Johanna Rae

It’s not often that indie films can be labeled as adaptations of existing work, but Apocalypse Rising based on 2014 novel The Dead S.I.T.E. by Gregory P. Wolk falls squarely into that category. Brought to life through a collaboration between director, Richard Lowry and the author, this tongue in cheek adventure flick mixes zombies, aliens and Christian mythology together for an irreverent quest to save the Earth. Apocalypse Rising is an odd duck. It took me a while to figure out what kind of tone it was trying to strike. Opening scenes involving people in Roman garb being attacked by skull-faced zombies whose bites unleashed blood splatter on par with a GWAR concert or the early works of Peter Jackson, which led me to think this was a horror flick at heart. But after being introduced to our league of survivors from the planet Rathe as they hurtled through space on an escape shuttle where they passionately discussed religious divisions that led to their planet’s destruction, my brain was immediately