I’m fairly sure Neil Marshall is a genius.
Inspired by this, I’m driven to write a short and unprofessional (not to mention untimely) review of the utterly fantastic Doomsday.
I should probably include the basic premise: unspecified mystery horror-virus infects Scotland, the British government rebuilds Hadrian’s Wall. Thirty years later the virus reappears in London and the prime minister and his shady right-hand man send Rhona Mitra into Scotland to look for survivors. Said survivors have either become bloodthirsty cannibal savages or live in the country trying to recreate a medieval feudal society.
I know.
Doomsday came out in the US quite a while ago, and instantly became one of those movies I really, really wanted to see in a cinema but never got around to going to watch. How foolish I was.
The movie is utterly fantastic, and combines two of my favourite things, namely, a post-apocalyptic setting and truly ridiculous violence:
Unfortunately, it also combines two of my least favourite things, namely, cheesy dialogue and Bob Hoskins:
The wordpress theme I’m currently using doesn’t seem into doing captions, but I assure you, Bob is cheesing it up.
The reason Doomsday is brilliant is because it’s all completely intentional. The film is chock full of overt references from Mad Max (crazy barbaric denizens of the near future sporting Mohawks) to John Carpenter (naked, large breasted blonde taking a bath during a drug deal with a shotgun close at hand) and plenty in between. Marshall even had the foresight to include some of the worst music ever made (re: 80s British pop), although I just couldn’t get past Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I can’t be that knowing when it comes to my action/gore/sci-fi schlock.
The decision to soundtrack the people-eating party near the start with some Fine Young Cannibals DID make me laugh though. As did the underlying joke that people from the north of England and Scotland are a bunch of savages while those from the south are untrustworthy toffs too smooth for their own good. Except for Bob Hoskins. He seems to take Dick Van Dyke’s infamous attempt at a cockney accent in Mary Poppins personally.
On a sidenote, Bob Hoskins was in a movie called Last Orders in 2001 with Ray Winstone and Michael Caine. I remember thinking it looked interesting but I’m not sure that my ears could handle that much geezering around. Proceed at your peril.
Get Doomsday when it comes out on DVD.
Think + Do = ? 
ok, but is this movie *scary*? and i don’t mean, scary on the henri/john level. i mean, scary on the sarah level.
keep in mind that “gremlins” still scares the pants off me.
There are one or two things that MIGHT be scary in the Sarah sense, but are really a bit gross. The whole movie is a very deliberate running tribute to a ton of great exploitation movies AND makes fun of bad straight-to-DVD movies at the same time. So… no, not really.
Sounds like my kinda flick. ‘Cept I think I’ll wait till next week when it’s sure to make an obligatory Sci-Fi channel debut.
P.S. Isn’t Bob Hoskins also always the ‘Man’ behind a desk in video games? Maybe in RA2 or C&C?
I’m not sure, actually. He may as well be, though, his voice is so generic!!
Bob Hoskins gets a lot of respect and I’ve never known why. I’m sure he’s a very nice guy and he’s apparently extremely professional but if I looked like that I could put on a cockney accent and play every single role he’s ever played. Ever.