John Dies at the End

This movie has one good idea; a drug that lets you see beyond reality. Sadly though, that's it. The rest of the movie is just a badly told mess with no real ideas and a somewhat irritating cheap look about it. I have to be honest I really couldn't be bothered to watch it to the end. It has none of the consistency or style of a movie like for example "from beyond" which tells a similar story but makes it watchable. There's a couple of mildly amusing bits, but they are right at the start and from there on the film goes nowhere.

It's a shame because it did initially look interesting. Although billed as a comedy there are very few attempts to make you laugh. Depressingly the first review on IMDb I saw for it predictably described it as genius.

Greetings again from the darkness. It's been more than a decade since writer/director Don Coscarelli added quirky humor to his toy box with the wonderful Bubba Ho-Tep. Previously Coscarelli was known for his classic horror franchise that started in 1979 with Phantasm (and three sequels). Coscarelli has a real knack for oddball humor and along with the source material from David Wong's book, he delivers a comical, cross-dimension, alien-fighting, time travel buddy film that draws recollections to Men in Black 3, Big Trouble in Little China, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Coscarelli has had his opportunities to join "big budget" Hollywood, but has always chosen to remain true to his roots in horror/fantasy for his loyal followers, resulting in many cult films and midnight movie favorites. In this newest story, Dave (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes) are slacker buddies who end up feeling the effects of a new street drug called soy sauce. The story is told in semi-flashback form as Dave meets with a reporter played by the great Paul Giamatti. As Dave tells the story, we get the visuals as if they were currently happening. This works because it's never really clear when we are in the present, past or future.

This is one big fun and entertaining ride if you let it be. Terrific characters are provided by Clancy Brown (Shawshank Redemption) as Marconi, some type of powerful mystic (or something else); Glynn Turman as a relentless, yet beaten down detective; Doug Jones (Pan's Labrynth) in yet another creepy role; and Fabianne Therese as Amy, whose missing limb plays a vital role.

Further analysis would prove meaningless as the sole purpose of this film is to entertain and engage. It's escapism at its finest and yet another creative gem from Don Cascarelli.

I absolutely love this insane and underrated blend of slacker comedy, sci-fi, fantasy and horror. Okay, some of the special effects leave a lot to be desired (as you'd expect when you consider the film's high ambitions and low budget) but that doesn't take anything away from everything it does right. The plot just gets crazier as the street drug known as "Soy Sauce", which grants it's users supernatural, inter-dimensional powers, becomes popular and threatens an apocalypse that only two slackers named Dave and John can prevent, a responsibility they are woefully unprepared for. If you zone out for two seconds you'll forget what genre you were watching, as it switches from being goofy fun to genuinely creepy at it's own leisure. Chase Williamson's deadpan and cynical performance as Dave offers a hilarious perspective to tell the story from and his chemistry with best friend John is so much fun to watch. A few years ago I went through a phase where I would put this film on every time I got stoned and I just found it funnier every time (catching jokes and plot points I'd missed from hazy viewings prior). It also offers a cool splattering of existential observations for you to wrap your head around.

John Dies at the End's unrelenting commitment to absurd humour and all things random lends itself perfectly for a stoned viewing. This used to be my favourite film to watch stoned and writing this has gotten me so excited to rewatch it for the first time in years tonight. It's trashy but it's fun.

...and it was. I also expected it to be funny, and it was that too. I had not read the book previously and knew nearly nothing about the story, but if you've seen the trailer, that is pretty much adequate preparation for the strangeness you subject yourself to as you watch this movie.

Several scenes are just outright setups for jokes, and if this film was just set em up, knock em down - it would not be worth an 8. What makes this movie better than that is that it is, at it's core - psychotic in the best way possible. You never know if what you are seeing is real or not, and just when you think you couldn't see or handle anything weirder, something hilarious happens to shift gears.

Like many independent movies, this one has a interesting idea at its base and some fairly decent acting but runs out of steam far too early. The end is almost Austin Powers like (i.e. silly). The technical quality fairly good but it is never able to get over the weak story line in the second part of the movie. I imagine Paul Giamatti's involvement was to lend a bit of credibility to the project. However, it is fairly clear that his scenes were shot in a single day (all are in the same Chinese restaurant), so the result is actually the reverse since the commercial motive of the casting is so evident. To sum up, they had me interested at the start and hopeful in the middle but bored and disappointed at the end.