Two hours of my life I won't get back: Doomsday
January 5, 2009 (10:00 p.m.)
Those who know me know that I have a ridiculous fondness for bad movies. I'm especially prone to subjecting my wife to Sci-Fi Originals (I realize that, during the eventual divorce proceedings for such mental and aesthetic cruelty, I'll have no defense. And that during those proceedings, my daughter will yell out, "I hate Frankenfish! I hate Frankenfish and I hate you!).
Tonight, I was flipping around the movie channels and came across Doomsday. I'd read a few reviews of it -- of the so bad it's ... well, not good, but kinda fun variety -- so I knew I had to watch it. But boy oh boy oh boy was I unprepared for this special bit of nonsense. To be fair, it's obvious that the thing is a very tongue-in-cheek homage to The Road Warrior, 28 Days Later, and Escape From New York all at once, but still...
The premise is pretty straightforward. The deadly Reaper virus hits Scotland, forcing the government to quarantine the infected areas behind a highly defended wall. About thirty years pass and the government and the rest of the world have pretty much forgotten about any survivors behind the wall until ... the Reaper virus strikes again.
There's only one thing to do. Assemble a crack team of paramilitary types (led by a hot chick with a camera instead of an eye) and send them into this no-man's land. From there, it just loses any pretense of sense.
First off, it appears that the only thing that granted anyone any immunity during the initial outbreak was for them to either be at a Renaissance Faire or at an S&M bar on '80s Night. The team quickly gets captured by a band of urban cannibals, all done up in mohawks and leather and piercings and such (They're also apparently cannibals just 'cause it's a rockin' thing to be, since there are countless cows roaming the Scottish countryside)
But it's at one of the following points that you realize that the movie's not slowing down long enough for anyone to go "Hey, waitaminute...":
- A synchronized dance routine courtesy of the cannibal leader and two leather-clad chicks on stripper poles to the sounds of a Fine Young Cannibals song. Yes, the cannibals are whipping themselves into a pre-feast frenzy by dancing to a Fine Young Cannibals song (in fact, I think all of the film's music, from FYC to Adam Ant to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, is from the '80s).
- Yet another synchronized dance routine that immediately follows, full of fairly round men in kilts stomping about on the stage.
- The scene that shows a captured operative being roasted alive and eaten by the cannibals (after the leader's thrown out paper plates to the crowd). (Let it be known that I'm not fan of cannibalism scenes, but in a way you have to admire a movie that doesn't flinch).
- The fact that an escape occurs via a steam engine train. I can hang with the idea of the train making its escape from the station, but after that ... it's on rails. You know where it's going. And it's not even moving that fast. And as we're shown in a later Road Warrior-esque chase scene, the punk rock cannibals don't lack for vehicles draped in the skeletons of their victims.
But that's only the first group of survivors. The operatives are really looking for a guy named Kane who supposedly holds the secret to the survivors' immunity. Well, it turns out he and his Luddite Messiah complex are holed up in some old castle, leading a group of folks who apparently decided that even fibers more complicated than burlap were Familiars of that Great Demon Technology. At this point, I'm not completely convinced they didn't use some stock footage from Army of Darkness or any other movie that shows medieval peasants going about their wretched existence.
From there, it's a fairly ludicrous escape scene followed by a fairly ludicrous chase scene that will make Road Warrior devotees cry in their beers. And the ending. I can't spoil it, but it may be the silliest bit of nonsense I've ever seen packed on top of a whole movie full of nonsense. All of which would be fine if the obvious glee the creators of this film had finding ways to be outrageous actually translated into fun or glee for the viewer. But in my case, it was not to be.
Wonder what's on the Sci-Fi Channel...
<permalink>