One of these years I’m going to get off my ass and fly out to San Diego for Comic-Con. I’ve been saying that for a decade and am seemingly no closer to making it happen. Not sure why. I love San Diego, having been there twice before, and while I’m not a card carrying member of the geek squad, I do write about movies, so there’s definitely geek-like qualities swimming around the ol’ bloodstream.

Alas, I will once again be strapped to my laptop monitoring the proceedings from afar. I’m certain countless others share in my plight. And I see no reason why we should be left out of the fun and frivolity. To help ease the pain, I’ve devised a list of ten things us non-attendees can do to feel like we’re part of the action. So, take off your Browncoat and grab a frosty mug of Jawa Juice, ’cause I’m bringing Comic-Con straight into your living room.

10. Have TRON playing on a continuous loop

If you’re like me, you can’t wait to see TRON: Legacy in December. Having the original flick playing nonstop for four consecutive days will not only get you in the mood for the long awaited sequel, but it also sets the tone for your very own Comic-Con home experience.

9. Build a cardboard cutout of Stan Lee

You can’t have a Comic Con without Mr. Marvel himself. Dress up as your favorite superhero and take some pics of you and Stan with your iPhone camera. Then you can grill him with probing questions like, “How much coin did you pocket for selling out to Hollywood?”

8. Glue on a fake George Lucas beard and rewrite the prequels

Every Star Wars nerd from here to Tatooine wants a crack at reworking Lucas’s forgettable prequels. Well, what are you waiting for? Illegally download a copy of Final Draft and get to it. Just be sure to include an obnoxious digital character called Har Har Finks and remember to make the dialog stilted and ridiculous.

7. Buy a sledgehammer and pretend to be Thor

While waiting with baited breath for the Thor movie to be released next summer, why not get a workout or two in by swinging a hammer just like Chris Hemsworth? If it’s not raining outside, hook up the garden hose in your bedroom, because in order to be cool like Thor, you gotta be soaking wet. (Am I the only one who thinks this movie looks really silly?).

6. Grab a pal and dress like Jay and Silent Bob

Kevin Smith is a fixture at every Comic-Con. What better way to pay tribute than donning the garb of his most iconic creations – Jay and Silent Bob. Call up a portly friend, or if you’re the fat one, a skinny chum, and camp out at the nearest convenience store for ten to twelve hours. “Snoochie boochies!”

5. See Inception

Watch it for the first time or watch it again. Then pontificate over what was a dream and what was reality. It’s the perfect complement to any Comic-Con celebration.

4. Say a prayer for The Hobbit films

Will they or won’t they happen? MGM is drowning in debt. The director walked out and no replacement has been found. One of its key actors is preparing to quit. Ugh. It’s been a stormy journey for The Hobbit, and the weather doesn’t appear to clearing.

3. Shoot a scene for J.J. Abrams’ Super 8

If you’ve been privy to the teaser for J.J. Abrams new creature feature Super 8, then you know it’s shot in the same vein as Cloverfield, i.e. with herky jerky handheld video. Hey, you can do that. Just run around at night in the backyard screaming “there’s a monster chasing me!” and record it on your iPhone. And you thought you weren’t a filmmaker.

2. Practice being The Riddler

It seems like a foregone conclusion that Batman 3‘s villain will be The Riddler. And just about every actor in Hollywood has been linked to the role. Why not throw your hat in the ring? All you need is a ugly green suit and some clever puns. Presto! Two days later a internet rumor will circulate that you’re in the running for the part.

1. Watch Cellular and weep that Chris Evans is Captain America

We here at FlickSided are none too pleased about Chris Evans being cast as Captain America. He seems like a nice enough fella, but no way does he fit the Steve Rogers character. Hell, Nathan Fillion is Canadian and he’d still make a better Cap.

