Doomsday, or Community’s “Geothermal Escapism”) than an allegory on the difficulty of marriage, The Domestics still deserves points for attempting both. David Dastmalchian’s third or fourth rip-off of The Dark Knight co-star Heath Ledger’s Joker also bears mentioning. Grade: B-
-
- After some initially solid dystopian world-building, star and writer Cleopatra Coleman’s techno-thriller Hover very quickly reveals why SyFy is listed early in the title cards: it’s unconvincing, cheap-looking, and will be premiering on the basic cable channel in a few months. Grade: F
-
- A claustrophobic science fiction riff on Compliance, The World’s End’s David Bradley (and some fun practical effects) leads a strong cast in the strange, funny, and paranoid Cinepocalypse Audience Award Winner Await Further Instructions. Grade: B
-
- Another revenge thriller boasting of turning the genre on its head wasn’t warranted; but the blood-spattered, darkly-comic What Keeps You Alive owns the claim more than most of its peers. Grade: B+
-
- A pair of cheerfully breezy documentaries don’t do more than preach to the choir, and fans of Bill Murray or The Monster Squad aren’t likely to come away with any new insight from, respectively, The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man nor Wolfman’s Got Nards. Grade: C (for both)
-
- Bridey Elliott’s feature directing debut, Clara’s Ghost, features her and her famous family (sister Abby, dad Chris, mom—and Cinepocalypse Best Acress Winner—Paula) playing fictionalized versions of themselves in this supernatural comedy that gets a lot of mileage out of drunken family bickering. Grade: C+
-
- With a premise so dated, The Cop Baby‘s dumb—old-veteran-cop-magically-trapped-in-the-body-of-an-infant story might seem like a Funny People-style Hollywood sendup. In actuality, it’s an earnest, surprisingly stylishly-shot Russian film that aims far too squarely at a family audience. (The unnerving CGI of the title character does not help matters.) Grade: C
-
- Bless The Russian Bride’s stupid, silly heart and its over-the-top third act: this campy horror feature is a predictable, unsubtle tribute to yellowed VHS hidden gems—and to the healing power of cocaine. In other words: the ’80s extremely concentrated. Grade: B-
-
- The most pandering film on the schedule, Gags exploits the lazy intersection of found-footage horror and scary clowns to poorly-acted, frustratingly-trite results. Grade: D-
-
- With an impressive cast of cult TV ringers (Maria Bamford, Josh Brener, Dan Harmon, Matt Jones, Mark McKinney, Kate Micucci, Brian Posehn, Rhea Seehorn, Taika Waititi) and a Dave Made a Maze-esque DIY aesthetic, suicide comedy Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss By Passing Through the Gateway Chosen By the Holy Storsh coasts by on its well-meaning, bizarro charm—making it much easier to get through than its title. Grade: C+
-
- As willfully eccentric as its lead—and just as easily so tiresome—improvised detective comedy The Secret Poppo is this year’s The Greasy Strangler or Attack of the Adult Babies. Outside of a nifty score, it’s pretty roundly boring. Grade: D+
