Perhaps movie cameras should have a five-day waiting period just like handguns. Because surely, after five days, someone would have talked some sense into the people who made/starred in/financed this film. Surely the brain worms residing in the script-writer's skull would've died from lack of anything to eat, and the script-writer would have stopped confusing their squirming death-throes for 'ideas'.
Sure, you can argue that one shouldn't expect much from an obviously low-budget movie about killing demons. But this movie just made me angry. At myself, for renting it, at the film-makers, for making it, at God, for making the film-makers, and at the world, for not imploding as soon as this thing was distributed, thus saving all unsuspecting from the torment that ensues once you hit 'PLAY'.
I watch plenty of bad movies. And we're talking bad, bad movies, not the campy stuff like the Evil Dead movies or John Waters films, which are kind of exploitative commodifications of the bad-movie genre--- I'm talking Chupacabra movies, I'm talking 'Blood Gnome', 'Despiser', 'Survivor Island', all those Sasquatch movies Lance Henrickson's been in... really, really bad movies, but which I can always find some redeeming quality in. Not this one. It's the worst 'bad' movie I've ever seen. I'm not being hyperbolic. It's really that bad. I entirely understand that when someone says 'Don't do this', most people have a temptation to do it anyway. But in this case, if you haven't already seen this movie, then don't.
But most likely, you already watched this atrocity if you're reading about it here, seeking some sort of confirmation that other people in the world are filled with as much self-loathing as you are for accidentally encouraging the creation and distribution of this sort of sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-thought garbage. And for you, who have suffered so, here is something to consider.
*SPOILERS FOLLOW* 'DatD' reflects a frightening American misunderstanding of the world, particularly the conflicts in the Middle East with which we've been involved. DatD circumvents the political controversies of our recent world by simply affirming that American machismo is where God places all faith.
A bomb-wielding Arab fundamentalist kills an innocent American and threatens to do it again. This guy is the caricature of Islamic fundamentalism. He's killed by American military caricatures and the Gates of Hell (read: The spoils of the Middle East, oil fields and such) are opened. An angel appears, representing the highest authority (think 'the U.N.', here), and after a brief scuffle with the American meat-heads, explains that they shouldn't have opened up the Gates of Hell in the first place, but now that it's done, well, whatever. The angel has to leave in order to maintain some ridiculous concept of 'non-interference'. From an insulated bunker, the Americans (the aforementioned meat-heads, an old scientist guy and his supposedly sexy daughter) all briefly debate what to do, but the meat-heads take over and decide the smartest plan is to 'lure them inside' and torture them. Parallels to certain American-run compounds where torture was seen as justifiable may here apply. There's some occasional TV broadcasts from the demons, who keep making threats (like those bin Laden tapes). There's snake-puppet demons that attack from the pipes and kill people (pipelines, perhaps?). Even the snake-puppet gets tortured gratuitously. About this point in the film, you just want it to end. But it continues. The token black guy asks to have his arm cut off by the female lead, so he'll not be possessed by the infectious evil of the snake-puppet demon that bit him. I'm not really sure how this ties to our current political situation, and anything would be a stretch, probably, but it happened. There's a 'big' demon that gets killed, which involves the token black guy sacrificing himself to save his buddies. The message here should be clear enough. The white male protagonist goes through the gates of Hell, blows up the gate behind him and soon reaches the throne of Satan. Satan turns out to be a tiny yap dog with a fat goth girl as his bodyguard. She farts on the meat-head and he kills her, then blows up Satan with a bomb which, for some reason, he tries to eat. The meat-head then sits on Satan's throne and proclaims himself the new King of Hell. The angel assures the female lead that this is all a good thing, that mankind has new 'protectors'... and then the meat-head and his token black friend (who wound up in Hell) conclude that all they have to do now that they're ruling Hell is drink beer. And they toast themselves. The film ends. Existential dread sets in upon the audience.
The end of the film isn't really funny. It's random, and randomness passes for humor a bit too frequently nowadays not to be a predictable element of most comedies. But DatD is not a comedy, so it does work better than any of the rest of the film. But when a farting goth girl and a dog that eats explosives are the best you have to conclude your film with... well... maybe you shouldn't have made a film. If we read DatD as an idiotic interpretation of American foreign policy over the last few years, we can easily see the dog as Saddam Hussein, this evil menacing figure we feared so much, who ultimately got 'dethroned' and sentenced to death relatively easily. As if he were little more than a yap dog. The end result is that America now sits on the throne of power in Hell (the Middle East) with nothing better to do then act macho and drink beer. Which is pretty much where we were by 2004, when this piece of garbage was released to the world.
Aside from all that, the dialog is annoying. The shower scene is completely childish. This film doesn't just celebrate brain damage, it IS brain damage.
3 out of 7 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
