"Time is an ocean, not a garden hose. Space is a puff of smoke, a wisp of cloud. Your mind... is a flying corn snake hovering through all the possibilities."
If you have ever taken hallucinogenic drugs in your life,
you may, or may not want to watch "John
Dies at the End.” You may want to
watch it because those LSD flashbacks haven't occurred any time recently and
you truly miss them. Perhaps, back in
the day, you and your self-medications didn't sit well for you and that little
vacation in your mind took a turn on the road that nobody wants to travel and
you don't want to go back. Well, this is
your warning that proceeding with this review of "John Dies at the End" may or may not trigger flashbacks
or memories that you may or may not want to re-experience. Let me say right away that "John Dies At The End" is not
your typical mainstream sci-fi comedy. In
fact, it takes a certain sense of humor and open mind to appreciate this film. You might even want to say that this is
really a strange, trippy, cult film -- okay, I said it. "John
Dies At The End" stars Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes ("Ice Castles"). Also along for this crazy ride is Clancy
Brown of "Highlander,"
"Starship Troopers," and "Pet
Semetary II," as well as Paul Giamatti, who serves as executive
producer.
Taken from a Carlos Castaneda’s nightmare, along with an
unlabeled mix of party favors and popping them in your mouth before you realized
you did, the story unfolds chronologically messy and uneven. It is not until the first 15 minutes of the
film that you start getting your balance and realize that you can easily go
with the flow. Two high school graduates
and college dropouts find themselves in the midst of an invasion of our world
from another dimension. After watching
some scenes that utterly make no sense and seemingly have no relevance to the
plot other than to let you know that you are already on a journey down the
rabbit-hole. We find out that the narrator
of our story is a kid name David Wong (Williamson). As we have already seen, things are not as
they seem, and Dave Wong is not Asian in any way but explains that he was adopted
and eventually he changed his name. If
you are confused, you are supposed to be.
Paul Giamatti plays Arnie Blondestone, a newspaper reporter who Dave
called to tell his extraordinary comic story of drugs, death, psycho cops, and
other dimensions.
As it turns out, both Dave and his best friend John (Mayes),
are night stalkers of sorts, and have built up a reputation as the go-to-guys
when the weird gets absurdly strange.
Dave tells his story in an indirect, twisted fashion, about how two
years ago he and his friend John, after a party where John's band "Three Armed Sally" was
playing and they both met Amy who has a prosthetic hand, a dog called Bark Lee
and a fake magical Jamaican dude who goes by the name of Robert Marley. I was also
going to list a psycho cop who goes around with a can of gasoline and tends to
like fires, but the sentence was getting too long.
As you may know, that anything goes at a party, where there are
plenty of drugs and alcohol, and that is exactly what happens. Marley, with the new street drug "Soy Sauce," like Daniel in
the Bible's Old Testament, tells John exactly about one of John’s own dreams that
he had and exactly when he had it. Soy sauce
is a black goo similar to the black oil stuff from "The X-Files" and it grows hair. The sauce cause your mind (or you, not sure
which) to slip out of time, lets you see all possible futures at once, which I
think, would be really annoying.
At all times throughout the film, you are not sure if our
heroes are actually just on a bad acid trip, or it there are really oversized
insectile creatures really coming out of some of the characters mouths or
exploding out of them. Another character
that must be mentioned who is somewhat relevant is Clancy Brown as Dr. Albert
Marconi and TV show psychic and showman.
He appears throughout the film, usually on late night infomercials but
we find out that he, like Bark Lee is essential to the plot. Keep that in mind.
Don Coscarelli, better known as the writer and director for
the campy "The Beastmaster"
from 1982 and 2002's "Bubba
Ho-Tep" directs this film about two guys trying to keep the world from
ending. His style is frenetic, but
actually conventional. "John Dies At The End" actually
makes sense in a whimsical kind of way.
Brian Tyler's ("Iron Man
3") musical score is right on.
Also used in the film to play John's band "Three Armed Sally" is really The Inevitable Backlash. They play the punkish “Camel Holocaust” as
well as “He Never Left” while the end
credits roll.
I haven't read the book "John
Dies At The End," so fortunately I can't compare it to the book. I thought it was an hour and a half of trippy
fun. Honestly, what do expect from Jason
Pargin, the Senior Editor of Cracked.com who often goes by the nom de plume
David Wong. I am sure that there were
plenty of scenes from the book that were left out, character blurred, or
eliminated altogether, or certain story points over embellished, but hey,
that's Hollywood. So, if you are
thinking about having your own screening of
"John Dies At The End," I suggest you have plenty of party
favors, tons of munchies, and make sure you only watch this film out of the
corner of your eyes and not straight on. If you don’t you might see waves of maggots over oceans of rot.
Movie Data
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Year: 2013
Staring: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Clancy Brown, Paul Giamatti, Fabianne Therese, Glynn Turman
Director: Don Coscarelli
Producer(s): Brad Baruh, Don Coscarelli, Andy Meyers, Roman Perez
Writer: Don Coscarelli, David Wong
Rating: R
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Amazon
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