DOOMSDAY STORIES *** USA 2023 Dirs: Derek Braasch, Marcelo Fabani, Phil Herman, James Panetta and Joel D. Wynkoop. 122 mins
Surviving the apocalypse is a hard journey already but having to find things to do other then survive is also time consuming. For Zorack one of only a few survivors in the world following the deadly virus strain known as “Meanies” he thankfully has a journal to read. In this journal he reads the stories of others who had lived through the apocalypse. Essentially Zorack’s journey acts as the wraparound story (which are Directed by Phil Herman) for this film which features 4 other short films, each short delving into how these people survived the apocalypse:
A Broken Promise: (Directed by Derek Braasch) – We follow family man Rick (Justin Bauer) who sadly lost his wife Emma (Lillian Lamour) following the birth of their daughter Grace. Now with his trusty dog friend Lucy by his side he stands up against other survivors to get food and seek shelter. Sadly though he made a promise to his dying wife and that was to look after Grace who we discover is staying elsewhere. Now to fulfill his promise he has to make potentially one final stand in this new world.
Bomb Threats (Directed by James Panetta) – Voluptuous beauty Katrina (Debbie D) is looking to meet up with a close friend on her latest excursion but unfortunately a bomb threat scuppers plans. Not wanting to be alone and also not wanting to hide with a group of people while the bombs fall she decides to get in contact with a guy called Alvin (Jim Ewald) who she recalls saying he had a bomb shelter. Katrina doesn’t feel threatened by Alvin as she states that he is nerdy but once she arrives and gets comfortable it would appear that the chaos outside is not the only danger.
Forever Man (Directed by Marcelo Fabani) – As the worlds resources become increasingly short due to the zombie outbreak President (Heather Carson) makes the choice to turn her country into a place where richer countries can gets in exchange for food and other items. It is not long before folk decide to give up organs in exchange for money so they can eat. The government though are secretly making supersoldiers by combining cybernetics and organic material. The government knows that the country is poor and push come to shove people will do what they must to survive even if it means they are no longer fully human.
187 Times (Directed by Joel D. Wynkoop) – A man known as James Kirk (Joel D. Wynkoop) has a clear goal in mind and that is to save his wife (M. Catherine Wynkoop) from being murdered. Stealing time-travel technology from his work place he goes back in time to try and save her and try to stop the virus outbreak. As James soon finds out, time-travel has many consequences and no matter how much you change the past you are ultimately affecting the whole time-line.
As mentioned earlier these are stories read out by Zorack from the journal he found, he even tells us between each story his own stories from the sad story of his sister Kate (Constance Payne) who succumbed to the virus and his friends he hoped to meet up with to live out the outbreak.
DOOMSDAY STORIES is of various qualities throughout not just in filmmaking styles but also the quality of how to tell a story in a limited time. In any anthology movie there are going to be stories that the viewer will feel works or doesn’t, in my case I really enjoyed them all with the wraparound stories being the weakest but these are a means to an end to get the story going to the next one.
It is clear that the Covid-19 pandemic was an inspiration for this film and as seen in some of the stories there was a lot of self filming due to cast / crew members not being able to travel, that said the editing of each story brings all this footage together tightly to form a nice addition to the anthology genre. DOOMSDAY STORIES is one to add to your watch list and as always with anthology movies if you don’t like a story don’t worry as there is bound to be one or more that you will enjoy.
Review by Peter ‘Witchfinder‘ Hopkins
DVD Available for sale $20.00
ORDERING INFORMATION CONTACT EMAIL:
Joel D Wynkoop: [email protected]
Phil Herman: [email protected]
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