Joshua Grannell is the writer and director of

Shortly after the world premier of All About Evil, Joshua sat down with FlickSided to talk about his film:

Flicksided: Most people here in the [San Francisco] Bay Area know you as Peaches Christ, not Joshua Grannell. How did Peaches come to be?

Joshua Grannell: I was making my senior thesis film at Penn State University back in 1995 — I graduated in ’96, but you take the whole year to make your film — and I had co written a movie called “Jizz Mopper: A Love Story” with my friend, Hal. I was directing the movie and there was a part for a drag queen character in this, sort of, porn emporium. She was the manager of this porn world.

Oh, a little aside about that: everyone was kinda like “That doesn’t make any sense! Why would there be a drag queen running this place? I don’t get it.” And when we found our location in Harrisburg, PA where we shot, the person running the porn emporium was a drag queen! It was kind of amazing, because we had a reference right there in the store.

Anyway, the actor we had hired to play the part was a flake and kind of just didn’t show up and the administration was going to dissolve a certain number of projects, so, sort of out of desperation — and also probably a secret desire to do it all along — I stepped in to play the drag queen part. We changed her name from CoCo to Peaches. So Peaches was born in an underground film.

Which is appropriate considering who she became later on.

Very. And it’s ironic to me that now, at 36 years old, I’m doing the same thing all over again, just it’s a different size. But really it’s the same thing. Peaches was not the lead in that student film, she was sort of a costar. It’s funny.

Before we get into your film, I did want to talk for just a minute about drag, and its place within gay culture and culture as a whole.

Drag comes in SO many different forms and everyone who does drag has their own relationship with it. I think it’s importance as far as being part of a culture is often underestimated. It is sort of, I think, an art form that embraces vaudeville and comedy and costume and fashion and community theatre and, of course, film.

Drag is often dismissed as something silly, but for its fans and the people who create it and enjoy it, it’s taken quite seriously. And there’s all different ranges of it from female impersonation to sort of what I do. I’ve always viewed Peaches as a separate character from myself. Certainly parts of my personality are in the character, but I created her to be something so “otherworldly” in way that she could not exist in the real world. It just wouldn’t be practical. But then there’s drag queens where the wig and the costume is just an extension of who they are every day.

Also, you mentioned culture in general, and it’s part of gay culture definitely, but it also had it’s place — and this is what I love — in midnight movie culture and the culture of B-film and cult movies. So I was just turned on to things like John Waters and Divine at a very early age and around the same time fell in love with The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Which obviously isn’t just a “gay” thing…

Right. And there’s Ed Wood. So for me, I almost feel like I fit — and Peaches fits — into that world best. And in some ways I’m sometimes considered an outsider from the more mainstream gay culture because of her affiliations with horror and gore and movies. So I was really first sucked into the world of drag through Divine.

Because of your involvement in Midnight Mass and the no-budget shorts you’ve made in the past, it’s obvious that you’re a huge fan of film. How did you first get into film and, more specifically, underground or cult film.

It’s that cliched story where I was such an artsy kid that I would wrangle the neighborhood kids and grab a video camera to film stories and put on theatrical productions. I just escaped through movies. Ever since I was first introduced to them, it was an obsession. I was absolutely obsessed with movies and that never, ever changed. It’s always been a part of who I am. As I grew up I was able to love things like Steven Spielberg and also, at the same time, love the early works of John Waters or David Lynch. I love all kinds of short films and underground movies, but I also love Hollywood blockbusters. I just love good movies. It’s just always been a big part of who I am, both as Joshua and as Peaches.

With Peaches I was able to build a whole brand around this drag character’s affinity for movies.

Ok, now, finally, let’s get to All About Evil. It premiered last Saturday at the Castro Theatre here in San Francisco. How would you describe the film to someone who has never heard of it.

I would say that it’s a black comedy set in the world of an old, classic horror movie. I think a lot of people see it as a horror movie first, but I don’t. I never really did. It doesn’t have a modern horror movie feel. I love the old horror movies from the 50s and 60s and I was trying to do my own version of one of those movies, but of course make it contemporary and funny. So at it’s core it’s about a dark sense of humor and, of course, a real love of old horror movies.

