You know the story well. In a dystopian world, the despotic siblings who rule with an iron fist murder a family who opposes them. The only survivor, a young boy, left deaf and mute by the experience, trains his entire life with a very stoned shaman for a mission of revenge with only the mental incarnation of his dead sister and his internal monologue, the voice of his favorite childhood video game, for company. Yeah, that old yarn, right? And thus, we have Boy Kills World.
Raising twin teen boys is a harrowing enough proposition, but when you have to raise twin teen boys in the middle of an end-of-the-world scenario, it’s even more fraught with peril. And sibling rivalry, and raging hormones, and dammit-dad-leave-me-alone-I’m-brooding. In this exact predicament is where Nicolas Cage’s Paul finds himself in Arcadian. Not only does he have to protect his sons, Joseph (Jaeden Martell, It, Midnight Special) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins, Lost in Space), from monsters that come in the darkness, he has to keep them from killing each other. No minor feat.
After messing with vampires and Frankenstein, in Habit and Depraved respectively, indie horror fave Larry Fessenden returns with his take on werewolves in Blackout. Set in a small town in upstate New York, painter Charley Barrett (Alex Hurt, son of William Hurt, which comes into play in one uniquely pointed way) makes his way through his last day in town, wrapping up loose ends, visiting friends one final time, and trying to right a few lingering wrongs on the way out the door. Complicating his exit, it turns out Charley is a werewolf and responsible for a number of recent deaths the elder powerbroker of this minor hamlet, Hammond (Marshall Bell), has chosen to blame on Miguel (Rigo Garay) despite a lack of evidence.
