Penny Thoughts ‘13—John Dies at the End (2013) **½

R, 99 min.

Director: Don Coscarelli

Writers: Don Coscarelli, David Wong (original story)

Starring: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones, Daniel Roebuck, Fabianne Therese, Jonny Weston, Jimmy Wong, Tai Bennett

I was thinking the other day about the movie “Office Space”. I was working in a movie theater in Vail, Colorado when it was released theatrically. Our theater didn’t get it, so a bunch of our high school employees road tripped to Denver to see it. I didn’t sense much interest in it in anyone at the time but those kids. As such I think it was perceived upon its release as one of those knucklehead movies about young people behaving badly.

I didn’t see it until it released on home video. “Eh!” pretty much sums up how I felt about it. It had some funny parts, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. Then years later, after it had developed a sort of cult following and its audience now seemed to be of a slightly older age set, I watched it again; and I got it. It was hilarious. It was no masterpiece, but it tapped in to a great universal mindset about working as a member of my generation and all the crap that we put up with in the work place.

I get the impression that “John Dies at the End” might follow a similar course. It hasn’t made much of an impact upon its release, but I suspect there might be something about it that will eventually inspire the cult classic catapult to launch it. I don’t see what it is at the moment, and so I’m basically saying, “Eh!” about it. It has some funny moments, for sure. It seems to lack some connecting factor, however. I await the day when it kicks in and I can see it for the genius that it is.

Here’s the Red Band (Restricted) trailer so you can get an idea of what its about.

Oh, and SPOILER AlERT! John doesn’t die at the end. He dies alright, but it’s long before the end. But, you’ll find that such developments don’t really matter in this movie.