John doesn\u2019t die at the end of \u201cJohn Dies at the End,\u201d although maybe he dies in the middle and possibly more than once. That\u2019s not a spoiler so much as a consumer advisory: This loopy slacker horror farce is so intent on playing with your head \u2014 and time, and space, and paranoid conspiracy theories \u2014 that it doesn\u2019t care about making sense. Which doesn\u2019t stop the film from being a pretty good bad time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a cult project all around, from its source (a Web serial-turned-novel by David Wong, a.k.a. writer Jason Pargin) to its filmmaker, B-movie horrormeister Don Coscarelli. Back in the 1970s, Coscarelli gave us \u201cPhantasm,\u201d a work of cut-rate drive-in surrealism, and he followed that up with 2002\u2019s \u201cBubba-Ho-Tep,\u201d in which an aging Elvis Presley battles an Egyptian mummy in a nursing home. Coscarelli is, to put it mildly, an original.<\/p>\n
The director takes a free hand adapting Wong\u2019s novel, which is more or less about two dudes battling an ancient evil spirit with the assistance of a dog, a TV mentalist (Clancy Brown), and a powerful hallucinogen that renders the user clairvoyant. Since the central character, Dave (Chase Williamson), is as confused as we are, \u201cJohn Dies at the End\u201d works hard to keep us off balance. The beginning\u2019s in the middle, the middle\u2019s at the start, and so forth. Characters turn into cockroaches, refrigerated meat comes alive. It\u2019s like a more sardonic take on \u201cDonnie Darko,\u201d or a fleshed-out version of the bite-size YouTube horror series \u201cMarble Hornet.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there is a John (Rob Mayes), Dave\u2019s loudmouthed best friend, who scores the drug known as Soy Sauce from a mysterious Rasta (Tai Bennett) at a party whose participants later end up dead. A weary police detective (Glynn Turman) enters the mix, as does a love interest for Dave in the form of Amy (Fabienne Therese, nicely distressed), whose prosthetic hand comes in, uh, handy for opening doors to alternate dimensions.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn Dies at the End\u201d is very proud of its ramshackle cleverness, in spite of which the movie manages to be decent unhinged fun. There is a framing device \u2014 scenes of Dave Explaining It All to a scruffy reporter played by Paul Giamatti, who seems delighted to be hanging with the kids \u2014 but even that disappears up its own wazoo toward the end.<\/p>\n
The climactic scenes are inspired, with the minions of Korrok cheerfully trying to talk the heroes over to the dark side while wearing \u201cEyes Wide Shut\u201d masks \u2014 it\u2019s like an Amway meeting of the damned. Still, the movie goes out the way it came in, with a bewildered shrug. From what I understand, Wong\u2019s original story makes a lot more sense, even down to its bait-and-switch title. The movie, by contrast, gets seduced by its own disaffected snark. In its shabby way, \u201cJohn Dies at the End\u201d is at the forefront of a new genre: The short-attention-span horror movie. The heroes could save the universe, but, really, who has the energy?