All About Evil premiered as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. How did that fall together?

The festival did ask for a screener, and of course we were thinking about the world premier in relation to San Francisco. It’s such a San Franciscan film, and I’m such a San Franciscan artist — and I’m proud to be, I want to be and I love that it is part of my brand — and it was important to me to make the film in San Francisco. So, it only made sense to premier the movie in San Francisco.

But also — I’ve got to be honest — we were rejected from Sundance. I thought we had a real shot of playing in the midnight program there — I’ve seen some of the films that have played that program so I thought we really, really had a shot.

Some of those films are actually playing alongside All About Evil here at SFIFF in their Late Show program.

Yes, and not to say anything bad about any of those other films at all, I just thought we had a shot.

I now — after going through this last weekend — have a ton of gratitude for having been rejected from Sundance, because I don’t know that our world premier would have felt as special anywhere except San Francisco. I was overwhelmed by the response to everything. I just don’t see us getting that in Utah.

So, at the time I was disappointed, not grossly disappointed, actually I think our movie needs to struggle. I think my stuff has always benefitted from that struggle to bring it to people and then have them discover it and experience it. I don’t think we would have benefitted from being an overnight success. That’s not who we are and I don’t think that’s really who we want to be. The premier on Saturday just reassured me that this is where we needed to be.

This is your first time directing a feature film, so it’s your first time working with a significant budget, professional actors, etc. What were some of the challenges associated with that experience?

I think the best way to describe it is that it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also the most fulfilling, fun and wonderful thing I’ve ever done.

It was a dream come true, but the dream, at times, became a nightmare. I don’t know how to describe it, except as indescribable. As a director, you feel the weight of the world resting on your shoulders. It’s not one show that we’re gonna perform at Midnight Mass and if it bombs, it bombs. Sure we’ve spent time and energy on it, but everyone will recover and we’ll do another show. With a movie, I felt this tremendous amount of pressure to deliver something that was both true to the spirit of the world that I come from, but also engaging enough and entertaining enough that it could crossover and work for people who weren’t familiar with our culture or background.

It was tremendously stressful and difficult, yes. It was also hugely satisfying and wonderful and fun and outrageous. I think, too, the marrying of the sort of bohemian underground drag world of creative collaborators and artists that I come from, with the more industry-related world of filmmaking and actors, a cinematographer and editor, was actually a beautiful marriage. I think everyone benefitted.

Peaches was actually a character in All About Evil. How did having her in the film affect production?

When we were in preproduction, one of my producers said to me, “These are the rules for independent filmmaking, and making a film with your budget, that you are breaking: you’re not supposed to have special effects, you want talking heads sitting in a room, but you have elaborate gags and effects; you’re not supposed to have children, there’s a whole scene with children; and you are definitely not supposed to have the director act in the move, let alone do so in drag.”

So we actually mapped out what the potential challenges were going to be in relation to Peaches being part of the movie, and me, as Joshua, directing the movie. And we worked around them as best we could. To say it was easy would be a lie. It was definitely challenging and difficult. I actually didn’t like the Peaches days as much as the other days; I found it to be- I think everyone found it to be a challenge.

I’ve just got this picture in my head of this crazy drag queen in high heels running back and forth from the set where she’s acting to the director’s chair looking at monitors to check out the shots. It seems like it could have been total chaos…

Ok, this is the way it looked:

On the Peaches days — and there were like eight of them out of the twenty-five shooting days, so it was kind of a substantial amount — I would show up in “face”. Which meant the other actors would get to show up freshly showered, then we’d do a rehearsal, then they’d go into the hair and makeup trailer. But because I was the director, I could not afford to do that, and no one else could do my makeup. So I would actually, often times, get home later that anyone else would. I’d lay down for what basically amounted to a nap. Then I’d have to wake up three hours earlier than the call time to put on my face.

