Harry says DOOMSDAY is bugnuts!

On the last day of SXSW – I was depressed… the flu killed SXSW as an experience for me. And once you’ve been spitting up nasty chunks of lung slime – the sorts of films that play SXSW – just isn’t what I needed on that last day. I wanted to see a movie, but what? Then RAV popped up on AIM and asked, “Have you seen DOOMSDAY yet?” – To which I responded that my ass has been sick – and he said I should see it cuz it’s ridiculous fun. From the trailers – I realized this was a film about a virus that spreads like the flu and kills everybody in a zone that’s just cut off from the world and they have to send a hot chick to see if there’s a cure. Well – a deadly hot zone flu virus is what I just had – and crazy Mohawk customized car maniacs… well, that’s the sort of movie you call your dad up to go see. After all… we’re in the 21st Century and we’re not quite at the kill other motorists for the gas in their car’s gas tank stage just yet, but dammit… it’s been a long god damn time since we’ve had that type of movie … besides – I’d get to see the HULK trailer on the big screen. So on the final day of SXSW, instead of high-minded movies – I decided that I would go see… DOOMSDAY. DOOMSDAY is a spicy salsa construction where the tomato is ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, the jalapeno is ROAD WARRIOR, the onion is 28 DAYS LATER and the lime juice is OUTBREAK. Neil Marshall blended all of that up and came up with DOOMSDAY. A really insane film that doesn’t, at all, feel like a movie from 2008, but some film that would have come on as the third film on a Drive-In triple feature in about 1985. This is Neil Marshall channeling Enzo Castellari. And I kind of fucking love the insanity that it produces. With DOG SOLDIERS and THE DESCENT – Neil played it fairly straight. Shit was intense, but it kinda seemed like our universe. Only with werewolves and cave creeps. Here – I just don’t think our world would turn into cannibalistic punk lunacy in 20 years. I mean – is the current government all that stands between us and cannibalism and horrifying hair styles? 20 years of non-supervision will result in us adding spikes and bones to our cars. And apparently cooking people – badly – and eating them… without seasoning. Now sure – you might be like me and waiting for Bush to completely end government – and counting down to cooking one of the neighbor children to see if kid meat is sweet. But I think general societal madness would take a little bit something more. Not only that – but I feel if isolated – humanity would reorganize and self-govern… to avert eating the kids. This film is bugnuts! Off the wall bugnuts! It is an absurdly insane film that is in love with the lunatic films of the 80s. There’s even a bit of KNIGHTRIDERS in this film and man… I love that. DOOMSDAY is by no means a great film or even a good film. It’s fast and loose with logic and as the film continues it gets crazier and crazier. The last shot is one of those, WHAT THE FUCK – WHY moments that just makes you giggle or scream or giggle and scream. It makes no fucking sense at all. The film just is bugnuts. And when was the last time you saw a genuine bugnuts film from a major studio? A film where they blow up bunnies? A film with gleeful decapitation and rampant happy cannibalism? If you love SUICIDEGIRLS.Com – you’ll dig this film a little more than the average joe or jane. But for me – it’s a bit of a love hate relationship. Sure, I’d fuck it – but I also want to put it in a shallow grave – so I can dig it back up and fuck it later. It’s a mess – and just like your bedroom – you’ll know where all the trash came from. Cuz all the 80s toys were brought out and fucked with to make this trash heap – and I think that’s why I got the kick out of it that I did. But I’ll be goddamned if I can figure out what Bob Hoskins, Alexander Siddig and Malcolm McDowell are doing in this. Cuz they had to be bugnuts too.