Gentle ribbing of both Instagram and The Walking Dead are at the center of writer/director Martin Sofiedal's just over four-minute short film Instapocalypse, a film I would affectionately call a Zombie-com, a zombie flick with healthy doses of comedy. In the film, Andrew (Patrick Finzi) and Claire (Cecilie Svendsen) are two human survivors of a zombie apocalypse said to be the result of the world's growing obsession with the electronic universe. Both, somewhat embarrassingly, admit that they grieve most the loss of their social media worlds, a claim both hilarious to think about and frighteningly realistic. However, their quiet bonding over their loss of social media picks up steam when they stumble across an iPhone and fight over who gets to use it first. 

Weird? Absolutely. 

It works. 

Sofiedal wisely keeps everything moving fairly briskly here and also keeps the proceedings relatively short. This isn't so much a story as it is a slice of the undead life. 

Instapocalypse is proving to be quite popular on the film festival circuit including a screening just this past March at Cinequest. Sofiedal achieved fame in 2014 when he directed the fan film Uncharted:Ambushed based upon the Playstation game of the same name. Instapocalypse should continue to grow his reputation as a talented filmmaker and continue to experience quite a bit of success on the film festival circuit. 

The film's ensemble cast is uniformly strong, while D.P. Magnus Owe's lensing work is energetic and inspired. While Instapocalypse isn't a flawless film, the film's opening scene is a tad clunky, overall it's a tremendously entertaining way to spend a few minutes at your local film festival and should easily find its way into a few more fests as a likely audience pleaser. 

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic