Zenith

Unlike many moviegoers, 17-year-old farm girl Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell, The Day) has no memory of the events of The Last Exorcism, a found-footage smash of three years prior. The Last Exorcism Part II finds her taking steps to build life anew, beginning in a boarding house for troubled girls, where the deeply devout Nell is exposed to such heretofore corrupting influences as lipstick and rock music and YouTube and cotton candy.

The ABCs of Death

Suspense novelist Jeffery Deaver once praised the short-story format, writing that the minimal time investment on the part of the reader allows the writer to get away with endings he or she cannot in the long form. In other words, the writer can be meaner, more devious. He's absolutely right, and the theory applies wholesale to The ABCs of Death, more or less a horror anthology depicting "26 ways to die."

Lifeforce

Tobe Hooper got a raw deal. The director of horror hits The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist didn't deserve to be sent to movie jail for 1985's Lifeforce. It's a well-crafted, well-intentioned work that was mismarketed and misunderstood, losing a bundle of money and soon sending Hooper into the lands of episodic television and direct-to-video features.

Crime and science fiction collide in the inventive thriller “Zenith,” scheduled for a single showing at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

Contrary to the belief of film execs, not everyone hitting the cinemas at Christmastime wants to see Reese Witherspoon in a romantic comedy or Jack Black being tied up by little people.

For those seeking a decidedly different, off-off-Hollywood experience, you’ll get it — and then some — in “Zenith.”

The self-described “retro-futuristic steampunk thriller” plays locally for one showing only: 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch, so catch as catch can.

Directed by “Anonymous” (in reality, New York-based filmmaker Vladan Nikolic), “Zenith” takes place in 2010 and 2044, as Ed Crowley (Jason Robards III) pursues a modern-day conspiracy, leaving behind a tape for his son, Jack (Peter Scanavino), to puzzle out in the far future. Possessing a secret power, Jack peddles pain-inducing drugs on the black market when his world gets turned upside down by the arrival of Dad’s video; nine more must be found.

Throw in a few sex scenes with a beautiful dancer (Ana Asensio) along the deadly path, and Nikolic delivers a trippy, frontal-lobe screwer that plays like the illegitimate spawn of “ ,” “Memento” and “12 Monkeys.” While void of recognizable faces, the highly imaginative picture exudes slick visuals while harboring a fierce streak of independence.

Forever blurring the line between media, the “Zenith” experience continues after the credits, with specially created blogs, forums and YouTube videos designed to spiral viewers further down the film’s narrative rabbit hole. (Start at www. stopzenith.com and www.z-search.org.)

Tickets are $8. For more information, call 236-3100 or visit www.okcmoa.com

The Last Exorcism Part II

The ABCs of Death

Ninja III: The Domination

Lifeforce

Dead Souls

Zenith