We had a plan, and it was designed to be- I did not want Peaches and her presence in the film to ever interfere with production. So I was willing to get up early to put on my face, and my costume designer and I had it down to science how to get me in and out of that costume as quickly as possible. So there was a plan, and it worked. It was tiring, but it worked.

Cassandra Peterson plays Steven’s mom. There’s one scene in particular where she is in her son’s room and there is an Elvira poster on his wall. For any viewers who are familiar with cult film, and know that Cassandra is Elvira, it’s a pretty surreal moment.

It’s funny. Many people think I wrote the movie with Cassandra in mind, but I didn’t. I actually wrote the movie from a very pure fantasy place, because I really didn’t know that it would ever get financed. I didn’t know if we’d make the movie for five dollars or five million dollars — we ended up making it for a number in between those, of course.

So, when I was writing the movie I didn’t do it with any actors in mind. It wasn’t until I finished and started putting it all together to shoot — in that time I had befriended Cassandra through doing some midnight mass shows with her. I had gotten to know her and see her as this wonderful, nurturing mother to a teenage daughter. And I just love her, she’s one of my favorite people in the world. So I now have this woman who had created this wonderful character, and who is a mother who I appreciate so much.

So it wasn’t until I was casting that Cassandra became part of the equation. And I was really impressed with her talent as an actress and her ability to transcend this iconic character that she is so known for.

I think people who aren’t in on the “joke” can just watch her as the mom character in your film without feeling like she’s out of place.

Yeah, she’s wonderful.

And I should say, that when I cast her, I did go back and intentionally add in things like the Elvira poster.

There are other specific scenes and shots in your movie that play direct homage to other films. Were those also added in as you shot?

A lot of them were written in.

But some of the homages changed once we were done with the casting. For example, what was once an homage to The Brood, Poltergeist,Village of the Damned and The Bad Seed ended up becoming an homage to The Shining. Because, when I saw a bunch of blonde twins — the twins were always written to be blonde; they were always meant to be Village of the Damned — but when you’re in LA auditioning for blonde twins, you get Hugh Hefner’s girls. You get something completely different from what I was looking for, which was creepy, thin, gaunt twins. I saw literally twenty sets of blonde twins, and I was so…

Tired of fake boobs?

Yes! Oh my god, we saw a lot of fake boobs.

Anyway, these brunettes came in, and had timed their breathing for the audition. They had not only ready their lines, but they had read the sides and really figured out what these characters were. They were robots.

After Jade and Nikita [Ramsey] played that scene, I was like, “That’s it. You don’t need to bring anyone else in.” We had totally shifted gears.

So back to your question, what was once an homage to one thing became a nod to something else.

There’s also the scene where ***spoiler deleted***

Whoa! Total spoiler.

Oh shit, sorry. I’ll delete that.

We can call it the “rooftop finale.” It’s totally meant to be King Kong meets Rocky Horror meets, like, everything. When I was writing it, I was like, “of course it needs to end on the roof! That’s where all great Hollywood cliched endings take place.”

For someone like myself, and yourself obviously, and I think most of the people who were at the Castro on Saturday — we are “film people.” So these moments work so well for us in that way, but I had to step back and ask myself, “would this movie work for the casual viewer?” I think it does, but is that something you worried about too?

Well what we’ve been doing is test screenings for audiences who are specifically made up of casual movie goers. For those screenings we didn’t want cult film fans. It means the world to me to entertain my core audience, but for people like my relatives, who don’t get anything that I do, to be able to watch this and laugh, is incredible. I love that.

I don’t make any bones about it, I want to be a crowd pleaser. I want a broad audience to enjoy this movie. Will we have walk outs during this movie? Yes. If those walkouts happen during certain parts of the movie, I’m fine with that. I actually like that.

