[Panic Fest 2022 Review] Revealer's Earnest Script Makes Up for the Somewhat Staid Execution

Luke Boyce’s Revealer, a film that envisions an 80s-set apocalypse that traps a stripper and a religious protestor together in an increasingly more hellish peep show booth, feels like a comic book come to life. It makes sense since, along with the director, the story was developed by comic book writer Michael Moreci (Barbaric) and comic book artist/writer Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash, Revival). Set mostly in a single location, the film pulls from Boyce’s past and wonders what if the 70s evangelical fears of the Rapture happenings in the 80s actually, you know happened. By placing its focus on a sex worker and an evangelical with something to hide.

From the very beginning, though, the film sidesteps the moral panic and holier-than-thou attitude by opening with a TV preacher in the bowels of hell. “I’m not a sinner! I am righteous!” he shouts while a demonic voice scoffs and yells at him. The film then cuts to Chicago, 1987, where Angie (Caito Aase), a stripper, is just trying to doing her job but is actually about to have the most hellish day of her life. She pushes through a throng of protestors clamoring outside Revealer, a strip club run by the jovial Ray (Bishop Stevens). One of the protestors is named Sally (Shain Schrooten) and she and Angie have an almost frenemy vibe because Angie doesn’t quite take her moralizing seriously. “You’re a foul person!” Sally cries.

“Oh, thank you so much!” Angie retorts.

Revealer doesn’t seem to be very successful, unfortunately; probably due to the crowds of protestors. But Angie dutifully gets into the peep show booth and begins her routine to an empty audience. “I judge the wicked!” the preacher from the cold open shouts through a boombox before getting cut off by demonic noises. Then, the sky outside opens and red lightning arcs across the clouds, sending the protestors scrambling. The power goes off, Ray stumbles into the booth and back out, bleeding from his throat. Angie ends up getting stuck on her side of the glass, the janky door unable to pen. Sally, meanwhile, hides in the place she detests and gets stuck in an adjoining room, sharing a wall with Angie’s locked room.

“Is this the hour of our reckoning and I have to spend it with you?!” she shouts through the shared wall, telling Angie that the Book of Revelation is happening right now. Trapped in the Revealer, the somewhat frenemies must work together to get into the bootlegger tunnels running below the club while contending with an array of increasingly goopy demons. 

Single location films are a dime a dozen in the indie scene but filmmakers are starting to get wise to the necessity of opening up the story and location, when necessary. This is one of the things that makes Revealer work because it spends enough time keeping Angie and Sally locked in separate rooms, building their awkward relationship, but it knows when it needs a change of pace. The vibe Boyce’s film evokes is a more low budget Evil Dead 2. From a possessed Ray and his long, creepy tongue to demons and a twisty descent into hell, it pulls from Raimi’s 80s films and references other films of the era.

It’s a bit too static, unfortunately, in its camerawork but it's saved by the two central performances and an earnest script. The story and themes explored aren’t exactly revelatory and some of the character beats are obvious from the get-go, but the sincerity and execution makes up for it. The final moments of the film were fantastic, even though it made me wish to see that film more than what came before.

Still, Revealer is the kind of film that makes Panic Fest so great, as lofty ambition, solid performances and an earnest desire (that outpaces the budget) come together in a disjointed but entertaining way.