Avis Metacritic

You can view the film narrowly as commentary on the soul-crushing fury of being HIV positive, or take a few steps back and see Araki's film in a more universal sense as the disintegration of human values caused by an obsessive culturewide drive for self-satisfaction and indifference to others. The Living End is much more than a time capsule, thanks to Araki's daring as a filmmaker.

Emotionally urgent, The Living End excites you about the state of independent filmmaking; it's a road movie that leaves a skid mark on the psyche.

Araki gives his hypnotic film a raw intensity heightened by a surreal landscape and a jagged score from the likes of Braindead Sound Machine, KMFDM and Coil.

Doing himself a great disservice, the writer and director Gregg Araki labels his work "an irresponsible movie" when in fact it has the power of honesty and originality, as well as the weight of legitimate frustration. Miraculously, it also has a buoyant, mischievous spirit that transcends any hint of gloom.

Araki used to make fumbling anti-dramas about the flotsam of Los Angeles: depressed, ambivalent, uncommitted. This is really different. It's a queer 'couple-on-the-lam' movie, crammed with genre memories but closer to a bent Pierrot le Fou than to anything out of Hollywood.

As a portrait of late-millennial nihilism, The Living End rejects the sympathetic bent of every afflicted-by-AIDS portrayal before or since.

More admirable as a sheer technical feat of filmmaking than as a sustained dramatic narrative. It still makes worthwhile viewing.

The movie gives people a piece of the AIDS nightmare - a view of HIV-infected men struggling to retain romance - but the piece is sharp and brittle, with little humor truly working. And despite the somewhat serene ending, it is really shot through more with the characters' rage than anything. [14 Aug 1992, p.42]

Crudely made and in your face, The Living End is mostly annoying.

By the time the deathwish duo embark into mountainous terrain, you'll want to hand them a copy of Thelma & Louise's road map —with clearly marked directions to the cliff.