End of Days (1999)

Director: Peter Hyams

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Bryne, Robin Tunney, Kevin Pollack, Rod Steiger, Udo Kier

Country: United States

Production Company: Beacon Pictures

Rating: R

Run Time: 123 minutes

End of Days is one of my new favorite action/horror hybrids. I am always on the lookout for good action/horror hybrids because I think they make for a great sub-genre. I usually consider Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Til Dawn (1996) to be the best action/horror I have ever seen. However, End of Days is a darn good competitor and an absolutely awesome action film as well. The film blends a religious end of the world plot with disturbing imagery, excellent action scenes, and some big special effects as well. I did not think I was going to like this film that much going into it. But in all honesty, I had a blast with this movie and think it is a very underrated Arnold Schwarzenegger flick and a good film for Arnold to end the 90's with.

Images like this remind me why I love action movies.

The great action icons should dabble in action/horror more often. Dolph Lundgren did I Come In Peace (1989), Steven Seagal did Against the Dark (2009), Wesley Snipes did the Blade ('98-04) trilogy, Michael Bean did The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986), Fred Williamson did From Dusk Til Dawn (1996), and Arnold Schwarzenegger did The Terminator (1984) and End of Days (1999). I think it helps to see some of these actors get dropped into incredibly gritty and scary films in order to shake things up a bit from the usual action films they always do (but don't check out Seagal's Against the Dark, it sucks hard and he's only in it for 20 minutes).

End of Days opens with the birth of a young girl who is prophesized by a Satanic cult to help bring about the end of the world in 1999. To be honest, it is quite a creepy scene. The young baby is carried into a room to be "cleaned off" by the nurses. However, the nurses reveal themselves to be Satanists and perform a bloody ritual by slicing open a live snake and having the baby taste the blood. The movie than fast forwards twenty years to reveal that one of the Satanist nurses is now that young girl's step mom (Miriam Margoyles) and another is her doctor (Udo Kier). That young girl has grown up into the adult Christine York (Robin Tunney), a sweet woman who has no clue that she is being prepped to be impregnated by Satan one day.

But let's move on to the hero of the movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Jericho Cane, a professional body guard and security officer. When Jericho and his friend Bobby (Kevin Pollack) are out protecting a wealthy banker, they are attacked by a priest with a sniper rifle. After stopping the priest and arresting him, Jericho becomes curious of the priest's ramblings about the end of days. For no reason other than curiosity and possibly boredom, Jericho starts to investigate what the priest was talking about and quickly discovers that Satan has found his way to earth and is planning on impregnating Christine to bring about his son and the end of days.

Gabriel Bryne eyes Udo Kier's family.

It's also worth mentioning that Satan chooses a random human on Earth to act as his physical form. That human ends up being a nameless character played by Gabriel Bryne who basically become Satan. Satan causes all sorts of mischief and mayhem while on Earth. One of my favorite things about this film was Gabriel Bryne's performance as Satan. This is one of the my favorite Devil/Satan performances in any movie because Bryne is clearly loving this role. He doesn't ham it up and really comes off as truly evil while being fun at the same time.

Man, there is a lot of set up for this movie to make sense to anyone reading this review. If you made it through that than let me start by saying that End of Days' strongest point is its creative plot. I have seen a lot of action movies lately and have grown increasingly tired of boring and/or standard plots. Sometimes you just need something totally out there and different to go along with your action. If you desire something like this, than End of Days is the film for you. The film is a great combination of Satanic horror and Arnold Schwarzenegger styled action. You get exorcisms, bloody murders, awesome shootouts, cult seances, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making a milkshake out of Chinese food, Pepto Bismol, old bread, and coffee. There is never a dull beat in the film and I found myself thoroughly entertained from beginning to end.

End of Days could have easily been dull and dreadful DTV material if the filmmakers didn't attempt to craft a creepy and foreboding atmosphere. Thankfully, the cinematography and color scheme of the film is flat out excellent. The film looks and feels very much like a horror/noir. The film coincidentally looks a lot like David Fincher's Se7en (1995), another horror noir of the 90's. I would say this film is probably 2/3 "end of the world horror" and 1/3 "Arnold Schwarzenegger action." Since the horror seems to be the main priority of the film, it comes across as less of an action film and more as a horror flick.

Some dated 90's CG. Creepy.

This film reminded me why I love Arnold so much. Before he took a break from acting, Arnold had the ability to make any action film likable or memorable simply based off of his performance. It's hard to explain to people sometimes but I honestly think that Arnold is a great actor. He really immerses himself into his characters and completely becomes them (even though it's obvious that it is always Arnold and not a shape shifter like Gary Oldman).

