The Doom Generation
by Gregg Araki
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cress Williams, Dwayne R. Goettel, James Duval, Johnathon Schaech, Rose McGowanDirector: Gregg Araki
Cinematographer: Jim Fealy
Editor: Kate McGowan
Producer: Nicole Arbib
Producer: Pascal Caucheteux
Producer: Gr?goire Sorlat
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 83 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-08-05
Audience Rating: NC-17
Studio: Trimark Pictures
Movie Reviews of The Doom Generation
Movie Review: I understand it, but still can't find a way to like it.
Summary: 2 Stars
The Doom Generation (Gregg Araki, 1995)
There are two types of people who have seen The Doom Generation: those who loved it and those who hated it. (Interestingly, the two groups, according to IMDB, who rate it highest? Males under 18 and females 18-29. Figure that one out, armchair Freudians.) While I definitely come down on the "hated it" side of the line, I can at least understand what it was Araki was trying to do with this movie. I just can't tell whether he utterly failed to do what he set out to, whether he succeeded in such an incompetent way that it doesn't matter, or whether he succeeded so brilliantly that my reaction to the film was exactly what he was going for. To make matters even more confusing, I'm leaning towards the third possibility. Why? Hindsight.
While Araki isn't all that hot a director (cf. the failed, if valiant, attempt to adapt Mysterious Skin), the folks he plunked down in front of the screen are all that hot actors, as we have seen in the twelve-years-and-change since The Doom Generation was released; James Duval (basically discovered by Araki; his second film role was in Araki's first movie) has gone on to do some excellent work, Jonathon Schaech has gotten a decent amount of big-screen work in the past few years after an extensive television career, and, of courser, Rose McGowan went from being a Pauly Shore movie staple to an It Girl after Scream. Perhaps even more telling is the number of high-profile folks (actors and non-) who were drawn to Araki's script: Skinny Puppy, Perry Farrell, Amanda Bearse (of Married... with Children), Nicky Katt (soon to become famous on Boston Public), Parker Posey, Christopher Knight (yes, Peter Brady), even Heidi Fleiss. All pop up in minor roles. They had to have seen something to get involved.
The something, of course, is the whole alienation-angst thing that runs through the script. I mean, this is basically Ian Hunter's "The Outsider" brought to the big screen, with a really awful love story thrown into the mix and some really bad acting to propel it. But I don't think the acting was bad by accident. With these three actors? Oh, no, bub. I think Araki planned it that way. I think he told them to overact. Why? That's a bit more complicated. "To get the teen audience" is an easy, expendable, and probably oversimplified answer, though both Duval and McGowan certainly act like characters out of any number of awful teen goth poems I've read over the years. I think there's more to it-- the artificiality of the acting corresponding to the artificiality (or innocence, if you'd rather see it that way) of these characters; note that the two of them get better as the movie goes on (cf. Lindsay Crouse in Mamet's House of Games, who goes through the same transformation in much the same way). Similarly, the cheap special effects and set decoration. Simply covering a bar in tinfoil? Genius, if you want to go for a cheap look.
All that said, it doesn't diminish my visceral reaction to the film in any way. I still don't like it. If Araki didn't want me to like it, I can certainly respect that, and it's a valid enough reaction for a director to expect from a film; Hideshi Hino certainly isn't looking for legions of screaming fans when he directs movies. It just doesn't quite ring right, because man, if this film does have a target audience, I'm it. The cheap, dumb sets? I loved them in Carpenter's They Live. The bad acting? See my previous note on House of Games, which I think of as one of the hundred best movies ever made. And Skinny Puppy fans don't come much harder-core than me. Somehow, though, while I can appreciate the film on an intellectual level, I just don't feel it. Go figure. **
Summary of The Doom Generation
Made for a fraction of the cost of Oliver Stone's similarly themed Natural Born Killers, Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation is more persuasively outragous in its cultural satire, scarier in its violence, and more profound in its vision of a hate-fueled, media-drunk America seemingly determined to eat its young and dwell stupidly on their vengeance. Rose McGowan (Scream), James Duval (Nowhere), and Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do!) star as a trio of friends (Schaech's character actually being a complete stranger who steps into their car and into their lives one club-hopping night) who end up on a sex-and-crime spree that draws the fixed stare of television coverage. Araki makes a case for their continuing innocence in a society whose anti-outsider malevolence is barely disguised in the media but is quite naked out in the heartland, where a punishing level of bigotry is not unknown. Araki's jokes and techniques are crude yet forceful, and his anger is absolutely clear where Stone's was obscured and overreaching. The climax is among the most shattering and enraged scenes of '90s cinema. The DVD includes cast information, a theatrical trailer, and French and Spanish subtitles. --Tom KeoghAction & Adventure DVD Video
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