Thursday Happenings

Image of "Victory" by Jennifer Lewis from the exhibition "Sweet Meats" currently on view at Space 242.

It pains us to dis independent film, but Bad Biology (2008), the opening night movie for the Boston Underground Film Festival, is one of the most mediocre things we have ever seen. It's a movie for people who have never seen a horror movie before, complete with voice-over narration so that you don't even need the cognitive faculties that transform moving images into narrative. Directed by Frank Henenlotter, the man behind the 1982 cult classic Basket Case (for an idea of Henenlotter's range, note that one third of the nine movies he has directed has been named "Basket Case"), Bad Biology is too smarmy and knowing to be a great bad movie and too bad to be anything else. It's the story of two people with bizarre sexual organs who kill and rape their way through New York City until they find each other. You might disagree with us, but we like actual horror movies a lot more than we do ironic ones (unless they are actually funny). Kendall Square Cinema, 1 Kendall Square, Cambridge, 7:30 p.m. $8.

Werner Herzog, on the other hand, always deserves your attention. Even if you've seen all of his features, there's a good chance that tonight's program at the MFA will be new to you. Three documentary shorts, Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984), How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976), and La Soufrie ère (1977) focus on the usual Herzogian themes of desperate causes, isolation, capitalism, civilization, and natural disaster. Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, 7:30 p.m. $10/$8.

Artist Talks

Jennifer Lewis and Amanda Clarke talk about their ongoing exhibitions. The two young painters are splitting Space 242, the gallery that prides itself on being "Boston's lowbrow destination." (Protest too much?) Lewis's series Sweet Meats combines fairy tales with gore to an often hilarious effect, and Clarke's Sour Grapes is a series of portraits that owe as much to Saturday morning cartoons as they do to Raymond Pettibon, folklore, and feminism. (Exhibition ends tomorrow). Space 242, 242 E. Berkeley St., 2nd Floor, 7 p.m. Free.

Arty East Boston

If you missed the opening reception for the Atlantic Works Gallery's New Members Show, you have a chance to make up for it at tonight's third Thursday reception. The exhibition features a wide variety of media, and subject matter that ranges from self-portraiture to pies. Atlantic Works Gallery, 80 Border St., East Boston, 6 p.m. Free.