A tribute to the early 1980s anarchy actioners "The Road Warrior" and "Escape From New York," Neil Marshall's "Doomsday" also blends elements from "28 Days Later" for a fun and ultra-violent action-sci-fi-kinda-horror film. It's the first movie in a long time to feature an exploding hare – only a British filmmaker could have come up with that concept.
Set in an "Escape From New York"-like British future, a reaper virus has wiped out huge portions of Scotland, forcing the Brits to wall off the northern part of the continent just like they did in John Carpenter's early 1980s classic. Three decades go by. When the "reaper virus" as it's called – it turns its victims into rabid axe-wielding killers before killing them off – shows up again in London, the British government decides to hire its best bad-ass, Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), to go into the walled off wasteland and search for survivors who may have come up with a cure for the virus. Some survivors have been seen via satellite, leading the British authorities to think a cure has been discovered. Sinclair is especially interesting because she has a glass eye that she can dislodge and use a video camera before reinserting it into her eye socket.
Their mission is to find the one scientist searching for a cure who was trapped behind the wall (Malcolm McDowell) with the expectation that, if alive, he's the one with a cure.
What Sinclair and her team of British bad asses find is an anarchy-run society led by tattooed punk rockers. The parallels to "EFNY" are clear throughout the film, with computer generated charts showing the extent of the walled off civilization, mohawks on the bad guys and even an "EFNY"-style font appearing on screen to tell us the year and place of the story.
The film ends with a car chase right out of "Mad Max" – except our hero is driving a Bentley while Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Two Tribes" blares in the background.
While not exactly a horror movie, "Doomsday" is bloody and fantastic enough to appeal to any horror fan – certainly any John Carpenter fan. This is the kind of filmmaking Carpenter did in the 1980s – and continued to do with films like "Ghosts of Mars," which was pretty badly received. Similarly, "Doomsday" was pretty badly received on its initial release, garnering negative reviews and low box office on its first Friday in the U.S. Maybe schlocky sci-fi actioners aren't the big business they used to be.
Excellent- really looking forward to seeing this- pure escapism.
All my faves into one film- Escape from new york, mad max2, 28 days later, what's not to like? The Director has made a film that he knows people will love- because it's a film he'd like to see himself. Great director- looking forward to seeing more from him, as Dog Soldiers and Descent kicked anything the U.S could throw up- in the arse!!
Posted by FATORSON on June 9, 2008
Apparently DOOMSDAY didnt ring the tills in the all important American market,which is a shame given that Descent caught the imagination and Dog Soldiers was a great start for Marshall,but where as these movies either stood alone as solid imaginative horror in the case of the former and twisted a tried and test ed formula like Dog Soldier.Doomsday took a bit of Mad Max and a pinch of Escape From New York added a beautiful lead and the ALWAYS reliable Malcolm Mcdowell,and ended up with nothing we aint already seen a hundred times before.Italian studios were churning out similar fare three a week back in the early days of VHS
Posted by Painmethod on December 14, 2009
This movie was a big let down for a lot of viewers, not so much that it borrowed from some really great movies, it was the little things that happened in the film that didn't make sense that ruined the whole experience. An example would be when they hit the cows driving into the walled off island, yet the cities are full of cannibles? I could go on, but I don't want to ruin the rest, as there are some great action sequences. But that's all this film is about, action sequences one after another, with no real thought put into the plot. McDowell and Mitra do their part in making the film entertaining, but after seeing all the mistakes throughout, it feels like a chore to watch.
Posted by shulo oposite on December 21, 2012
only god shall end this world dont be fulls dont believe in satanism
Posted by Obdulio on March 26, 2013
Today I shared with a girl that Sean and I used to go to chruch with and discipled for a time. She was needing to hear from the Lord and felt very distant from God and struggling with sin. We invited her to come check out Broadway and Freeway this weekend. I pray she comes!
