Review of John Dies at the End (2013) by James A — 02 Jan 2013

I REALLY wanted to love this movie. I spent months anticipating it's release. The book is my absolute favorite, it's mix of horror and comedy was perfect. I had thought that even if they had to skip tons of content from the book (which I knew they'd have to do) it would still come out amazing. I was up at midnight on the night of it's release and paid the $10 rental fee without a second thought.

When the movie started I had to strain to keep myself from talking through the opening, I'd read the book so many times I could actually quote it, word for word. Other than a few missed words here and there, the movie followed the books dialog perfectly... for a while. Up until the scene at the trailer home ended it was a beautiful representation of the book. Then it just dissolved into this nonsensical chaos. It deviated from the book so completely that I had no idea what was supposed to be happening. It was heartbreaking to watch a movie fall apart so badly.

Honestly, I'd still have rated it high, even with it's flaws, if they had simply kept the dog the same as the book. Changing her name, gender, and breed was completely distracting in a major way. And when she first appeared towards the beginning it was in the middle of a scene that was otherwise perfect. Molly was a major character in the book (and the book's sequel) and deserved to be kept the same. Changing everything about her took my focus completely off the movie and irritated me throughout the entire film. It was a huge mistake to change a detail like this. And literally the first thing I tell people about the movie is that they changed the name of the dog.