Rapture-Palooza Director Interview

It's the end of the world as we know it in apocalyptic comedy.

What’s worse than living through the apocalypse? How about being constantly hit on by the antichrist. That’s what poor Anna Kendrick is forced to deal with in the latest end-of-the-world comedy Rapture-Palooza. She plays the mild-mannered Lindsey who, along with her loyal boyfriend Ben ( Bones ’ John Francis Daley), must endure blood rain, foul-mouthed insects and a very horny Devil played by The Office' s Craig Robinson, in his second armageddon-themed comedy of the year after This Is The End . Heaven knows how she’ll cope...

“It’s the apocalypse at the end of your driveway,” explains director Paul Middleditch. “The world doesn’t end, it continues in a remarkably domestic way. The antichrist has a problem child, he has a problem wife, even though he’s ruling the world he deals with the banalities of life. He’s a remarkably underwhelming ultimate figure of evil. Lindsey and Ben are these two ludicrously stupid optimists who feel they have the opportunity to vanquish the antichrist by locking him away. They’re bumbling their way through a moment of religious significance that they have no understanding of.”

Scriptwriter and Bill and Ted mastermind Chris Matheson scoured the bible for tongue-in-cheek rapture inspiration. In their quest to stop the devil, Lindsey and Ben have to dodge sweary birds, undead neighbours and weed obsessed wraiths. “Chris looked through the Book of Revelation in quite a lot of detail and all that stuff is in there,” explains Middleditch. “I think one of the Apostles wrote it. He must have had some ’shrooms or something because where does this stuff come from? It’s the sort of film that you’d hope would become cult, where guys would be smoking joints and watching this thing on a Saturday night. There’s just something so wonderfully underwhelming about the end of religion as we know it.”
Simon Bland

Rapture-Palooza is released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 28 October, courtesy of Lionsgate.

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