John Dies at the End (film)

John Dies at the End is a 2012 American dark fantasy science fiction comedy horror film written and directed by Don Coscarelli, based on David Wong's novel of the same name.[4][5] Principal photography began in October 2010,[6] and by January 2011, the project had entered post-production for a planned theatrical 2013 release. The film stars Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes, with Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Daniel Roebuck, and Doug Jones. Despite its mixed critical response, Variety and Wired magazines named it a cult film.[2][7]

John Dies at the End
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDon Coscarelli
Produced by
  • Brad Baruh
  • Don Coscarelli
  • Andy Meyers
Written byDon Coscarelli
Based onJohn Dies at the End
by David Wong
Starring
Music byBrian Tyler
CinematographyMichael Gioulakis
Edited by
  • Donald Milne
  • Don Coscarelli
Production
company
Distributed byMagnet Releasing
Release date
  • January 23, 2012 (2012-01-23) (Sundance)
  • January 25, 2013 (2013-01-25) (United States)
Running time
100 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetLess than $1 million[2]
Box office$141,951[3]

Plot

David Wong, a slacker, recalls confronting a zombie skinhead whom he beheaded one year prior and wonders whether an axe that had its handle and head replaced over time is still the same axe. In the present day, he meets with small time reporter, Arnie Blondestone, to recount the supernatural events that plagued the small, undisclosed city David lives in.

Some time ago, David is at a party with his friend John, with acquaintances Fred Chu, Justin White, and Amy Sullivan, who has an amputated hand. David learns that Amy's dog, Bark Lee, has gone missing after biting Robert Marley, a drug dealer who pretends to be Jamaican. As he leaves the party, David sees Bark next to his car.

A frantic, incoherent John calls Dave, demanding he come over at once. At John's apartment, David finds a syringe containing a black-colored drug, oblivious to a bizarre creature only John can see. John tells David that the drug, "Soy Sauce", given to him by Marley, grants inhuman knowledge when taken, along with dumping the user in alternate dimensions and timestreams, as demonstrated by a past version of John calling present Dave.

As they drive off, David is bitten by the suddenly animate syringe, propelling him through alternate dimensions. Returning to the present, a strange man, Roger North, appears in the backseat, attempting to offer Dave advice on the strange events, but disappears when Dave threatens him.

Detective Lawrence Appleton questions the two at a police station about the party. Appleton reveals that John and White were the only survivors of a drug-fueled afterparty thrown by Robert Marley - everyone else either disappeared, or suffered grisly, bizarre deaths.

In the present, an incredulous Arnie tries to leave, but Dave convinces him to stay after showing him a strange monster.

During questioning, John apparently dies. Despite this, John telepathically contacts Dave, helping him escape from the police station and a ghost that appears as a cop, and guides him to Marley's house. Marley's Soy Sauce knocks Dave unconscious. He wakes up to see Appleton preparing to burn down the trailer, who tells him John's body disappeared, and that the Soy Sauce is letting in some kind of evil force. Appleton shoots David, who survives by time-traveling and tampering with the round he was shot with. Bark, controlled by John, drives David's car through the wall, allowing him to escape. In his house, David is subdued by a possessed White.

White kidnaps David, Fred, Amy, Bark and John, taking them to an abandoned mall, hoping to use a ghostly door inside to travel to another dimension. John manipulates White into going outside, where Appleton kills him. Appleton then explodes into a swarm of demonic insects, who possess Fred. David reluctantly kills him. Amy opens the ghost door with her phantom limb, allowing John and Dave passage. They meet North and Albert Marconi, a celebrity psychic and exorcist. Marconi says the source of the strange happenings is Korrok, an eldritch biological supercomputer that has turned into a genocidal god, who wants to travel to new dimensions and conquer them. Marconi gives David and John a LSD-laced nuclear bomb to incapacitate Korrok with.

