John Dies At The End (2012)

The award for most spoileriffic movie title goes to..."John Dies At The End". All jokes aside this films is a solid watch. The hype for this film was almost annoying, it seemed like every site I went to was talking about this film. Did the movie live up to the hype...I will let you decide, but I had some fun watching it.

John Dies At The End is a film by legendary writer director Don Coscarelli. The man behind the Phantasm series and Bubba Ho-Tep. The film stars Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman & Doug Jones. The run down of the film goes somewhat like this, 2 friends get literally sucked into another dimension because of a new drug called "Soy Sauce". The drug takes you to another dimension  and defies the physics of time, allowing the user to jump from periods of time within seconds..or something like that. I have trouble putting the film into words because I feel like the film was very convoluted.

With all the hype surrounding the film, I was expecting more. What I got was a hot mess of a horror picture that did a lot of things right and a few crucials wrong. What did the film do right you ask? Well for starters the acting was very good. Chase Williamson (David) & Rob Mayes (John) carry the film. The acted the parts with justice, and the chemistry between the duo was evident. Paul Giamatti is good as usual, playing the cynical journalist. everyone else had smaller roles but all did them well. 

Another thing the film accomplished was the hilarity and gore. The comedy aspect was probably the most entertaining part of the film. At one point in the film a door handle literally turns into a cock and balls, and the reaction to the event was hilarious. Things like this riddle the movie and it was welcomed with open arms. The gore is over the top and full of red...just how I like it. The gorewhores get a solid red stuff with beheadings, head explosions, skin melting, and some decent monster violence.

Now lets talk about the bad. The film is adapted from a novel of the same title by David Wong. I havent read the book, but from what I have been reading...its great fans love it. However the film, like most, deviates greatly from the book. From what I've gathered is the book is a collection of short stories all involving John and Dave.Apparently Don tried to take elements from each story and weave them together. Unfortuantly is because of this the films story is rather incoherent and convoluted. I mean this was the breaking point of the film...it made almost no fucking sense. The imagery is great, effects,  gore, & comedy were all solid...but no fucking plot. It jumps around like a dude that has stubbed his toe & as a result your left with a movie that could have been AMAZING. Instead you get all filler no killer so to speak. 

I was really hoping the movie would be better than it was. I loved everything but the damn story. the films runs around an hour and a half...I would say the about 30 minuets of the film were a letdown. Almost all of that time was plot/character development. Like I stated earlier it IS still a solid watch. For solid acting, gore, effects, and humor, John Dies At The End gets 3 out of 5 stabs. I would suggest everyone at least watch it once. It's worth a watch and the humor really saved the film. The film is currently ONLY available to watch on demand. You can also check out more about the film on Facebook. It has yet to hit theater but I have a feeling it wont do so well. Check out the trailer below.

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