IN DEFENCE OF - DOOMSDAY (2008, MARSHALL)
Let me start by saying something some of you are going to disagree with. Neil Marshall is the best genre filmmaker working currently. His output thus far (The Descent, Dog Soldiers, Doomsday & Centurion) has been nothing short of top-shelf entertainment. And in the case of The Descent, he made one of the best horror films of the last decade, easily. While his film's rank fairly highly on the internet site Rotten Tomatoes (84%, 58% and 76% respectively), one of his film's is continuously shit on. Can you guess which one?
I'm going to throw it out there. I love Doomsday. I wholeheartedly believe the film is a love-letter to the violent sci-fi/action films of the 70's and 80's, the film's Marshall adored when he was young. The director tips his hat to several films (sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly) and it each set-piece reeks of excitement. But this is the problem most people have with the film. The common belief is that Doomsday is an amalgamation of rip-offs and stolen scenes. This is not the case.
Let me point something out. Every one of us has seen a Quentin Tarantino film. From Kill Bill to Pulp Fiction, most of us can quote at least a few lines of dialogue from one of his pictures. And yet there's something about his films that's not widely known to mainstream audiences. He, quite often, takes entire scenes from obscure films and integrates them into his own productions. In fact his first film, Reservoir Dogs, is very close to Ringo Lam's 1987 film City On Fire (there's a YouTube video around there somewhere if you don't believe me). Kill Bill Volume 1 is full of references to other movies, from Thriller to Lady Snowblood to Bruce Lee's Game Of Death. And yet, when people are made aware of this, they bark back with, "yeah but he's a genius and he is only paying respect to filmmakers he loved". And yes, I agree with you. Although he references them a little too much, in the end he's paying homage to the films he watched as he grew up. And that's exactly what Marshall has done with Doomsday.
By including references to The Warriors, Escape From New York, The Road Warrior and Aliens, Marshall is giving thanks to these films and their creators. Some will argue that it's a film that doesn't know what it wants to be, but that's wrong. Doomsday knows exactly what it is. It's a camp, hyper-violent sci-fi action film, that throws as many set-pieces as it possible can at you. Within it's 105 minute running time, you've got SWAT-style sieges, puss-spewing zombies, shootouts, car chases, sword fights and cybernetic eyeballs and wacky Mad Max-style villains. It's quite obvious that Neil Marshall set out to make Doomsday out of adoration for the genre as a whole, not to collect an easy paycheque by stringing rehashed ideas together into a film.
As for the production itself, everything is of a high quality. The cast is spot-on; Rhona Mitra sizzles as Sinclair, Bob Hoskins is great as her grumpy senior officer Bill Nelson and Malcolm McDowell is a welcome sight as the power-hungry medieval king Kane. The lashings of OTT gore add a grindhouse sensibility and the costume design is fantastic (especially the Sol's army of brutish punks).
As with 1408, Doomsday was whisked away from cinema screens before anybody really got to see it, which is a real shame. The film is not ripping off anything. It's a declaration of love to the gritty cult classics of yesteryear.
