Magnet Releasing acquired Don Coscarelli‘s new horror/sci-fi feature John Dies at the End in advance of its upcoming Midnight Madness screening at the Toronto Film Festival, where the “final cut” of the film will have its premiere. Prior to now it played at Sundance and SXSW to great responses and is now targeting a 2012 Video On Demand release in late December, with a theatrical release to follow in early 2013.
The film centers on Arnie (Paul Giamatti), a shadowy figure investigating a street drug known as Soy Sauce. Promising an out-of-body experience with each hit, Soy Sauce causes users to drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and Dave (Rob Mayes and Chase Williamson), a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can’t. Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman and Doug Jones round out the cast.
I’ve seen little of Coscarelli’s work, limited only to the entertaining Bubba Ho-Tep, but he’s also known for films such as Beastmaster and the Phantasm franchise.
To accompany the announcement I have a gallery of five images along with a teaser trailer for the film. You can browse the gallery by clicking on the thumbnails and watch the teaser directly below.
