‘Smiling Through the Apocalypse’ chronicles a man whose editorial instincts produced one of the greatest magazines ever: Harold Hayes, the swinging editor and cultural provocateur of the iconic Esquire Magazine of the Sixties. Through the narrative of his son Tom, a journey ensues opening unprecedented access to some of the Esquire magazine’s most compelling talents, from Nora Ephron to George Lois, and Tom Wolfe to Gore Vidal. The film is a story of risk, triumph, and challenge told by the people that helped make the magazine great, and a son who only come to understand his father’s editorial greatness 23 years after his passing.

On the verge of depression following the murder of his father, Cory, a nervous, guilt-ridden 12-year-old “altar boy”, is coaxed by his adventurous best friend, Ben, to prove their manhood by embarking on their first overnight fishing trip out in the wild on the Mississippi Bayou’s Wolf River; but their trip goes awry when the hapless “altar boys” become targets of a mob hit in progress by a cold-blooded assassin who is determined to collect on a gambling debt.

Daffy undead gal Penny Dreadful, her smitten zombie buddy Ned, and lycanthrope Wolfboy relate three tales of terror in an old rundown movie theater: A young couple find themselves being stalked by a lethal jack-in-the-box in “Slash-in-the-Box;” mousy young lady Alice tries to figure out what exactly happened to her last night in “The Morning After;” and a group of friends encounter an eccentric backwoods family after their van breaks down in the middle of nowhere in “The Slaughter House.”