Doomsday

Director – Neil Marshall

Neil Marshall's career in the action-horror genre has been increasing along with the success of his last two films, Dog Soldiers and The Descent. But the tame box offices sales and quick release to DVD of his most recent film, Doomsday, could be seen as something of a setback. But not necessarily: these types of dystopian future punk flicks generally don't receive much immediate widespread appeal at first until they reanimated from seeming death by a rabid cult audience. Think Mad Max, Escape from New York, and The Warriors.

But then again, it's impossible to watch Doomsday and not think of those films.

A viral outbreak has left Scotland quarantined and its inhabitants left to become a savage mix of tribal society and future technology. Thirty years since confinement, an elite group must go back into the heart of this wasteland to retrieve a cure for the disease before it spreads to the general population. Everything from mohawked marauders to a bit of anachronistic medieval knights inhabit this no-man's land. Of course, there is plenty of car chases and gratuitous gore delivered along the way.

The way that this movie often portrays itself as a heavy handed homage to these very genre films seems to have initially stunted the appeal of its release as an unimaginative draw back, though it doesn't need to be. Fans of these types of films will get a real kick out of spotting these (very intentional, as the audio commentary explains) references to the classics of the genre. And it does a mighty fine job at this, never seeming to parody itself, yet not taking itself too seriously.

Less exciting is the feeling of the movie being a retread through more recent British viral apocalypse films, such as 28 Days Later or Children of Men. Seen as an update of a classic genre, Doomsday works; seen as cash-in on a recent trend, the film does little that's new.

Either way, the movie is fun to watch if you're willing to let these issues of originality take a back seat. The DVD release comes with several features that give a little behind the scenes insight into how they achieved such a level of gore and explosive violence within a relatively limited budget.

Utterly confusing is the DVD's claim to feature “2 movies in 1” since it runs both the theatrical version and the unrated version. This is only true if you consider a 4 minute difference in running time to be a different film. I'm as big of a fan of additional risque gore scenes as anybody, but these extra minutes don't deliver that either, but instead add a bit of character development.

And while Doomsday may not significantly add to Neil Marshall's overall career development, if he manages to establish himself as a widely respected action-horror director with his future releases, then maybe Doomsday will get the proper revisits that it deserves. It's a fun, action packed genre film, which is exactly what it wants to be.