Movie Review: My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving

Movie Review: My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving

Director: Charles B. Unger

Writer: Richard Soriano

Stars: Joshua Warren Bush, Ray Chang, and Chris Wu

A zombie-obsessed, special needs adult searches for his absent mom while a Korean family and gang compete to be his family.

Rated: 4 Stars

Review by: Astilbe

It’s hard to change the future when you can’t remember the past.

Just like Marcus, I was once obsessed with zombie movies. Some of the most memorable scenes were the ones that explored his interest in this topic and how the lessons he learned from that genre bled over into real life for him. I also loved seeing how his race, age, and disabilities influenced his understanding of that genre. Zombie flicks are so often written from the perspective of white men who don’t have any disabilities, so it was refreshing to see those same tropes play out for someone outside of that group.

Marcus’ inability to safely live on his own was such a major portion of the storyline that I was surprised to see how little time was spent explaining his backstory or diagnoses. His social worker and group home owner briefly discussed the fact that both his mental illness and developmental delay were the reasons for this, but they never went into anymore detail about that. I found myself wishing that they’d have either given him specific diagnoses or spent a scene describing his strengths and weaknesses when it came to why he needed to live in a group home. These labels were an important part of understanding later plot developments, and the storyline would have been tighter if the audience was given more direction here.

I loved the mishmash of genres in this film. Sometimes I couldn’t quite tell what was genuinely happening versus what Marcus’ vivid imagination wished would happen next. That not only fit his personality well, it also gave the comedy, drama, holiday, horror, and light speculative fiction genres a chance to rub up against each other in ways that I don’t see too often. As much as I want to dive deeply into this topic, it’s best if other viewers go into the first scene with as few assumptions about what will happen next as I did.

My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving was a thought-provoking, funny, and rewarding film.