Review of John Dies at the End (2013) by Danjel H — 22 Mar 2015
An entertaining enough sci-fi-spirtual gore fest, which might almost be a darker version of Bill and Ted's adventures. It is not without several faults, which the narrative trickery partially manages to disguise:
This film sets up far more than it ever pays off, even the film's title does not bear out. The soy-sauce, the slugs, the guy from the in-between dimension, the reason for the decapitation in the first scene (and the reason for the corpse's reanimation), reports of John's death, how John's phone calls became temporally displaced, the real origin of the infesting spore moths, the identity of those who kill reporters that Dave talks to, what-why-how spirit doors are, how Marconi can do what he does or why the ghost girl explodes into snakes - none of these things are resolved.
Instead this feels like a feature length pilot to what might have been a series of paranormal investigations. In concordance with this the main character never really has an arc of his own at all, he just, with various muted expressions, falls from one predicament to another spurred on by external motivations and none of his own.
Other than that it was novel enough and just enough mystery and comedy to stop one falling asleep.
This review of John Dies at the End (2013) was written by Danjel H on 22 Mar 2015.
John Dies at the End has generally received mixed reviews.
Was this review helpful?
