John Dies at the End (2012)

This movie has one good idea; a drug that lets you see beyond reality. Sadly though, that's it. The rest of the movie is just a badly told mess with no real ideas and a somewhat irritating cheap look about it. I have to be honest I really couldn't be bothered to watch it to the end. It has none of the consistency or style of a movie like for example "from beyond" which tells a similar story but makes it watchable. There's a couple of mildly amusing bits, but they are right at the start and from there on the film goes nowhere.

It's a shame because it did initially look interesting. Although billed as a comedy there are very few attempts to make you laugh. Depressingly the first review on IMDb I saw for it predictably described it as genius.

Fmovies: 'John Dies at the End' is like the Matrix. One cannot be told what it is. They must see it for themselves. Veering wildly between inspired and tedious, it ultimately comes off like a (very) strange mish-mash of better and more coherent films like 'Ghostbusters', 'Dude, where's my car?', 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adenture', 'Big Trouble in Little China' and the TV show 'Supernatural'.

Director Don Coscarelli ('Phantasm', 'The Beastmaster', 'Bubba Ho-Tep') is the king of quirky cult cinema, and he's certainly in his element here. But the increasingly odd plot mechanics at play in 'John' are beyond even his skill to corral into something approaching entertainment.

'John Dies at the End' is not a good film, but it's so *odd* that I feel I have to recommend it for the experience alone.

Like many independent movies, this one has a interesting idea at its base and some fairly decent acting but runs out of steam far too early. The end is almost Austin Powers like (i.e. silly). The technical quality fairly good but it is never able to get over the weak story line in the second part of the movie. I imagine Paul Giamatti's involvement was to lend a bit of credibility to the project. However, it is fairly clear that his scenes were shot in a single day (all are in the same Chinese restaurant), so the result is actually the reverse since the commercial motive of the casting is so evident. To sum up, they had me interested at the start and hopeful in the middle but bored and disappointed at the end.

John Dies at the End fmovies. John Dies At The End is an adaptation of David Wong's book of the same name written and directed by Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep). While not familiar with the book, the bizarre and surreal story does seem like a perfect fit for Coscarelli as his films have alway had a touch of both the surreal and a bit of offbeat whimsy. The film starts out with David Wong (Chase Williamson) telling his bizarre tale to a reporter, Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti). Wong starts to spin a tale involving himself and his friend, John (Rob Mayes) and their encounters with a powerful drug with a mind of it's own called "soy sauce". This bizarre narcotic not only gives the user (if they survive it) heightened psychic awareness but, opens doorways to alternate dimensions. But, once doors are opened they are opened both ways and can John and David stop the beings from the other side from entering our world and making it their own. John Dies is a very strange yet amusing head trip of a movie that won't appeal to everyone but, under Coscarelli's guidance, will entertain those who like a movie that isn't afraid to be weird and unconventional. Coscarelli moves things along briskly and we find out what's going on along with David and John as the story unfolds in flashback. The story focuses mostly on David as he's is trying to find out how his friend John's sudden bizarre behavior one night ties in with meeting a very strange Jamaican (Tai Bennett). As he tries to figure out the surreal occurrences now happening around him, he is drawn into a tale that is the stuff of hallucinogenic nightmares and it becomes a quest for he and John to save the world. Coscarelli wisely uses live effects for most of his surreal sequences and otherworldly creatures and what little digital effects there are, are used sparingly and are decent enough. The live action animatronic creatures and gore are very well done by Make-up FX master Robert Kurtzman and his team. Coscarelli is one of those filmmakers that is very adept at making good use of a small budget and probably would be lost on a Hollywood blockbuster and it is one of the things I like about him as a filmmaker. And here he achieves a lot of visual impact on his small budget. The director has also cast the film well,too. No great performances but, everyone is efficient and effective in their roles and approach the material with appropriate seriousness but, not without a few winks at the audience. Clancy Brown in particular seems to be having fun as a TV mystic but, keeps his performance grounded enough to not spill into camp. And there is a delightful cameo from Phantasm's Tall Man, Angus Scrimm as well, to please fans of that series. All in all, this isn't everyone's cup of tea but, if you like stuff offbeat and a bit out there, and I do, then this is a fun low budget fantasy that is refreshingly and unapologetically weird in a good way.

I'm not even sure where to start with a movie like JOHN DIES AT THE END. It's one of those movies that just seems destined from the start to be a cult classic, but I'm not so sure. I love a good WTF movie that I can share with friends over a few beers, but a good WTF movie does more than baffle the audience with the bizarre. A good WTF film will have an awesome story (e.g. cyberpunk Nazis on the moon = IRON SKY) and an engaging hero/protagonist (e.g. Rutger Hauer in HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN). Keep in mind, my examples are just movies that I personally enjoy in the WTF genre but the same principles still stand. I can't really agree that JOHN DIES AT THE END has either (much less both) of these qualities. I am a huge fan of Cracked.com and I've been following the site since I first stumbled across it while searching for a time-waster while I worked tech support. Their content is most often hilarious and generally a bit informative too. I'm totally down with supporting their writers in whatever endeavors they pursue if it means more of their excellent product. JOHN DIES AT THE END (written by senior Cracked editor David Wong) is on my shortlist of novels I'm planning on buying from Amazon, but I was excited to find out that a movie would be released in the meantime and that it would be directed by Don Coscarelli. BUBBA HO-TEP is another great WTF film, so naturally I was expecting great things with the movie. The ultimate reality: it falls short of being the movie I wanted, but it has inspired me to move a little faster on picking up the novel.

To start, and you'll probably hear this from anyone who's seen the movie but not read the novel, JOHN DIES AT THE END doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It feels like there's a plot in thereÂ…somewhere. I just can't find it. I've uncovered bits of it and pieced it all together but there are still a lot of holes. I've pretty much given up on figuring out the plot in its entirety until I read the book. For now, I only know what I've seen in the movie. David Wong (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes) are a couple of stoned losers who encounter a new drug known on the street as 'soy sauce.' Soy sauce has the ability to give its user supernatural abilities thatÂ…I don't quite understand. Communicating with the deadÂ…and the futureÂ…and other dimensions, I think. And inexplicable knowledge. Anyway, David and John discover an evil plot involving body-snatching white bugs/fuzz and plans of an entity of pure evil from an alternate universe to dominate our world. See what I mean? I'm not even sure. And everything I've read tells me it's explained 100 times better in the novel, so I haven't given up hope. But, as a movie, it's lacking. Honestly, my interest waned around the time David was kidnapped by an annoying ghetto white kid (Jonny Weston) and the detective investigating the weird goings-on (Glynn Turman) went totally mental.

And that's the big problem here: weirdness without any sort of context becomes dull real fast. For the first 45 minutes of the movie or so, I was loving it. The meat monster, the ominous Jamaican, the messed-up/dark sense of humor to the whole thingÂ…it was great. But once the "story" kicked into gear, I lost it. The best way to describe JOHN DIES AT THE END is this: it feels like a 100-minute trailer for a really awesome six-hour movie. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on here and the whole movie feels like it's on the verge of greatness but it n

This film is amazing. This movie may only be getting negative reviews from people that didn't read the novel. It's a cult film, I don't expect it to rate well with people outside its genre. The book was EXPLETIVE amazing. I cast Paul Giamatti as Arnie for the visuals in my head as I was reading the novel, long before I heard talk about a movie. Even the guy playing Justin White looked the part. And, of course, Jimmy Wong for Fred Chu was dead on.

There are several differences from the book but that is expected. Writing for screen is different than writing for readers. I think it will be very entertaining for those that enjoyed Jason Pargin's (David Wong) novel.