dead end.

Another new film?

It's almost like claudia Winkleman has taken over.

Well not quite but almost.

Anyroadup, I wont give too much away seeing as it appears that only myself, the director and Alan Jones has seen it.

Enjoy.

John Dies At The End (2012).
Dir: Don Coscarelli.
Cast: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Fabianne Therese, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Daniel Roebuck, Jimmy Wong, Doug Jones and Sir Angus of Scrimm.

Last night you had a dream. Your mother was beating you... with a whip of knotted together dicks.

In a down market Chinese restaurant somewhere in the good old US of A, fresh-faced everyman slacker David Wong (Williamson) is awaiting the arrival of down at heel (yet bright of shirt) reporter Arnie Blondestone (the always watchable Giamatti), who's job it will be to document Dave's amazing supernatural experiences.

You see, Dave isn't your normal monster battling teen (well as normal as anyone in that line of work can be) thanks to an accidental dose of a bizarre living hallucinogenic known only as 'Soy Sauce'.

Rather than killing him (as is the usual effect) the drug has somehow turned our heroes mind into a conduit to other dimensions and alternate futures, all flowing back and forth and up and down in a constant stream of patented freakishness.

And surprisingly that not the strangest bit.

Or even the beginning of the story.

Dave - not John - who may, or may not die. At the end.

It all begins when Dave, arriving home late with a stray dog after seeing his best pal John Cheese's band playing a gig in a park, gets a frantic call from his buddy, pleading with him to come over to his apartment.

Upon his arrival, Dave finds John half naked and not a little bit delusional and being a good pal decides to take him to a hospital but not before pocketing a syringe full of black liquid, reasoning that the doctors will want to know what John's been taking.

What a nice guy.

Becoming slightly more lucid,  John refuses to go to the hospital, reckoning that all he needs to settle himself is a strong black coffee and a muffin so our oddball heroes head to the local diner when John explains all about the liquid and it's unique abilities.

David surprisingly takes this really calmly until, that is, he receives a phone call from a future version of John apologizing for everything that is going to happen.

The John sitting opposite him just shrugs and pours more coffee.

Dave farted. It was an eggy one.

Deciding it'd be best just to take John home and let him sleep things off, Dave bundles his bud into his car and proceeds to head home but as is always the way with these situations not everything goes according to plan.

Suddenly John falls unconscious and in the ensuing panic the syringe in Dave's pocket accidentally gets stuck into his leg, causing him to start hallucinating all kinds of strange shit.

If that wasn't enough to ruin the evening, an inter-dimensional character named Robert North (Abe Sapien himself, Jones) appears in the back of the car and sticks a giant slimy turd-worm onto Dave's chest.


Dave does what most of us would do in this situation and slams down the breaks before tearing the turd from his chest and tossing it out of the window.

By this time North has inexplicably disappeared, leaving Dave having to explain his bad driving and stompy behaviour to the hard bitten detective Appleton who just happened to witness everything on his way back from the chippy.

Appleton takes Dave and a still unconscious John to the police station, where he questions poor confused Dave about a mass murder that occurred after the gig.

 Dave is, to say the least a little bemused by these turn of events.

Especially when he realizes that he knows beforehand exactly what Appleton is going to say.

Which kinda cushions the blow when he informs our hero that John is dead.

Sir Tom Jones modelling your mum's new vibrator yesterday.

Luckily for Dave, being dead isn't enough to stop John from ringing his pal to explain the plot.

A plot that involves not only Dr. Albert Marconi, the worlds top teevee psychic (the legend that is Clancy Brown), a wooden handed girl and a dog named Bark Lee  but also a giant pan-dimensional Demigod named Korrok who's intent on destroying all realities.

Which is nice.

"Laugh now!"

 Cue ninety minutes of the most originally freaky film-making since the original Phantasm.

Or The Beast Master at the very least.

 

Based on the online web journal cum novel by 'David Wong' (AKA Jason Pargin), Don Coscarelli's fast and loose adaptation plays out like an ungodly mix of bad Stephen King adaptations with a smattering of Garth Ennis goodness mixed in with a smidgen of William Burroughs and beat generation grooviness for good measure, served with a side helping of self depreciating humour that isn't too scared (or precious) to invite the audiences to laugh along with the absurdities on screen.

And just when you think it can't get any better Angus Scrimm turns up.

"Aye Son!"

Perfectly cast and played straighter than Hugh Jackman, JDATE rewards those of us who've stuck by Coscarelli during the wilderness years and finally enables us to forgive him for the wee boy in Phantasm III.

And if that isn't praise enough I don't know what is.

If you ever care a tiny bit about cinema and don't want to be laughed at forever for being totally unfashionable you need to see this movie.

Twice.

At least.

 

Normal mooth shite-ing service will be resumed as soon as I've finished pushing my eyes back in after William Shatner's The Visitor.

I promise