There was a scene in the movie — I got to watch part of it from the back — I’ll just say this, after the guillotine scene was fully realized, there were fourteen walkouts. We were counting.

The thing is — I hope he won’t get upset with me for saying this — Darren Stein, one of the producers, invited his older aunt and uncle, and they got up and left. Darren was worried about my feelings afterwards, but I said, “No! That’s fabulous. We want people to get up and leave. At that scene. It’s supposed to piss off parents.”

I don’t think we’ll ever make a movie for everyone, but I think this delivers on what we set out to do.

And hopefully if you don’t get the homages, if you don’t get that Cassandra Peterson is Elvira, the movie will stand on it’s own.

You’ve had your world premier. What’s next for All About Evil?

It was just announced that we’re going to be in the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. It was also just announced that we’re going to be in the Provincetown International Film Festival in June too, which I’m so fucking excited to go to. Everyone — Cassandra, John Waters — everyone loves that film festival and I’ve never been to Provincetown and I’ve always wanted to go.

After those film festivals, All About Evil begins its event-based theatrical run. We’ve worked out a deal with Landmark Theatres to play in about twenty different markets across the country. We’re going to do live midnight screenings a la Peaches. It’s very important to me that it rolls out in the way that I feel best suits this movie.

It will of course be made available for Video On-Demand and DVD, so it will be accessible to fans everywhere.

But I really want the theatricals to be “theatrical.” And I want some control over that, and I want to maintain rights to the film. So, I won’t sell it to a distributor, because it will take away my ability to do these kind of live shows. I want to be able to take it on the road.

So for the time being, we’ll be distributing it ourselves, at least for domestic theatrical screenings.

It sounds like, for a while at least, you’re very occupied with All About Evil, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask what’s next. Is there a project in the works?

There is. There’s actually two things that I’m playing with. I’ve started to outline in my head, and even started writing one of them.

There’s the idea to do a Peaches feature. Which I view as being very far removed from what we’ve done with All About Evil and it’s more about our no-budget short films. We could give Peaches a budget and finally do this full-on romp through the wild world that is Peaches Christ.

The other is part of this “Trilogy of Evil” that I’ve kind of constructed in my head. I don’t see All About Evil lending itself to a sequel. I do, however, think I could use the same themes to make this trilogy. So I have, in my head, two more movies that are similar in spirit and in tone. Tone was very important to me this time around and I’d like to do another movie in the same spirit. But I don’t want to talk about what it’s about! (laughs)

I will say, it is also very, very, very San Franciscan. Maybe even more specifically San Franciscan than All About Evil is.

For more information about All About Evil, visit the film’s official website, http://www.allaboutevilthemovie.com/.
For information about Peaches Christ visit http://www.peacheschrist.com/.

For screening times for All About Evil at the Los Angeles Film Festival, go to http://www.lafilmfest.com/2010/.
For screening times for All About Evil at the Provincetown International Film Festival, go to http://www.ptownfilmfest.org/.

All About Evil screened at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, which took place this year from April 22nd to May 6th. For more information about the festival, please visit their official website.

All About Evil will next screen at the Alamo Drafthouse’s Ritz Theatre in Austin, TX on May 15th. The screening will include a live stage show, Q&A and meet and greet. Please visit http://originalalamo.com for showtimes and tickets. The SFIFF premier featured the stage show and Q&A, an experience that I highly recommend.

Cyrus screened at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, which took place this year from April 22nd to May 6th. For more information about the festival, please visit their official website.

Cyrus will begin a theatrical run in the U.S. on June 18th. A full review will be made available upon its release.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work was the Closing Night Film at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, which took place this year from April 22nd to May 6th. For more information about the festival, please visit their official website.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work has secured North American distribution through IFC Films. A full review will be made available upon its commercial release.

Happythankyoumoreplease was featured as the Centerpiece Screening at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, which took place this year from April 22nd to May 6th. For more information about the festival, please visit their official website.

