Does Don Coscarelli’s horror-comedy live up to the high praise of io9, who called it “this generation’s Big Trouble in Little China“? And does it do justice to the original novel by David Wong, a modern cult classic which combines elements of surreal humour, cosmic creepiness and fast-paced action to near-perfect effect? Your humble Geekzine managed to snatch a viewing to find out….
A jittery, nervous-looking young man (Chase Williamson) is sitting in a Chinese restaurant, waiting to meet a reporter called Arnie (Paul Giamatti), to whom he intends to tell his life story. We soon learn that this young man is David Wong, and that the story he has to tell is ever so slightly out of the ordinary. This is because Dave and his friend John (Rob Mayes) spend their nights battling forces of unimaginable cosmic evil, manifested as invisible demons, microscopic flying worms and seven foot-tall monsters made of raw meat. Through a series of bizarre and horrifying flashbacks, Dave relates the story of how he and John first came into contact with ‘soy sauce’, a living drug which gave them unique abilities and disturbing visions of the true nature of reality. Stumbling into a strange new world where time runs both ways and monsters are always underneath the bed ultimately sets John and Dave on a collusion course with Korrok, a near-omnipotent alien entity of unspeakable evil. Before long, the fate of all humanity is resting in the hands of two slackers and their possibly magical dog; welcome to the mind-bending world of John Dies at the End!
A film about sentient hallucinogens, exploding zombies and an inter-dimensional apocalypse was never going to be easy to realise on a modest budget, but if there’s one man you’d want in charge of such a heady brew it’s the director responsible for such cult hits as Phantasm and Bubba Ho-tep. Don Coscarelli makes a very good fist of adapting Wong’s novel, source material which would prove challenging for even the most gifted film-maker, and although it has a number of flaws the tone and atmosphere of the film – arguably the most vital aspect of the book to convey – are pitched just right, a quality which covers a multitude of sins. The story of two slacking monster hunters, whose battles with undead monstrosities and alien gods are frequently determined by little more than dumb luck and accident, is one that could easily veer too far towards either gruesome horror or out-and-out comedy. The most impressive aspect of Wong’s writing is his ability to constantly walk a tightrope between the two, and thankfully this is a quality which Coscarelli has managed to replicate on film. The cast is also uniformly excellent; newcomers Mayes and Williamson nail their characters, and there’s strong support from both Giamatti (also executive producer) as the skeptical journalist and genre heavyweight Clancy Brown as shadowy TV psychic and scourge of the undead Dr Albert Marconi.
The film’s one key failing is the approach it takes to adapting its source material. Books and their film adaptations should of course be treated as separate entities, but the clumsy and haphazard way in which John Dies at the End draws on material from Wong’s original novel has a detrimental effect on the movie’s plotting. Certain supporting characters in the movie are devoid of any convincing identity or motivation, and various important subplots from the book are incorporated only in part, meaning that seemingly significant revelations and dialogue references are simply left hanging as apparent red herrings. Of course, viewers who have read the book will be able to fill in the gaps, but the film should be able to stand on its own as a complete piece of work, and this apparently piecemeal approach to adaptation will only lead to confusion for viewers unfamiliar with the source material. Primarily for this reason, John Dies at the End falls short of being the modern cult classic it so desperately wants to be (and could easily have been), but remains an immensely enjoyable film both for fans of the book and for newcomers. Well worth a watch….if it ever gets a UK release!
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