“This is the last time I buy a Nokia.”
At midnight on Friday at the Union South Marquee, Cracked.com senior editor David Wong’s comic horror novel came to life with the help of director Don Coscarelli. In both the original book and film, John Dies at the End has a deliberately contrarian bent. Mortality and morbidity receive humor as often as characters meet them with appropriate fits of terror, and all within a world that feels wholly unique to a hackneyed “ghostbusting” premise. Evidenced by his Cracked articles, Wong has a penchant for punchy witticisms in his writing, a quality that is sadly lost in Coscarelli’s adaptation. What isn’t lost is the original novel’s psychotropic perspective and with it, its incoherence.
Chase Williamson stars as Dave, and though we don’t know much about him, he tell us that he’s part of a two-man paranormal investigative team with his doofy pal John (Rob Mayes). Yes, that John. Dave and John encounter a mysterious drug known as “Soy Sauce” which induces hallucinations, psychic abilities, and enhanced sensory perception. Oh, and it gives the abuser the ability to commune with the dead. From John’s first “Soy” trip, John Dies at the End spirals into a crazed, entertaining joy ride of the pair’s quest to save the world from apocalyptic doom.
With the Phantasm series and camp horror film Bubba Ho-Tep already under his belt, Don Coscarelli approaches Wong’s darkly comic tale with an appropriate balance of eeriness and cynicism. His adapted script merges the novel’s three stories into a more singular tale, all told from Dave’s perspective to a skeptical reporter (Paul Giamatti, who helped produce the film). Whether through Coscarelli’s direction or through sheer lack of range, lead actors Rob Mayes and Chase Williamson affect the expected slacker vibe, and their blend of disbelief and stupidity feels just right. Where John Dies fails isn’t by way of its very low effects budget; the story stumbles from the same issues that plagued Wong’s novel. Wong has crafted a fascinating world of the macabre, complete with its own freezer meat demons and alternate realities. The trouble is nothing feels consistent. Coscarelli nails the disorientation that would likely come from a drugged up, unreliable narrator, but as its title belies, playing fast and loose with mortality also risks losing any real stakes. John Dies at the End is a fun romp, but the bizarreness adds up to little without a clear cut structure. Talking to dead people via “bratwurst cellphone” makes for one hell of an image, but an entire film can’t stand on haunted wieners alone.
- Still curious? Maybe just hungry? John Dies at the End is available on DVD/Blu-ray and for digital download