Happythankyoumoreplease has secured North American distribution. A full review will be made available upon its commercial release.

The San Francisco International Film Festival takes place this year from April 22 to May 6.

Please visit the official SFIFF website for more information on specific screenings.

A full review of this film will be available upon its eventual commercial release. Details to follow.

Domain

The two relate because they possess a shared grief over their fractured relationships with Pierre’s mother, Barbara. Barbara refuses to speak with her sister because she is an alcoholic and refuses to get help. Pierre struggles to connect with his mom because she is having trouble coping with his transition into adulthood. Pierre and Nadia’s relationship with each other only further fractures their relationships with her.

In the beginning, Nadia and Pierre’s shared intimacy seems inappropriate. There is a suppressed sexual tension that, while making viewers uneasy, draws them into Domain’s story. Chiha focuses the first act of his film exploring this aspect of their relationship. He deftly balances the normal and abnormal qualities of the characters’ bond, keeping the audience wondering, “Will they cross the line?”

Unfortunately, just as their relationship seems to be entering taboo territory, he cowardly veers away. It is revealed that Pierre is gay. Addressing a teen’s coming-out would have been brave in another film, but here it just feels like a copout. When juxtaposed with a potential sexual relationship with his aunt, Pierre’s homosexuality seems downright conventional. Sure, it doesn’t need to be a big deal, because, to accepting folk, it’s not. However, Chiha uses Pierre’s orientation as a prop, serving no purpose but to move the plot forward.

The rest of Domain falls into the same trappings. Nadia’s career as a mathematician is discussed at length in the film’s opening scenes, but again, its relevance is shallow. Nadia explains that she is attracted to numbers because they are constant and orderly, whereas every other aspect in her life is chaotic. The problem: we are told that. It’s never really illustrated, so it’s hard to care. Her alcoholism plays out very much the same. Her sister Barbara says she has a problem, we see her drinking a lot, but there aren’t any specific events where her drinking causes problems. So, though many issues are introduced, there’s no time to flesh them out.

Because the plot is so overstuffed with various conflicts and resolutions, there isn’t enough detail offered to show why any of it is important. So, when it’s finally time to attach a point to the story, viewers are so disengaged, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Domain also suffers from over-length. If this were a better film, I might describe its pace as deliberate; instead, I’ll say it’s slow. At under two hours, its runtime really isn’t excessive; it just feels like a chore. There are a few points in the film that felt like natural endings, but Chiha pressed forward, introducing more conflicts and then abandoning them almost instantly. If Chiah were to cut Domain extensively, and focus his story on a single, unifying subject, it might transform into a decent (but still not spectacular) film. Instead, we are left with a muddled mess of a motion picture.

The San Francisco International Film Festival takes place this year from April 22 to May 6.

Please visit the official SFIFF website for more information on specific screenings.

So, despite having heard good things about Sean Byrne’s narrative feature debut, The Loved Ones, I couldn’t feel too optimistic. I realized that I was unfairly associating his film with Wolf Creek, but that was my point of reference for modern Australian horror. Still, I attempted to clear my mind of that negativity and proceeded to give the film a chance.

I’m so glad I did.

The Loved Ones opens with Brent (Xavier Samuel) driving his father down a rural road. The two are happily conversing, when, suddenly, a bloody figure appears in the middle of the road. Swerving to avoid the person, Brent slams the car into a tree, killing his father.

Sometime later, Brent has sunk into a deep depression. Failing to cope with the guilt associated with the accident, Brent sinks into an existence fueled by drugs and self-mutilation. The only bright spot in his life is his beautiful and outstandingly supportive girlfriend, Holly (Victoria Thaine). So, when asked to prom by shy outcast Lola (Robin McLeavy), Brent politely declines, explaining that he is spoken for.

