Doomsday: A New Classic

I'm sure you won't believe this, but I'm saying it anyway: Neil Marshall's pseudo-post-apocalyptic plaguesploitation horror-action-gorefest Doomsday is a beautiful thing. I can think of no more succinct way to describe it than by saying that it is to dismemberment what Showgirls is to nipples. I don't remember the last time I felt a movie tickle my gut like this -- perhaps it was when I cackled my way through Umberto Lenzi's gloriously incompetent Nightmare City last summer? That'd make sense, at least, as Doomsday, whether it knows it or not, is an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink-and-the-entrails-we-left-in-it-after-our-cannibal-dinner homage to the notorious Brit video nasties that I'm now positive provided a part of the director's balanced breakfast. Essentially, it does for '80s VHS d-movie shlock what Planet Terror did for cinematic grindhouse shlock, and then goes one better by giving Death Proof a run for its money with a car chase. Out of a castles-and-all medieval milieu. Against a band of gothy devil's rejects. In a Bentley.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but it really doesn't matter because the preposterous plot, something like 28 Days Later for people not smart enough to read a calendar, is all over the place anyway. Some crazy plague breaks out in Great Britain, causing a section of the country to be closed off (we understand just how closed off it is when a metal gate separating from the infected from the healthy closes on a guy's fingers and dismembers them for our enjoyment). Years later, the plague infiltrates the safe area, and so Eden, a hot babe who's equal parts Kate Beckinsale, Lara Croft and Victoria Beckham (played Germanly by Rhona Mitra), heads an army into the quarantined zone to find out why people are still alive in there.

I knew this movie was onto something in the first five minutes when David O'Hara, as some kind of head of state, mumbled and mumbled and mumbled political strategy in a way that suggested he read the role as a more wooden version of The Simpsons' McBain, who's a more wooden version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Making the display even harder to believe is that a lot of it happens alongside Bob Hoskins, who's overacting hard enough to give the Golden Razzie Awards academy a daunting task when they go to select the clip to play alongside his Worst Actor nomination.

That's when I knew I liked it -- I knew I loved it when, in a display of how the wall between the sick and infected is automated by motion-detecting guns, we see a bunny hop into frame only to explode before our eyes courtesy of that automated sharp-shooter. They kill a bunny! For no reason except to be excessive! What is not to love? (I should add that as we're in the no-animals-were-hurt-in-the-making-of-this-film era, the shot is clearly fake and that's why it's hilarious, lest you think I'm totally sick, which you probably do anyway).

The brain-tickling game of Guess the Intent is in full gear throughout the ensuing parade of excess. There is communal cannibalism. There's a bond between two lovers on the bad-guy side that can't be severed, even though one of their heads is. There are computer graphics whose level of sophistication can be summed up in two words: Coleco Vision. There is a Fine Young Cannibals song ("Good Thing!") played during the gothy bad guys' pre-human roasting ritual (sort of a Cirque du Dirty Hair). There is blood on the lens. There is explicit Fulci referencing. There is another actress who bears resemblance to Victoria Beckham and thus the creation of a good Posh/bad Posh paradigm. Is what we see incompetent or comedic genius? Marshall says he injected the film with a "sick sense of humor," and yet, like with any camp worth obsessing over, it's still uncertain if the director knows just how funny he is.

Covering Doomsday's would be best handled via a screencap-heavy recap, which I'll do when it comes out on DVD. It'll be appropriate then, because that'll be the point in time when this thing will have a shot of becoming the beloved trash it's destined to be. Seriously, don't go see it, don't believe me now, but just know that I called it: some day in the future, Doomsday is going to have a legion of fans lovingly laughing at it, sharing in it like its Mad Max rejects share in human carcass. This movie is a gift.

Comments

[Sean]

It is indeed great. People complain that there's nothing new about a combination of The Road Warrior, Escape from New York, 28 Days Later, Steel Dawn, Aliens, etc., but they're missing the obvious fact that deliberately, openly combining them all into one film is ITSELF new. And awesome!

[Bigpikchur.blogspot.com]

My friends & I actually talked about that bunny scene at length and came to the very same conclusion! We concur in the giftitude of this movie!!!
Jules
House of Jules

[Bobby]

can't wait to see this!

