Vampires in San Francisco! Apocrypha will have it’s World Premiere tomorrow night at Another Hole in the Head! So you think you’ve seen everything there is to see about Vampires? Think again. Apocrypha is a small film with a lot of heart. Instead of showing the glamorized side of sparkly vamps, writers Michael Fredianelli and Kat Reichmuth penned a transitional story of two new vamps who have no idea who they are or what they should be doing. It’s a coming to terms story where they have to decide how to cope with their situation but only after discovering what they need to cope with.
Griffith (Michael Fredianelli) has been wandering the streets of San Francisco for a year now without really knowing what he’s doing there or how he got there. He regularly goes to a shrink (Ray Medved) describing his escalating problems with work, life and random relationships. Griffith can’t figure out his life and Goodstein, his shrink, is no help either. All he knows is that a year ago he showed and BS-ed his way into the amazing life he’s living now. A girl (Kat Reichmuth) awakens in Golden Gate Park with amnesia – she doesn’t even know her own name. She scours the city guided by her instincts and lands on the doorstep of a shelter run by Jan (William McMichael). San Francisco is a small 7×7 town so you know eventually their paths will cross. Jan is actually the connector knowing both Griffith’s annoying co-worker who DJs (we all have one) Dex (Sean Dodd Rojas) and shrink.
Kat Reichmuth and Michael Fredianelli in Apocrypha
The script is hilarious at times and not too loaded with boring back story or vampire details. Instead, Apocrypha takes the dramatic approach of following Griffith and Maggie’s lives as they figure out that there’s something supernatural about them. After almost every other scene, a character murmurs something under their breath keeping the tone of the film very candid allowing you to be a fly on the wall. There are a few twists and turns along the way but the story is pretty straight forward until the very end. As the two vampires’ fates and destinies are revealed by a spiritual psychic (Selenia Velez-Mason), you learn about the undeniable attraction of the two as well as the underlying decisions they each have to make.
woah.
Watching a local film like this is awesome and you’ll be able to spot out a lot of the locations in the movie. It has a great bay area vibe that you won’t be able to miss but also depicts the story in a way that it could happen in any city. The acting is fun and fluffy…you can tell that these were friends making the film and that they had a good time doing it. The film as a whole is concise and well formulated. It still has the cool aura of the vampire films we’ve been bombarded with recently but also contains its own indie spark that lets it stand out on its own. Come out and support your local filmmakers at the World Premiere of Apocrypha tomorrow, June 11th at 3:20pm!
This post is part of our ANITH coverageEvery year, the ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL unleashes the best dark fantasy, horror/comedy, sci-fi, bizarro-vision cinema in San Francisco. 2011 is no exception — AHITH, PART 8 will throw up 26 features and 15 short films onto the screen at the Roxie Theater, the beating heart of horror starting June 2 through June 17.Visit SF INDIEFEST’s Official Website
Tags: AHITH, Another Hole in the Head, Part 8, Apocrypha, Kat Reichmuth, Michael Fredianelli, Ray Medved, Sean Dodd Rojas, Selenia Velez-Mason, William McMichael
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
