It's been a while since we last had a good phantasmagoric comedy freakout. Coincidentally, it's also been a while since we last heard from Don Coscarelli. With the upcoming release of John Dies at the End, we see the return of both.
If you are an intuitive reader and were paying attention to that last paragraph, I probably don't need to tell you that John Dies at the End, a phantasmagoric comedy freakout, is the new film from Don Coscarelli, the man who provided such riches as The Beastmaster and the Phantasm series. Though he gave us a Masters of Horror episode in 2005, John Dies is the first big-screen offering from Coscarelli since he orchestrated the super-summit of Bruce Campbell, Elvis, JFK and the Mummy in 2002's awesome horror comedy Bubba Ho-Tep.
Based on a book by David Wong and adapted for the screen by Coscarelli, John Dies at the End feels a little like Bill and Ted meet Doctor Who in a story by Douglas Adams...which sounds like a good thing, but seems like it might become tiring before it's all over. And based on the reviews that have drifted in from the festival circuit, that's an accurate forecast.
The flick stars Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes and Paul Giamatti in a tale about a couple of slackers who get their hands on a drug that causes them to become unstuck in time and there's an alien invasion and Clancy Brown and a meat monster and Doug Jones and a Chinese restaurant and digitally induced other-dimensional craziness and Angus Scrimm.
All in all, it sounds like a pretty decent night on the town. If nothing else, you gotta love a movie whose title gives away the ending. Look for John Dies at the End on December 28 via on-demand and in theaters on January 25.
The trailer made me want to go watch Naked Lunch again.
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" I grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence -- the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life -- and a condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the recollection of what constitutes the second great era of my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as may seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus. " - Eleonora, Edgar Allen Poe
It's been a while since we last had a good phantasmagoric comedy freakout. Coincidentally, it's also been a while since we last heard from Don Coscarelli. With the upcoming release of John Dies at the End, we see the return of both.
I have heard many good things about "John Dies At The End" I have been meaning to read it.
"I hurt" - Karen Cooper "Night Of The Living Dead"