This first act accomplishes what Wolf Creek never even attempted: it introduces sympathetic characters and develops their histories and personalities. Brent is a depressed kid, but he is far from one-dimensional. He shows glimmers of happiness when with Holly, making him easier to connect with, which becomes increasingly important in the second act.

As it turns out, rejecting Lola’s advance was the worst thing Brent could have possibly done. While taking his dog for a walk, he is attacked and knocked unconscious. He awakens tied to a chair, wearing a tuxedo, inside Lola’s house — which has been decorated to look like a school dance. Lola is in a prom dress and ready to start their “date.” She and her father then proceed to beat and torture Brent.

Once Brent is captured, it would have been easy for this movie to devolve into a typical torture-porn flick. Instead, Byrne focuses not on the torturous deeds inflicted on Brent, but his reactions to them — his fear taking precedent over his physical pain. Further, Lola and her father are not merely set-pieces used only to progress the plot and perform the torture; Byrne studies their psychology, offering a glimpse into the minds of complete sociopaths. What makes The Loved Ones scary isn’t the violence on screen; it’s the insanity present inside the antagonists’ heads.

Overall, The Loved Ones is partly gruesome, partly campy, but a complete blast. Byrne’s biggest strength is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously; he’s not afraid to have fun with his movie, making any missteps largely forgivable. His seamless blending of humor and horror makes The Loved Ones an incredibly enjoyable experience, start to finish.

The San Francisco International Film Festival takes place this year from April 22 to May 6.

The Loved Ones screens again this Sunday, May 2 at 10:30pm & Thursday, May 6 at 3:00pm. Please visit the official SFIFF website for more information on specific screenings.

Set over 250 years in the future, Cargo exists in a universe where earth has become so polluted, humanity is forced to vacate the planet and live on large, elaborate space stations. For the lucky few who can afford a visa, solace can be found on Rhea, a distant planet that has been retrofitted to sustain human life. Described as paradise by those who live there, Rhea is the dream destination for Dr. Laura Portman, who has recently accepted a job as the resident medic on a cargo ship called Kassandra. With only one tour on the freighter, Laura will make enough money to move to Rhea. Kassandra is set to embark on a four-year journey across the galaxy to deliver construction supplies to Space Station 42. Though the journey is long, each crew member will spend most of it in deep cryogenic sleep, only to awaken for his or her designated eight-month shift. However, during Laura’s time managing the freighter, she discovers a secret regarding the cargo they are delivering. This revelation sets in motion a series of events that could change the course of human existence forever.

Engler and Etter uncover pieces of their story artfully, revealing just enough to gratify their audience’s curiosity, while still leaving viewers enough in the dark to keep them wondering what would come next. The first big secret uncovered, the contents of the ship’s cargo bay, prompts more questions than it answers — further engrossing the viewer. This pattern continues until the big reveal during the film’s climax, raising the stakes each time. Though the story grows more complex as it develops, it never becomes unintelligible, an accomplishment in its own right.

Though it often succeeds, Cargo still has occasional missteps. A romantic subplot between Laura and another crew member is completely unfulfilling. The relationship seems to develop instantly, with absolutely no foundation. Though used later to justify the characters’ actions, this element of the story was largely unnecessary and would not be missed if cut altogether.

The biggest problem with Cargo, however, has little to do with small details or individual scenes, but the story as a whole. Once the entire mystery is uncovered, and all its cards are on the table, a sense of déjà vu overwhelms an educated audience. The biggest, most important plot device is hugely derivative. So much so, that revealing which film Cargo borrows from, would ruin the movie completely.

Throughout its entire runtime, Cargo remains thoroughly entertaining. It is only when the viewer realizes exactly how much of its plot is recycled, that it becomes less rewarding. Honestly, if you’ve never seen the other film in question, you will probably really dig this movie; unfortunately I did, and it hurt my viewing experience.

The San Francisco International Film Festival takes place this year from April 22 to May 6.

Please visit the official SFIFF website for more information on specific screenings.