John Dies At The End (2012)

While Don Coscarelli might not enjoy the same widespread name recognition as his other horror brethren, he does have the distinction of never seeing his stock falter much. Since blowing away horror fans with his nightmarish, unconventional genre debut, “Phantasm” (1979), he’s made around a half dozen pictures that have all – to varying degrees – been seen as minor cult classics. Fans can debate endlessly about which of his films is best (that would be “Phantasm”), but most would agree that he hasn’t produced a stone-dead turkey like many other horror luminaries who have inserted a turd or two into their filmography. Perhaps it’s because the man seems to be picky. You aren’t going to find many directors, especially those that have been active since the early ‘70s, with less than a dozen features under their belt. Many fans would no doubt like to see more from the man (still waiting on a fifth Phantasm over here), but sometimes it’s better to have a dearth of titles in your roster as long as they’re all quality versus a wealth of titles with only a handful that are truly worthwhile. Although much of his earlier work was tonally serious, as the years have gone by many of his projects have been injected with a dark sense of humor… and this project may have just hit the apex in that regard.

This brings us to “John Dies At The End” (2012), which might be the only film that was admittedly produced thanks to an Amazon robot. The novel, written by David Wong (a pseudonym for Jason Pargin), showed up on an “Amazon recommends” list that had been sent to Coscarelli after he finished reading some zombie novels. He was interested right away, eventually leading to him optioning the rights and emerging from his directorial hibernation to deliver something new to his rabid fan base. And, even better, he did a pretty damn good job with it to boot.

David Wong (Chase Williamson), an average slacker with little ambition, meets with reporter Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti) to recount his story of a drug called “soy sauce”, which gives him the ability to perceive time and space differently than a normal person. Arnie doesn’t believe him at first, but a quick demonstration of his abilities swiftly changes Arnie’s mind. David got the drug from his friend John (Rob Mayes), who said that he got it from a Jamaican guy at a party. David has a hard time believing the drug can grant such otherworldly powers, until he receives a call from John at the same time John is sitting right in front of him. The two of them soon find themselves in the middle of an inter-dimensional war being started by Korrok, a sentient, organic computer with intentions of conquering our dimension by absorbing knowledge from David and John.

As bizarre as the plot reads above, the film itself delves into such odd territory that it took me two viewings to really get the gist of it all. Things get very weird – women turning into snakes, a monster made out of frozen meats, dog saviors, Dan Roebuck in a baby-faced mask, ghost doors, a girl with one hand – so unless you’re a fan of the novel (which, from what I’ve read, isn’t followed like scripture in the film) chances are a lot of the quirks and perception gags might just float right over your head like a cloud of Shitload (the name for a collective which possesses people). How does Don hold it all together? By employing a really solid cast that is able to imbue each character with a defining personality, that’s how. The vets here are expected to add the necessary gravitas in their supporting roles – Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown both handle that with ease – so it’s up to our relatively fresh-faced duo of Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes to carry the majority of the film. Having never seen either of them before, they appear to be set for a bright future based on their roles here. Mayes, as John, is the wild man, leaving Williamson to be our entry point into this world of soy sauce as the film’s straight man. The actors slip into their roles so well it makes you wonder if the book had been written with them in mind to play in the eventual adaptation. One can only hope the positive reception for this film leads to the sequel, “This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch It”, to be optioned as well.