Movie Review: John Dies at the End (2013)

By Michelle Ealey • 11 years ago • Movies

Don Coscarelli directed one of my favorite films, Bubba Ho-Tep. The film has an odd sense of humor; it stars Bruce Campbell as Sebastian Haff, a man who claims to be the late Elvis Presley. With the help of JFK (Ossie Davis), the two battle an ancient evil Egyptian mummy. Unfortunately, the quirky charm of Bubba Ho-Tep is absent from Coscarelli’s new film, John Dies at the End. Based on the book by David Wong, John Dies at the End wants to be a comedic horror film, but it fails to be funny or scary.

The film is about David Wong (Chase Williamson) and his friend John (Rob Mayes). The college dropouts stumble on to an invasion by beings from an alternate dimension. They can see the invaders because they have been exposed to a drug called Soy Sauce, a black substance that allows the users to see beyond time and space. While on the sauce, John can hear other people’s thoughts, see their dreams, and know what is in their pockets.

John Dies at the End suffers from poor pacing. The film starts with David’s riddle, and then the story jumps to David telling Arnie Bloodstone (Paul Giamatti) about his life. David begins to tell Arnie about what he and John can do; they can see monsters. David then takes the story back to two years ago. A lot of time is spent establishing what Soy Sauce can do to people. With so much time spent on the sauce, the film languishes, becomes muddled, and the characters are not developed well. David doesn’t drive the action; the bulk of the film is devoted to David discovering what the Soy Sauce can do to him and reacting to John. David’s voiceover explains what is seen on the screen, and I quickly got annoyed by David explaining so much.

Left: Chase Williamson as David Wong; right: Rob Mayes as John

With so much time occupied by David’s reaction to the sauce and trying to figure out what happened at Robert Marley’s (Tai Bennett) place, the main plot of the film, the invasion, doesn’t become part of the action until the last third of the film. Because of its late entry, the invasion plot is rushed. The motivation of the alternate universe is explained, not shown. Without the presence of the danger from the alternate universe throughout the entire film, the effort John and David put in to saving the world doesn’t feel necessary. We are told there is evil on the other side, but one scene showing a few gruesome killings doesn’t mean the horror is a threat to our universe. Horror is more than blood splattering across the screen. We need to sense the menace as soon as possible so we can urge the hero to success.

The highlight of the film is when Dr. Albert Marconi (Clancy Brown) is involved. Brown always knows how much ham is required, and he is in fine form here. As the credits rolled, I imagined what the film would have been like centered on Marconi, a character that was in the film for less than ten minutes.