APOCALYPSE NOW NOW (2017)

Filmmaker Michael Matthews is a name worth knowing. Debuting with the excellent modern western FIVE FINGERS FOR MARSEILLES, the writer/director followed that up with the truly great and woefully underseen LOVE AND MONSTERS. But before he embarked on that post-apocalyptic romantic adventure, in 2017 Mathews directed APOCALYPSE NOW NOW—a short film that clearly was intended as a proof of concept for a feature. Written by Sean Drummond (based on a novel by Chris Human), it’s a quick flying 7 minutes of inventive awesomeness. The plot summary is as follows:

Snarky, monster-porn-dealing teen, Baxter Zevcenko, might be a serial killer. His girlfriend, Esme, is missing, and he’s the prime suspect. To clear his name, he’ll turn to Cape Town’s grizzliest, drunkest bounty hunter, Jackson ‘Jackie’ Ronin. Little does he know that Ronin is a supernatural bounty-hunter, and that he’s about to be dragged headlong into a deep, dark Cape Town underbelly full of monsters and myth, shadowy government forces, bloodthirsty crow-men and a conspiracy across time and space. But just how stable is Baxter? With every chance that it’s all in his head, it’s up to this mismatched pair to prevent the Apocalypse - quick. Well, quick-ish.

Baxter is played by Garion Dowds, Louw Venter is Ronin, and Faniswa Yisa portrays “the vigilante.”

And while APOCALYPSE NOW NOW doesn’t seem to have been turned into a feature (yet), perhaps seeing how Matthews dealt with teens & creatures led to him getting the LOVE AND MONSTERS gig.