Holy crap. How did Universal not get this movie? Easily some of the most fun I've had on video any time recently, Doomsday is a wild, fun throwback of a film that takes the childhood of director Neil Marshall and lays it bare. But the problem is everyone is too afraid to say the word that Americans need to hear to understand this film. Grindhouse. With the failure of Grindhouse (mostly due to The Weinstein Company's terrible decision to open a hard R movie over family-friendly holiday Easter weekend) I'm certain any time this reference was brought up behind closed doors it was quickly squelched, but it is absolutely essential to understanding the fun behind this explosive, campy joyride.

After a viral outbreak in Scotland threatens all of Great Britain, the British government quarantines the whole country, erecting a wall and shooting on sight anyone who tries to cross it. Twenty-five years later Scotland is a dead zone. But somehow the virus has broken out again. This time in London. Now it's time for the government to show all of its cards. Turns out satellites have detected life over in Scotland, meaning somehow people have survived. With time running out, they send in a crack special ops unit led by (a one-eyed, eye-patch wearing) über hottie Rhona Mitra.

But not all is well in Scotland as a deranged scientist (Malcolm McDowell) has forced the survivors to return to a medieval lifestyle, while his even crazier son is the leader of a radical group of violent cannibal thugs living in what remains of the cities. Add in car chases, gun fights, gladiatorial games, live specimen barbecues, occasional appearances by Bob Hoskins and mayhem o' plenty, and you get a very fun, deranged, two-hour throwback to the last days of drive-ins.

Almost a full decade younger than Tarantino and Rodriguez, the movies that influenced Marshall weren't the sex/black/gorespolitation of the '70s, but much of the post-apocalyptic, Ozsploitation (Australian genre films) and sci-fi/fantasy films of the early '80s. What many critics chalk up to blatant theft is actually fun homage taking the films The Warriors, The Road Warrior, Excalibur and Escape From New York (as well as a bevy of the Italian knockoffs) and working them into a fun, perfectly paced sci-fi actioner. For fans of this kind of thing the theft/homage is perfectly forgivable, as many of the films in question were all knockoffs in their own right. This movie feels like one of those classic midnight movies at the drive-in and delivers on all the fun that the best of those promised.

Unlike Tarantino and Rodriguez however, who made their films entirely with tongue placed firmly in cheek, Marshall wanted to make a serious entry into the genre that wasn't just aping it, but that belongs within it. And that's both his greatest success and failure. The film is great fun, and in my estimation far superior to both of the Grindhouse films. They're fun riffs on what they love. This actually IS what it loves. But because he took a fun film so seriously, people went in expecting something excellent rather than something trying to be awesome. This isn't Children of Men. But it isn't exactly Escape From LA either (the film in which John Carpenter failed to ape even himself).

And on DVD the film really comes to life as you are offered the opportunity to watch the toned down R-rated cut of the film or the super gory, extraordinarily '80s, splatteriffic, unrated cut. Most unrated cuts these days fail to fully earn their unrated title. But not Doomsday. It is unrepentantly gory. Decapitations, horrible wounds, cannibalism, bodies falling under speeding cars and turning to mushy crimson explosions of hamburger and rubber body parts. All of which is done with top-notch, state-of-the-art FX work.

Horror/splatter fans will have a hoot and a holler at the amount of fun to be had with this exploitation-inspired tour of carnage. Rounding out the disc are several making-ofs that only serve to illustrate just how serious they took the film and why it was such a hard sell. Oh sure, they talk about many of the things I've brought up here in regards to their influences. You never hear this kind of childlike excitement out of Tarantino and Rodriguez. But as a mutual friend remarked of Neil Marshall: "What's the guy gonna do? He's British."

Doomsday is out on DVD now from Rogue Pictures in an "Unrated" edition. It comes highly recommended for fans of '80s genre films or anyone who enjoys this weekend's Death Race.

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