John Dies at the End

A cult classic in the making from Don Coscarelli, director of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


Image gallery

  • Director-Screenwriter Don Coscarelli
  • Producer Brad Baruh, Don Coscarelli, Andy Meyers, Roman Perez
  • With Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti
  • USA 2011
  • 99 mins
  • Sales Magnolia International

From the twisted mind of Don Coscarelli, director of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep, comes another outrageous mind-bender destined for cult status. David and John, a pair of college dropouts, find themselves unwittingly caught up in a race to save humankind courtesy of a new psychotropic drug referred to as ‘soy sauce’. With the potential to open up the time/space continuum, this suspect narcotic launches our affable duo into an alternative world of conspiracies, monsters and a whole host of metaphysical mayhem. Inventively adapted from the much-loved book of the same name, John Dies at the End comes with a plot so outlandish, the resulting experience is almost impossible to summarise. The only thing that is certain in this avalanche of wild ideas and crazy humour is that a frenetic trip lies ahead, whether you can keep up or not.
Michael Blyth

Director statement

John Dies at the End might just be the very first movie project which was selected robotically. A few years back I had been reading some edgy novels from a cool imprint named Permuted Press. One day I received an email from an amazon.com ‘bot’ informing me that if I liked the last Permuted title I read, that I would DEFINITELY like their new book, John Dies at the End. The name grabbed me instantly, but when I read the log-line about a street drug called ‘soy sauce’ and a pair of mid-west slackers battling a silent otherworldly invasion, I was hooked. Since my youth I’ve had a rabid interest in the sci-fi, horror and fantasy genres. Many of my previous films have explored the surreal and strange. What I love about John Dies at the End is that in addition to being hide-under-the-bed scary, it’s also laugh-out-loud funny. To bring this ambitious story to the big screen on a modest budget was an immense challenge. There are more visual effects by far than any of my previous films. In fact, I was researching visual effects techniques before writing the screenplay and wondered how does one create a monster entirely composed of meats from the freezer? I think I hit on the best answer, which was to combine both practical prosthetic effects with the strengths of computer-generated imagery. I was able to work with some old friends including Bob Kurtzman of Kurtzman’s Creature Corps, who created my monster Bubba Ho-Tep for the practical effects. For the digital I recruited a cadre of young and gifted visual artists including CG whiz Mike Mangan, expert compositor Mars Sandoval of Syndrome Studio and animator David Hartman. We have a terrific cast in John Dies at the End. To find a young actor to portray the protagonist Dave required reading literally hundreds of unknowns. Luckily, in walked Chase Williamson who had just graduated from USC Drama and had never appeared in anything professionally. I was so excited after Chase’s reading I literally cast him on the spot. Rob Mayes was another terrific discovery for the character of John. It was also thrilling to be able to populate the film with some of my favourite working actors including Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman and Doug Jones. Paul Giammati, who in my opinion is the finest actor on the planet, was involved from the beginning. After the sequel to Bubba Ho-Tep, which we had been working on together, fell through, his support and encouragement made John Dies at the End a reality.
Don Coscarelli

Director biography

Born in 1954 in Tripoli, Libya, and raised in Southern California, he was fascinated with cameras and filmmaking at an early age. Long before he was old enough to attend film school, his short films, made with the help of neighbourhood friends in his hometown of Long Beach were winning prizes on television. At the age of 19, he became the youngest filmmaker ever to have a feature film distributed by a major studio when he sold his independently produced drama, Jim, the World’s Greatest, to Universal Pictures. Subsequently best known for the Phantasm films, he has seen the original (winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Festival du Cinéma Fantastique at Avoriaz) and its three sequels spawn a rabid cult of fans around the world. He also co-wrote and directed The Beastmaster, described by Entertainment Weekly as being one of the most popular films of all time on cable television. The Beastmaster has generated two sequels, a television series and a Tonight Show joke by Billy Crystal when he commented that HBO stood for ‘Hey, Beastmaster’s On’. Similar cult-worthiness awaited his more recent feature Bubba Ho-Tep. Coscarelli’s numerous honours include his induction into Fangoria magazine’s Hall of Fame alongside many of his favourite horror filmmakers and stars.

Filmography

1974 Jim, the World’s Greatest
1976 Kenny and Company
1979 Phantasm
1982 The Beastmaster
1988 Phantasm II; Survival Quest
1994 Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
1998 Phantasm IV: Oblivion
2002 Bubba Ho-Tep
2012 John Dies at the End