It's 1962 and 15-year-old horror film fan Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton) is the new kid in a small Key West town; the Cuban Missile Crisis is happening in his own backyard; an intriguing girl (Lisa Jakub) is actually looking his way, and best of all, master showman Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) is in town promoting his latest sci-fi horror flick. Gene and his friends eagerly gather at the local theater for the debut of MANT!, a terrifying tale of one man's mutation into a demonic ant. At the theater they experience the thrill of a lifetime, as the threat of nuclear war looms overhead. John Goodman is at his uproarious best as the larger-than-life horror promoter who revels in the creation of one-of-a-kind shock and terror as the nation waits for its fate to be revealed. MATINEE is a masterful homage to B-movie science fiction classics of the 1950s and '60s that ingeniously combines science fiction shock and suspense with the real life horror of the Cuban Missile Crisis.