Across the Universe: 'John Dies at the End'

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN Movies

Director Don Coscarelli is best known to genre fans for his "Phantasm" series, four films that stood apart from most of the other horror entries of the '80s and '90s by being surreal, blackly humorous and infused with more of the cosmic horror of writers like Lovecraft than the majority of slasher fare that dominated those decades. His other films include the 1982 fantasy "The Beastmaster" and 2002's "Bubba Ho-Tep," a bizarre horror comedy in which Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and a man named Jack (Ossie Davis), who claims to be John F. Kennedy, battle an evil Egyptian mummy terrorizing a retirement home.

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Coscarelli's offbeat films are the kind that build cult followings over the years (although the first "Phantasm" was an out-of-the-box hit), so it's no surprise that his latest effort, "John Dies at the End," is cut from the same unique cloth. Based on a novel by David Wong that began life as an online serial before being published in book form in 2007, the film follows the adventures of David Wong (Chase Williamson) and John Cheese (Rob Mayes), two college dropout slackers whose ingestion of a drug called Soy Sauce opens their minds to other dimensions and involves them in a battle to save our reality from conquest by a powerful force from a parallel universe.

While we have not read the novel, the film captures a sense of a crazed, freewheeling imagination let loose in the playground normally inhabited by horror scribes like Stephen King or Bentley Little. "John Dies at the End" does not run short on monsters (one of the more memorable is comprised of a couple hundred pounds of raw meat that assembles itself out of a basement freezer), hauntings, malignant entities, possession and gruesome deaths. It also touches on the Lovecraftian idea of malevolent forces from outside our universe that are attempting to get in, although this time there's a sci-fi twist to the proceedings as well.

"John Dies at the End" has some genuinely eerie moments, along with a long streak of understated humor and a true sense of the absurd. David and John stumble through their adventures in classic slacker fashion, surprised at the otherworldly events taking place around them but taking them in relative stride as each new horror confronts them. The script tends to ramble all over the map (we understand Coscarelli took some major liberties with his adaptation), but we were never less than amused and entertained.

Coscarelli's cast is a tremendous part of what makes "John" work. Newcomer Williamson is terrific as David, with the slightly better-known Mayes equally charming as John. They are aided by a delightful pack of supporting players, including Paul Giamatti (who is also a producer on the movie) as a reporter interviewing David, Clancy Brown as a celebrity expert on the paranormal, and the Tall Man from "Phantasm," Angus Scrimm, as a sharp-tongued priest.

Gory, smart and funny, "John Dies at the End" is another sterling addition to Coscarelli's résumé of cult classics in the making. Check out the movie and help him achieve his goal.

"John Dies at the End" is available now on VOD and is out in theaters Friday, Jan. 25.