As I now know from experience, when you tell someone you went to a screening of a movie called John Dies At The End, the first thing they want to know is whether John actually does die at the end. My honest answer to that question is, “I’m not sure.” First, the universe (or universes) in which John Dies takes place is so trippy, surreal, and willing to futz around with the very definitions of life and death that I’m not really sure what would or wouldn’t qualify as “dying” in this movie. Second, the timeline (or timelines) it follows is so convoluted that I’m not sure what part of it could be rightfully thought of as “the end.” You know that famous story about the making of The Big Sleep? The one where the screenwriters get so confused trying to adapt the novel that they actually have to call Raymond Chandler and ask him to clarify who murders a particular character, only to find that Chandler isn’t sure of the answer himself? I think if you asked the makers of John Dies At The End to explain whether John actually dies, they might be similarly unhelpful.Trying to sum up the plot of this movie is like trying to wallpaper fog, but here goes. Dave (Chase Williamson) and his buddy John (Rob Mayes) are at a party, where they meet a mysterious Jamaican guy who offers them a drug called “soy sauce.” It gives users the ability to read minds, as well as travel through time and alternate universes. John winds up taking some, and later that night, panicked and hallucinating, calls Dave for help. Soon the cops get involved, and Dave learns that everyone else who took soy sauce at the party has died. I think the rest of the movie is about Dave trying to track down the source of the drug and help John, but things get pretty confusing, so it’s hard to say, exactly. There are some creepy bug creatures from another universe that I think are trying to invade ours. There’s a terrifying cult of masked, naked weirdos reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut. There’s a woman made of snakes, a monster made of frozen meat, an animated sequence about giant carnivorous spiders, and a host of unfortunate people who literally die from exploding. There’s even a love story between Dave and a girl whose dead dog and prosthetic hand figure into the story in ways that I still haven’t gotten my head around. Friend of the show Doug Jones plays a pale, otherworldly stranger who suddenly appears in the backseat of Dave’s car. I wish I could explain his role in more detail, but “pale” and “otherworldly” were honestly all I could nail down. Maybe he can explain the next time he’s on the show?All this madness comes to us courtesy of Don Coscarelli, whose last film was the delightfully bizarre Bubba Ho-Tep. Coscarelli knows weird, but this film goes beyond mere weirdness into just being an unholy mess. It builds an elaborate world that it then refuses to explain, and jumps around in time so wildly that it would be impossible to follow anything even if we were confined to one universe. I don’t need to understand every technical detail of the interdimensional goings-on, but I need to know enough to have a sense of what the stakes are. Short of escaping from whatever disgusting monster is facing them in the moment, it’s impossible to tell what Dave and John’s actual goal is, or how they got to this disgusting monster from the last one. There are cool visuals and fun performances here, but they’re thrown atop of heap of barely examined idea that never really gel.
As I now know from experience, when you tell someone you went to a screening of a movie called John Dies At The End, the first thing they want to know is whether John actually does die at the end. My honest answer to that question is, “I’m not sure.” First, the universe (or universes) in which John Dies takes place is so trippy, surreal, and willing to futz around with the very definitions of life and death that I’m not really sure what would or wouldn’t qualify as “dying” in this movie. Second, the timeline (or timelines) it follows is so convoluted that I’m not sure what part of it could be rightfully thought of as “the end.” You know that famous story about the making of The Big Sleep? The one where the screenwriters get so confused trying to adapt the novel that they actually have to call Raymond Chandler and ask him to clarify who murders a particular character, only to find that Chandler isn’t sure of the answer himself? I think if you asked the makers of John Dies At The End to explain whether John actually dies, they might be similarly unhelpful.Trying to sum up the plot of this movie is like trying to wallpaper fog, but here goes. Dave (Chase Williamson) and his buddy John (Rob Mayes) are at a party, where they meet a mysterious Jamaican guy who offers them a drug called “soy sauce.” It gives users the ability to read minds, as well as travel through time and alternate universes. John winds up taking some, and later that night, panicked and hallucinating, calls Dave for help. Soon the cops get involved, and Dave learns that everyone else who took soy sauce at the party has died. I think the rest of the movie is about Dave trying to track down the source of the drug and help John, but things get pretty confusing, so it’s hard to say, exactly. There are some creepy bug creatures from another universe that I think are trying to invade ours. There’s a terrifying cult of masked, naked weirdos reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut. There’s a woman made of snakes, a monster made of frozen meat, an animated sequence about giant carnivorous spiders, and a host of unfortunate people who literally die from exploding. There’s even a love story between Dave and a girl whose dead dog and prosthetic hand figure into the story in ways that I still haven’t gotten my head around. Friend of the show Doug Jones plays a pale, otherworldly stranger who suddenly appears in the backseat of Dave’s car. I wish I could explain his role in more detail, but “pale” and “otherworldly” were honestly all I could nail down. Maybe he can explain the next time he’s on the show?All this madness comes to us courtesy of Don Coscarelli, whose last film was the delightfully bizarre Bubba Ho-Tep. Coscarelli knows weird, but this film goes beyond mere weirdness into just being an unholy mess. It builds an elaborate world that it then refuses to explain, and jumps around in time so wildly that it would be impossible to follow anything even if we were confined to one universe. I don’t need to understand every technical detail of the interdimensional goings-on, but I need to know enough to have a sense of what the stakes are. Short of escaping from whatever disgusting monster is facing them in the moment, it’s impossible to tell what Dave and John’s actual goal is, or how they got to this disgusting monster from the last one. There are cool visuals and fun performances here, but they’re thrown atop of heap of barely examined idea that never really gel.
