Since I started the On My Shelf column, I mostly wrote about classics and blockbusters, but it turns out that I have in my Blu-ray collection a few more anecdotical movies, some are still pretty good I think, and most are fun to rewatch.
That’s the case for John Dies at the End, a movie based on Jason Pargin’s novel of the same name adapted to the screen by Bubba Ho-Tep’s director, Don Coscarelli.
A new drug promises out-of-body experiences, but users are coming back changed forever, and an otherworldly invasion of Earth is underway.
The first time I watched John Dies at the End, I felt the need to go read the book. Since then, I became a fan of Pargin’s work and I’ve read all of his novels. I particularly love the Dave, John & Amy adventures because I’m into paranormal detective stories full of Lovecraftian monsters and filled with humor.
That’s pretty well transcribed to the screen in the movie adaptation of the first novel in the series. What’s lacking though is the character development, the emotional journey, the world-building, and the narrative cohesion.
I’d say that the movie got the vibe right but had to let a good chunk of the substance on the side. The result isn’t devoid of meaning, but it stays on the surface. It searches to generate some shock value from the overall craziness of the story instead of establishing a more tangible universe and well-rounded characters.
So, we have Dave (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes) who are young adults who are best friends—the movie doesn’t really go beyond that. One day, John took a new drug called “Soy Sauce” and weird things started happening. He calls Dave for help and things never stop getting even weirder from that point on.
I forgot to say that the story is told by Dave to a journalist played by Paul Giamatti. This doesn’t add a lot to the plot, but Giamatti is always great and the way he plays the skeptic helps immerse us into the story.
In the middle of it, there’s also Amy (Fabianne Therese) but there’s not a lot for her to do here. She lost her dog, Bark Lee, who ended up being the star of the movie because he is so great. And we got Glynn Turman as a cop trying to make sense of what’s happening after a lot of kids died from the Soy Sauce, Clancy Brown pops up as Dr. Marconi, a master of the paranormal stuff, and Doug Jones shows up for two scenes needed to stick things together, barely.
It’s all over the place and Dave’s voice-over narration tries to guide us through it. It’s a bit annoying at times, but it works. That said, the sheer craziness of it all is what makes the whole story stay on track. It takes it into Ash Vs Evil Dead territory and, clearly, that’s what I like the most about the movie.
It’s the kind of horror comedy that mixes gore and absurdity at a level that is not that high but still clever enough to know it’s purely for the fun of it. That’s probably why John is a good character; he clearly shares some of Ash’s DNA. Dave is here to keep the story understandable while John just goes with the flow and doesn’t care. It’s a good dynamic because there’s always one of the two ready to make the movie go forward. No time to rest with them.
It also helps that John Dies at the End is a short movie … with a really short budget. It’s an indie that does way more than we could expect of it with so little to start with. It’s part of its charm and it shows that a director like Don Coscarelli knows what he is doing. Maybe he doesn’t get a win with everything he tries to do visually here (some of the visual effects during the last act are quite weak), but it never feels like it was not done with care.
In fact, John Dies at the End feels like a natural-born cult classic. The kind of movie built for a specific audience in mind, one that was never going to be mainstream, but one that was open to the idea of what this movie could be. This one was born to be weird, funny, and a bit gross. As I wrote earlier, it’s a fun watch.
If you like it, go read the books, they are really good.
THE ON MY SHELF COLUMN LOOKS BACK AT ALL THE MOVIES IN MY BLU-RAY COLLECTION.