The two step through a portal to an alternate Earth. Disciples of Korrok greet them as "chosen ones" and present a brutal totalitarian society, where dissenters are horribly maimed by Korrok's monsters. The duo are brought before Korrok, who plans to devour them, absorb their knowledge of dimensional travel, and conquer their dimension. John tries to activate the bomb, but fumbles. Bark Lee, who followed the two, grabs the bomb and flings himself into Korrok, detonating it and destroying the two of them.

Upon escaping, David and John meet Marconi and learn that Bark was meant to defeat Korrok all along - after biting a Soy Sauce-addled Marley, it linked him to Marconi and North. Amy becomes David's girlfriend. David and John become exorcists and demon hunters, with Marconi's assistance.

In the present, Arnie reluctantly decides to publish the story. Dave realizes he perceives Arnie differently than how he really looks, and the two find the real Arnie decapitated in the trunk of his car, mysteriously killed after first contacting Dave. Dave tells Arnie that Dave's mind projected his current shape. Arnie tries to deny this, but soon vanishes into thin air.

Later, John and Dave play basketball, and inadvertently wind up in a post-apocalyptic dimension. A paramilitary organization informs them they are chosen ones who will restore the world, but an annoyed John and Dave walk off.

Cast

Production

In 2007, Don Coscarelli optioned the film rights to the comedic horror novel John Dies at the End.[6] The novel, written by David Wong, was first published online as a webserial beginning in 2001, then as an edited manuscript in 2004, and then as a paperback edition in 2007. Coscarelli stated, "I was greatly impressed by David Wong's crazed originality and impressive imagination. He's like a mash-up of Douglas Adams and Stephen King, both smart and goofy, scary and funny – it really spoke to me. [It] is as addictive as the 'Soy Sauce' street drug that kicks the plot into gear."[8]

Executive produced by Daniel Carey and Paul Giamatti, with producers Don Coscarelli, Brad Baruh, Andy Meyers, Roman Perez, Aaron Godfred, and Josh Lewin, M3 Alliance, M3 Creative, and Midnight Alliance "secretly" began principal photography in October 2010.[6] This was confirmed after hints posted by Coscarelli on his Twitter page were verified.[4][9][10] Filming took place on locations in Southern California. On January 27, 2011, Coscarelli announced on his Twitter page that principal photography had been completed and that the film has entered post-production,[11] for extensive visual FX work. The film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2012.[12] Variety reported that the film was produced on a budget of less than seven figures.[2]

Coscarelli told Entertainment Weekly, "I had been reading zombie fiction. So I ordered these books and the Amazon robots sent me this email: 'If you like that, you will love John Dies at the End’. And it listed all these things [about Wong's book]. Literally, when I read the email, I thought, 'This would make a great movie.'"[13]

Giamatti called the novel "an embarrassment of riches" and said: "what's going to be tragic is what's going to have to go, because stuff is going to have to go and [...] it will kill me whatever goes, because you want it all to be in there and you've still got to have this stuffed bag of stuff." He also praised the actors and Coscarelli's choices, stating, "Don cast it brilliantly. The actors were so good."[14]

Release

In August 2012, Magnet Releasing announced that they had acquired the rights to the film.[15] The film premiered to wider audiences via video on demand services on December 27, 2012; however, it was only available in the US. It opened in theaters on January 25, 2013.[16] It was released on DVD on April 2, 2013.[17]

