Hot Sheet: Free Sketch

9. DVD: John Dies in the End
There’s a reason why John Dies at the End was a huge hit at American Film Institute’s AFI Fest: It’s a rare smart horror movie that uses cerebral scariness instead of naked co-eds getting slashed. In fact, there are so many cute guys (and Paul Giamatti, who is also executive producer) at the center of this trans-genre horror flick based on David Wong’s audacious book that you might not even notice the film even has women in it. Written and directed by cult legend Don Coscarelli (who geeks love because he made the Bruce Campbell-starrer Bubba Ho-Tep), John Dies centers around the Soy Sauce, a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit and sends users adrift across time and space. But not everything that comes back is alive. Or human. Or safe. So with an otherworld invasion afoot, humanity needs a hero. What it gets instead is Rob Mayes and Chase Williamson as John and David, symbiotic college dropouts who can’t even hold down jobs but are nevertheless damn cute to watch saving the world in this supernatural action horror comedy. Bonus features: deleted scenes, a monster design featurette, Fangoria interviews with Coascarelli and Paul Giamatti, and more.