End of Days seems like the kind of film that Arnold needed in his career in 1999. Eraser was his last true action film in 1996 for about three years. He than starred in two terrible but wonderfully nostalgic 90's flicks, Jingle All The Way and Batman and Robin. One might forget that Arnold was ever an action star after watching those two films. Arnold needed a hard R action film that would be a return to form but an attempt at a level of dark and mature filmmaking that Arnold hadn't really tackled since 1984's The Terminator. People needed to be reminded who was the action king. I honestly think that End of Days is a great reminder of Arnold's action talents and he should be darn proud of the flick.

Arnold takes a page out of Desperado and uses his sleeves.

The action scenes in this film really took me by surprise. Besides the opening action scene, all of the action is very memorable and bloody as heck. The first action scene involves Arnold attached to a rope hanging from a helicopter as he is chasing a crazed priest on top of a building. I don't know what it is but there is something really lame about watching Arnold being dragged by a helicopter.

There is however a great scene where Arnold and Kevin Pollack (who is the last person who should ever be in an action movie) get in a gunfight inside of an apartment with three radical Catholics from the Vatican. It's a sweet scene peppered with loud gun fire, breaking glass, and a small fist fight too.

The last thirty minutes of this film are just awesome. It's basically Arnold taking on an entire religious cult and Satan himself! I loved when Arnold headed back to his security job and armored up with their weapons supply. He straps on a bullet proof vest, slides pistols into his sleeves and holsters, and loads up an assault rifle with a grenade launcher. It felt like the Arnold of the 80's all over again and I couldn't get enough of it. It's definitely the best action scene of the movie.

Poor bus driver.

I really should stress how dark and disturbing some of the imagery in this film is. In one scene, Christine holds up a piece of bread and than screams. The film cuts to show a bunch of maggots all over the bread. The film than cuts back to Christine and than back to the bread to reveal that the maggots are now like little human bodies squirming around. There is also a scene where a creepy hobo comes up to her with creepy hair and tells her that Satan is going to "**** her." The hobo than falls apart into a bunch of puzzle like pieces and continues to cuss at her. I don't know what was going on in these scenes but they were really weird.

Satan also has a real love for Falcon punching his enemies to death. He literally punches through the back of a subway driver at the end of the film and punches clean through Udo Kier's face at one point! Literally through his face! It's like the scene in 30 Days of Night (2007) where Josh Hartnett punches through Danny Huston's face but it comes totally out of nowhere. It also bugged me that Satan kills some of his followers at some point and chooses not to revive them. What is the point of worshipping Satan in this movie if he's only going to punch you through the face? 

The most disturbing and bizarre scene in the entire film is when Satan meets Udo Kier's family. He walks up to them and than the scene cuts to him having sex with both of them in bed. As he has sex with them, the two women start to fuze with his skin and transform as if he were absorbing them. I don't know how to describe this scene but it is extremely gross and really dark. There's also a really messed up scene where Satan crucifies a priest on a ceiling using scalpels and scissors. Overkill much?

Robin Tunney is not in a good place here.

There is one element of the plot that confounds me and makes no sense. A priest explains to Arnold that 1999 is the end of days because it is the number 666 upside down plus a 1 in front of it. That makes no sense to me. How do you explain the 1 in front of 999? The film does explain that Satan tries to take over the world every 1000 years. However, 999 is just 666 upside down. Why does Satan only choose this one day and why not a different day? Does he just like that 999 is his number but upside down? And why only every 1000 years? Who stopped Satan the first time in 999? Arnold Schwarzenegger's ancestors?

Arnold also has no real motivation or reason to investigate into the plot of the film at all. He investigates simply due to curiosity. There isn't any emotional reason or anything like that. I guess I just don't understand what is the job description of a body guard. He acts more like a cop in this than he does anything else. This seems to happen in a lot of action films where non-cops simply act like cops because they have to get involved in the plot somehow.

The film also suffers from some pretty dated CG effects. There's one shot where Arnold and Robin run from a fireball and it is the worst looking green screen shot I have ever seen. If you can past some of the dated CG effects, there is some very good practical stunt work here and lots of great explosions and gun fire as well. It is worth mentioning that special effects guru Stan Winston worked on the film. I really enjoy the design of Satan at the very end of the film too. He's entirely unique from your typical Satanic interpretation.

Arnold is going to need a lot more than just a machine gun to take this on.

End of Days is an underrated gem if you ask me. All horror and action fans should seek this film out. It's an extremely underrated Arnold film too! The film is also one of the very last big budgeted action hero films of the 90's. It cost around $80 million to make and grossed around $200 million worldwide. While those numbers aren't incredibly impressive, they show that audiences still wanted to see films like this even though the big budget PG-13 blockbuster was slowly but surely coming into dominance. I think what attracted me to this film the most was that it combined the big budget action hero sub-genre with the end of the world / Satanic cult sub-genre. It's just an awesome hybrid of movie making and everyone involved should be proud of their work!

Rating: 8/10 - One of the best action/horror hybrids ever made! Highly recommended!