Prepare for the coming CINEPOCALYPSE!!!

Cinepocalypse, Chicago’s premiere festival for electrifying and provocative genre cinema, returns to the Music Box Theatre June 13th for eight days of features, shorts, events and surprises, including eight fantastic break-out world premieres!

We didn't get to partake in much of last year's installment due to theatrical obligations (other than showing up for the Q&A of the world premiere of GAGS), but 2019's schedule is looking bright and we're ready and raring to go. Just in time to start the summer horror season off right, the Music Box Theatre hosts the festival's third go-round under the Cinepocalypse moniker (formerly the Bruce Campbell Horror Film Festival, and all the better for disassociating itself from the Great Chin, in my humble opinion).

LET US PREY (2014) Blu-ray review

Let Us Prey (2014) d. Brian O’Malley (UK/Ireland)

Her first night in the sleepy burg to which she’s been reassigned, Constable Rachel Heggie (Pollyanna McIntosh) arrives just in time to witness a hit-and-run accident in the street; as she approaches to arrest the perpetrator (Brian Vernel), it quickly becomes apparent that the victim has somehow disappeared. She brings the young hoodlum to the police station regardless, encountering a none-too-welcoming committee in the form of staff sergeant Macready (Douglas Russell) and his two on-duty comrades in blue, the emotionally entwined Warnock (Bryan Larkin) and Mundie (Hannah Stanbridge). Our hit-and-run punching bag is ultimately discovered and recovered, sporting a superficial wound to the forehead and a decided unwillingness to chat about his identity or purpose. After the local twitchy sawbones is nearly driven mad by the very presence of the stranger, Macready locks the nameless bearded gent in the cells to keep company with his vehicular assailant, a wife-beating schoolteacher, and the now-bonkers doc. The night is off to a grand start, and as the clock ticks down toward midnight, things only get weirder and wilder as each of the inhabitants – on both sides of the bars – find their deepest, darkest secrets laid bare by the man in Cell Six....

THE WOMAN (2011) review

Woman, The (2011) d. McKee, Lucky (USA)

Working from a script by himself and bad boy novelist Jack Ketchum, McKee unfolds a haunting fairy tale about a feral female (Pollyanna McIntosh) captured by Sean Bridgers’ evil ogre of a family man, keeping her in his workshed while his complicit family pitches in to conceal and contain their new prize. There is some extreme, uncompromising violence and degradation on hand, but the real damage is inflicted on a psychological level (a Ketchum staple) with the weak-hearted preyed upon by the smiling monster dressed as Man. Great performances, and if taken as a mythic parable as opposed to realistic drama, it definitely goes down easier on a narrative level. One slight quibble: the jarring alt rock tune-filled soundtrack, which left me wondering if McKee was trying to fit in songs from every one of his friends who had a band.