20130927: Comedy Review--John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, released 2012, rated R, 99 minutes, comedy, fantasy, horror.
2. IMDB: 6.4/10.0 from 16,464 users. 
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 61% on the meter, 54% liked it from 9,128 audience ratings.
4. Written and directed by: Don Cascarelli.
5. Starring: Chase Williamson as David Wong, Rob Mayes as John, Paul Giamatti as Arnie Blondestone, Clancy Brown as Dr Albert Marconi, Glynn Turman as Detective Appleton.
6. Viewed streaming from Netflix.  Wow, commercials on Netflix for a decidedly minor film.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Overview: Dave does an interview with a skeptical Arnie Blondestone.  The film consists of 90% flashback footage.  That's usually a loss of one star for any rating I make.


2. Brilliant acting, useless script.


3. The film is a sequence of disconnected ramblings of drug addicts hallucinating.


4. From reading movie wikia, I gather that the book was much better than the movie, and that there was too much content in the book to put in the movie.  Fair enough.  However, I think the deletions took the film beneath critical mass--it no longer made sense.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: Drug induced hallucinations dominate this inchoate pile of steaming nonsense.
2. Two stars of five for cinematography and acting.  Two blackholes for screenplay and SFX.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Clear, well-framed, good lighting.


2. Sound: 4/10 Musical numbers are too LOUD, conversation is too soft.  Having to adjust the volume significantly is a pain.


3. Acting: 10/10 Excellent for a schlock film.  The screenplay demands many 'turn on a dime' moments; these fine actors handle the load quite well.  I enjoyed veterans Glynn Turman and Paul Giamatti.  Chase Williamson was a pleasant surprise.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 There are plenty of witty moments, especially with these actors, but no logic to speak of.  The constant hard shifts of the narrative are tough to put up with, especially since there seems to be absolutely no justification for any of them.  I say that at one quarter through the film, half way through, three quarters through, at the end.  It just does not resolve, even in the last, the worst, 10 minutes.  The logic crashes, the bad SFX, and the unmotivated actions add up to useless chaos.  Worse yet, the last scenes indicate a sequel is threatened.


5. SFX: 0/10 Absolutely terrible. Schlock at its worst.  If one is aiming for cheap-jack cult film (bad for the sake of bad), then this garbage is right on the money.