"John Dies" from an Overdose of Weirdness

Netflix is notorious for its huge collection of obscure movies, ranging from good, to bad, to just plain weird. When I sat down to watch the indie movie John Dies at the End, I just expected to see somebody named John to die at the end. I had no idea just how bizarre this movie was going to be. The 2013 movie directed by Don Coscarelli  and starring Chase Williamson, Ron Mayes, Paul Giamatti, and Clancy Brown  tries to balance humor, sci fi, and horror, but is ultimately too consumed by the resulting weirdness to be considered good or bad.

The movie starts by introducing us to 20 something year old David Wong. David is your average slacker with a twist- he's some kind of "paranormal exorcist," fighting otherworldly monsters invisible to the naked eye with his friend John Cheese. He is aided in his battles by the Soy Sauce- a drug that opens its users' eyes to the strange, extra dimensional happenings around them. The plot follows David as he recounts how he came across the Soy Sauce and its effects to reporter Arnie Blondestone in a Chinese restaurant. 

Structurally, I found the movie a little hard to follow. It opens up with a scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and it jumps too frequently between David's story and his interview with Arnie. I thought the scenes with Arnie weren't even necessary to the overall plot, and made it even harder for the audience to keep track of what is happening in David's already bizarre story.

And my oh my does a lot of stuff happen in his story. From the very beginning, we are bombarded with absurdity after absurdity. Some of these scenes, like the part when David talks to his apparently dead friend John through a hot dog, were pretty funny. Others, like the part when David and John fight a monster made out of meat, just felt a little off. 

All of the movie's insanity is of course fueled by the Soy Sauce. However the Soy Sauce itself is never explained- none of the characters really know what it is, or where it comes from. The lack of explanation gets extremely frustrating at times, and I almost walked away from the movie because I didn't understand anything that was going on. Once you  accept  that some things just don't get explained, the movie gets a little easier to follow.

Another thing that frustrated me about the movie was it pushed the absurdity factor so far that it neglected some of the more traditional jokes. The few non absurd jokes in the movie feel a little bland and really off kilter, like the part when David asks Arnie if he's his dad. 

The movie did have it's saving graces though. For the most part I liked all the characters. I liked how you were never really sure what was happening with John throughout the movie and I thought David had a pretty interesting character arc, although we see it unfold sort of backwards. My favorite character though has got to be Dr. Albert Marconi, a minor magician type character played by Clancy Brown. 

  

John Dies at the End is a weird movie that knows it's weird. Unfortunately, the story and humor tend to get too weird for the movie's own good. However there are some moments where the humor works, and the characters are anything but boring. My verdict is a 6 out of 10.