Reception

Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a 60% approval rating, based on 88 reviews with an average score of 5.64/10. The site's consensus states: "Some will find the darkly funny, genre-bending incoherence of John Dies at the End charming; some will feel its zany antics and gore lead to an unsatisfying payoff."[18] On Metacritic the film has a score of 53/100 based on 27 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".[19]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times called it "a ridiculous, preposterous, sometimes maddening experience, but also kind of a blast."[20] IGN editor Chris Tilly wrote, "The end result is a film that veers all over the place; a dark, hilarious and consistently twisted feature that amuses for long periods, bores in patches, and astounds in others still."[21] Variety's Rob Nelson called it "a thoroughly unpredictable horror-comedy—and an immensely entertaining one, too."[22] Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer rated it 4/5 stars and called it "over-the-top, gross, and funny ... deeply amusing, in the sickest possible way."[23] James Berardinelli rated it 2/4 stars and called it an "interesting failure."[24] Writing at NPR, Scott Tobias said that the film tries too hard to attract a cult following and relies on "calculated insanity".[25] In a highly negative review, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle praised Giamatti's acting and said that it raised the film from "Worst Movie Ever Made" to "One of the Worst of 2013".[26]

References
  1. "JOHN DIES AT THE END (15)". British Board of Film Classification. July 9, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  2. Stewart, Andrew (February 2, 2013). "Happy 'End' for cult pic". Variety. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  3. "John Dies at the End (2013)". Box Office Mojo. April 11, 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  4. Zimmerman, Samuel (October 22, 2010). "Coscarelli helming "John Dies at the End"". Fangoria. Archived from the original on February 9, 2011. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  5. "Don Coscarelli dirigerà John Dies at the End". Film Review (in Italian). October 22, 2010. Archived from the original on March 17, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  6. Quint (October 21, 2010). "Quint knows what Don Coscarelli's new movie is! And more importantly he knows Paul Giamatti and The Kurgan are in it!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  7. Watercutter, Angel (January 9, 2013). "John Dies at the End: The Cult Film of Meat Monsters, Penis Doorknobs and Paul Giamatti". Wired.com. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  8. Butane, Johnny (February 19, 2008). "Coscarelli Talks John Dies at the End". DreadCentral. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  9. Barton, Steve (October 20, 2010). "Don Coscarelli Teasing New Project". DreadCentral. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  10. Brown, Todd (October 22, 2010). "Don Coscarelli's Latest Revealed As John Dies at the End". Twitch Film. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  11. Coscarelli, Don (January 27, 2011). "John Dies at the End" just starting post and VFX". Twitter. Retrieved February 14, 2011.
  12. "Four Additional Films Selected for 2012 Sundance Film Festival". Sundance.org. December 19, 2011. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  13. Collis, Clark (January 25 – February 1, 2013). "The Craziest Horror Comedy of 2013?". Entertainment Weekly. New York: Time Inc. (1243): 102.
  14. Quint (February 14, 2011). "Quint has a brief chat with Paul Giamatti about his Sundance hit Win Win as well as the upcoming cult flick John Dies At The End!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
  15. Fernandez, Jay A. (August 22, 2012). "Magnet Releasing Attracts Don Coscarelli's Sundance-SXSW Flick 'John Dies at the End'". Indiewire. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  16. McNary, Dave (August 22, 2012). "Magnet buys 'John Dies at the End'". Variety. Retrieved May 7, 2013.
  17. Uno, Lorie Taki (April 2, 2013). "'John Dies at the End,' 'The Sweeney' | New DVDs". Seattle Times. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  18. "John Dies at the End". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  19. "John Dies at the End Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
  20. Scott, A. O. (January 31, 2013). "Addictive 'Soy Sauce' With Ruinous Power". The New York Times. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  21. Tilly, Chris (March 16, 2012). "John Dies at the End Review". IGN. Retrieved May 7, 2013.
  22. Nelson, Rob (February 5, 2012). "Review: 'John Dies at the End'". Variety. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  23. Rea, Steven (February 8, 2013). "'John Dies at the End': Loopy, icky sci-fi with crazy soy sauce". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  24. Berardinelli, James (January 24, 2013). "John Dies at the End". ReelViews.net. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  25. Tobias, Scott (January 24, 2013). "Spoiler Alert: 'John Dies,' But The Rest? Who Can Tell?". NPR. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  26. LaSalle, Mick (February 7, 2013). "'John Dies at the End' review: Die sooner, John". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
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