review – ‘this is the end’

I need to trust my intuition. I had seen the trailer for this movie several times and it always looked like a piece of mindless garbage, a bit of very low budget stream-of-consciousness acting by guys who are not exactly on the A-list. But then I saw the opening box office — $32.8M — and read some highly-positive reviews – and I figured I must have it all wrong. This could be one of the big ‘sleeper hits’ of summer; I needed to see it – and I did. Big mistake. This is rude, crude, loud, and offensive in so many ways. Part comedy, part reality show, part slasher flick, part parody, this is a movie wanders in different directions, quickly wearing out its welcome in each of them.

It is exactly what the trailer indicated it would be: a waste of time and ticket price. It’s not smart or clever or even particularly well done. The special effects are ultra-low-budget with monsters that look like they were created for 1950’s horror movies and models and miniatures that don’t look even remotely like real situations. There were scenes in here I couldn’t watch because they were just gruesome beyond belief. The nouns and verbs in the script just exist to get us to the next ‘F’ word. Is this funny? Entertaining? Several people were laughing at several points in the movie. I was not among them. I was trying to decide whether or not to leave. I stayed. It was my second mistake of the evening.