As I rode back from the airport yesterday, my car passed a bevy of Blue Blood hotties including Roxy Contin and others, all decked out and waving Doomsday signs. This reminded me that I wanted to tell you all about the upcoming flick. (These two things are related; they were promoting the movie, not predicting the end of the world in their underwear.)
Doomsday is a movie of a dystopian future. In a present day United Kingdom, a fatal viral epidemic has broken out, so a portion is walled off to quarantine the infected. Fast forward 25 years in the future and the disease appears again outside the quarantined zone. The authorities realize that there are still people living within those walls, so they dispatch a hot chick to go see if she can find a cure. The hot cure-hunting chick is played by Rhona Mitra whose accomplishments off the silver screen include being expelled from boarding school and booth babe appearances as Lara Croft at trade shows. I actually thought she was Kate Beckinsdale when I first viewed the trailers for Doomsday and apparently I’d make a good casting director because she is starring in the upcoming Underworld: Rise of the Lycans vampire movie.
At any rate, once inside the walls of the quarantined city, Rhona Mitra’s Eden Sinclair has to go up against an army of citizens who appear to be rather justifiably pissed off about being walled off and then asked for help. The inhabitants of the walled city include a forceful Malcolm McDowell playing a character named Kane and the Golden Rule seems to indicate to me that the outside world doesn’t really deserve a lot of help. The preview images and videos show some very appealing Mad Max or perhaps dark gothic Burning Man style. The action looks like it is going to be compelling. I really like the overall aesthetic achieved by talented writer/director Neil Marshall, best known for the psychological horror of his spelunking movie Descent and also critically-acclaimed for his wereworld film Dog Soldiers. I am looking forward to Doomsday and hope it does not end up having the message that the overculture can legitimately exploit the counterculture for anything it likes, including being lab rats for viral vaccine research. Does mankind have an expiration date?
As part of the run-up to Doomsday, which opens in theatres on March 14, the Doomsday team has created an online video game called the Marauder Massacre Game. The Doomsday game is a first person shooter reminiscent of Quake with the lights off. I’ve never been particularly good at Quake, so you can probably easily kick the ass of my high score of 56. Play and let me know how you do!
