Catching Up on 2012: Josh Reviews John Dies at the End
As soon as I heard the title John Dies at the End, I knew this was a movie I had to see. That was well over a year ago, and at the time I didn’t know anything about the film or anyone involved in it. I just knew that the title was awesome and that I had to see this movie.
Well, unfortunately, while there is a lot to enjoy about John Dies at the End, the film totally fails to live up to that incredible title.
The film, it turns out, is a pretty crazy, genre-bending comedy-horror film adapted from the novel of the same name written by Jason Pargin (though the novel claims to have been written by David Wong, a character in the story). The film adaptation was written and directed by Don Coscarelli. (Mr. Coscarelli wrote and directed Bubba Ho-Tep, a film that I have long wanted to see but regrettably haven’t gotten to yet, in which Bruce Campbell plays a zombie-fighting Elvis Presley. C’mon, that sounds awesome, doesn’t it?)
The plot of John Dies at the End is a little hard to describe, but let me make an attempt. David (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes) are young men who are, apparently, some sort of paranormal investigators/monster hunters. Early in the film we see them take on some sort of demon made from meat products, with the help of their mentor Albert Marconi (played by Clancy Brown). When John takes a mysterious drug called “the sauce,” given to him by a Jamaican who either is completely crazy or has access to the secrets of the universe, David and John’s strange lives get even stranger. Soon the two men find themselves Earth’s only hope against an invasion by some sort of villainous aliens/monsters from another dimension.
Hmm, I wrote “some sort of” several times in that brief plot description, and that is because even having watched the whole film, I don’t really have any understanding of what the heck happened. The film jumps all over the place in time, as we move from seeing when John and David met, forward to a time apparently after the bulk of the events in the film, in which we see David telling the story of what happened to a disbelieving reporter (Paul Giamatti). This mixed-up timeline doesn’t help one follow the film’s deliriously crazed hundred-car pile-up of crazy ideas. This is at once the film’s most frustrating aspect and its most endearing quality. While I wish the film’s narrative had been clearer, so I could have some sense of what was going on from moment-to-moment (something which probably would have given me a greater connection to the story), I couldn’t help but be impressed by how overloaded the film was with crazy ideas. Every scene, every second of John Dies in the End is jam-packed with weirdness. It’s as if the filmmakers decided to jettison all the boring let’s-explain-the-story scenes that are in most movies, and instead took the wildest, most outlandish scenes from ten horror/fantasy films and smashed them all together. There’s a loopy joy to all of the madness, and for a while I very entertained, if a bit confused, by the film’s story. But by the end, the whole thing wore me out.
The main characters, John and David, are both well-played by two young actors who I don’t recall ever seeing on film before. They’re great, and both actors do their best to anchor the film’s insanity with honest, grounded performances. I couldn’t believe that actors like Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown were in this film. They really elevate the material and give the movie a gravitas that it never really earns. Although both men have decently-sized supporting roles, I still wish we’d seen a lot more of both of them. (By the way, as dissatisfied as I was by this film, I would happily pay to see Clancy Brown in a spin-off chronicling the supernatural exploits of Albert Macaroni!)
John Dies at the End was made on a tiny budget and is extremely low-tech. It’s fun to watch the old-school way in which the film’s many fantastical sequences are realized, though it is obvious from the early-going that the filmmakers’ reach exceeded their grasp. The filmmakers clearly didn’t have the money necessary to realize the story’s many elaborate visual effects sequences. I feel badly criticizing the movie for this, and indeed as I just wrote it is neat to see the clever, low-tech way the filmmakers brought this crazy, fantasy/sci-fi/horror world to life. But the cheap-o visual effects were unfortunately yet another barrier that prevented me from really engaging in the film.
But, in my mind, the film’s biggest problem is in the end. SPOILER ALERT: John doesn’t die at the end!! Well, he sort of does. That is, John is dead when the movie ends, but, I dunno, it sort of felt like a cop-out to me. When your movie is called John Dies at the End, I expected the movie’s climax to feature John’s death, and that’s not really what happens. Like the rest of the film, the ending is sort of hard to explain. What I can say is that it left me unsatisfied.
I really respect the efforts of Mr. Coscarelli and everyone involved with the making of John Dies in the End. They clearly put their all into making this goofy, off-beat movie, not letting their very limited budget hold them back from trying to craft an epic comedy/horror/sci-fi adventure. This is a movie that I really wanted to like, and I wish I could recommend it more heartily. Ultimately, though, John Dies at the End didn’t do it for me. Your mileage may vary, but I was underwhelmed.