Q: Is quirky, indie horror/comedy, John Dies at the End a mystery, a ghost story or a sci-fi thriller? A: Yes?
John Dies at the End is a small-budget adaptation of the 2007 horror/comedy novel of the same name. It starts off as a story about two friends (Dave and John) exploring the mystery of a new super drug that grants psychic powers but also kills some of its users. Eventually, we get a veritable smorgasbord of supernatural elements: Zombies, ghosts, alternate dimensions, Lovecraftian horrors, demon possession and magic, among others I’m probably forgetting (time travel, sort of?). In its effort to be about so many things, the film ultimately becomes about nothing. From the opening scene, which elaborately posits the question of whether an axe that has had both handle and head replaced is still the same axe, I could tell I was in for a movie that was going to try a little too desperately to be clever.
It’s a shame that the film is so discombobulated, because it has a couple of points in its favor. The actors all do a fine job, and both leads are very likeable in a mid-20s, slacker sort of way. Another strength is the sense that literally anything can happen from scene to scene, which means that you are never bored while watching. I’m also a fan of David Wong (real name Jason Pargin), who wrote the original book. He is the executive editor for cracked.com, which would probably get more praise for some very trenchant journalism if the articles weren’t always shoehorned into lists and encumbered by the house style of writing. If you listen to Wong on the Cracked podcast, you can tell he is a deeply intelligent and insightful guy. Those qualities may well be evident in the book, but they have certainly not made it onto the screen.
The biggest issue I have with John Dies at the End is that it actively works to deflate any stakes that it manages to establish. Something important will be going on, but we whiplash to a completely different set of circumstances and goals before we have time to internalize it. The story will start to pick up momentum, then we’ll cut back to the film’s completely unnecessary framing device of Dave relating the story to a reporter. When the duo meets the bio-engineered tentacle monster from an alternate universe, ostensibly the big bad of the movie, the tension is let out by the monster’s puerile joking about the protagonists. I get the juxtaposition the filmmakers are going for (basically Cthulhu talking shit like a playground bully), but it falls flat in execution. All of these choices speak to the filmmakers consciously sacrificing their ability to tell a compelling story in order to jam in as many disparate ideas as they can. I am always wary of spoilers when I write these reviews, but I don’t know that I understand this movie enough to spoil it in any meaningful way. In that regard, I’m not sure it really can be spoiled, as such. For instance, the title would technically be a massive spoiler: There is a primary character named John, and he is frequently in mortal danger. That said, he doesn’t die at the end, he may have died during some point in the movie, I’m not clear on that, and ultimately it doesn’t have much if any bearing on the plot if he did. It’s hard to get invested when it’s so unclear what you are supposed to be invested in.
Ultimately, I didn’t mind wasting 90 minutes on John Dies at the End. It breezes by, it’s never boring and it does contain some neat concepts. Unfortunately, though, there is little doubt that it truly was a waste. You can do better if you look elsewhere in the countdown.
Comments