[kestrien]

Seriously, the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen, and I loved every minute of it. It's like everyone decided to make a movie, but no one could decide what kind of movie. Plague? Check. Medieval knights? Check. Post-apocalyptic punks? Check. Bad-ass car chase? Check.

INSANE

[brendahamLincoln]

Good lard, I saw this movie on Saturday night. I wanted to punch it in the head. I leaned over to my friend in the middle and said, "oh god, it's the goth kids versus the ren fair kids!" She choked on her Dr. Pepper.

[Jason]

Great review, Rich. I saw it last night and had a total blast.

I'm willing to give Neil Marshall the benefit of the doubt, so great is my love for The Descent, that he knew exactly what he was doing here.

[shangshine]

really hot and sexy girls and man. i saw some more pics about them on intimatemingle.com which is a dating site.

[Style Bard]

Hahahaha... now I have to see it. This is just why I <3 Maximum Overdrive.

[Danielle]

I saw this on the weekend knowing NOTHING about it beyond Neil Marshall and the Escape from New York/Mad Max look and I am ABSOLUTELY HOOKED. For all the reasons you listed above and also the lack of MAGIC or DUMB SHIT LUCK in this film. The skill of the characters is outrageous and realistically contextualized (in the reality of the film) and no hocus-pocus bullshit makes it happen. It seems plausible that she would kick the shit out of a knight! It's amazing!

I also loved the Posh-spice resemblance with the Vidal Sassoon cut. Loved it.

[Kathy]

Oh, awesome! I saw a trailer for this, and now I'm even more psyched to see it, thanks to your review.

[Jason]

Easily the greatest onscreen bunnycide since "Raising Arizona."

[Tiffany]

I agree. Loved loved it!

[redb]

"There's a bond between two lovers on the bad-guy side that can't be severed, even though one of their heads is."

Like Cemetery Man?

I wasn't planning on seeing this but now I guess I have to.

[kost2kost]

Never really a big fan.. Really come on

[Aldice]

hot

[ekiuek]

she doesnt have a boyfriend.I saw her profile on a celebrity and millionaire dating site called " SearchingMillionaire.c OM". Her profile is nice with several recent pics there. Many men winked at her. What relationship is she looking for?

[Maroi]

If you're hungry, try a piece of your friend?

How could you dislike a movie with a quote like that, where they mean said quote literally, and not sexually.

[ShinyKate]

Hey, Rich!

Long-time lurker here, LOVE you're cats, think you're awesome (it SUCKS about your youtube account, by the way!)....

Anyway, I just came off of reading the Jezebel debate on tipping (MISTAKE- man, now I remember why waiting tables made me so misanthropic), and needed some warm, shiny goodness. So I came here.

And found, for the first time, that I'm not the only one who loved Doomsday for the reasons listed above. I am not aloooone!!!

Not only that, but the Showgirls analogy provides me with an answer from now on when confronted with, "You liked Doomsday?!? Why?!?!?"

Thank you, Rich. For everything. Seriously :)

[matt]

Disagree. This film is not at all a Guilty Pleasure, its ineptitude is more boring than amusing, its randomness is not random enough to be of interest. Maybe I would appreciate its product schizophrenia more if I hadn't wasted 20 bucks on it (popcorn).
Showgirls, Hostel 2, Inland Empire: classics.
Doomsday : a boring cheesy-in-a-bad-way action movie.
I much prefer the stylized corporate fake grindhouse of Grindhouse to the assembly-line trash corporate fake grindhouse of Doomsday.

[anon]

I just saw this yesterday and I loved it. Rich, you were right. It's so bad, it's good. Once I realized it was an absurd comedy, I loved it (the car chase!)!

[matt]

Sorry, I just have to beat a dead horse: this movie is so bad, it's not "so bad, it's good". It's just bad (I just don't want people to waste their time/money, even though that's their own decision to make LOL)

[matt]

And the much-vaunted car chase is boring

[Jason]

The people I watched this movie with hated it SO much, like, they were quaking with rage the entire way through; I'm pretty sure my enjoyment of the movie had more to do with that than the hilariousness of the film itself, which was definitely boring in more than a few parts.

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