The Doom Generation (Fox Home Ent) (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Gallery-Photo Filmographies-Cast & Crew Trailer-Head On, Chopper, Judas Kiss, Nowhere
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	79:48
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Gregg Araki
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	James Duval Rose McGowan Johnathon Schaech Cress Williams Dwayne R. Goettel Cevin Key Nivek Ogre Dustin Nguyen Margaret Cho Lauren Tewes Christopher Knight Nicky Katt Johanna Went
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Dan Gatto Perry Farrell Stephen Perkins

    According to the title card at the start, The Doom Generation is a heterosexual film by Greg Araki, a prominent gay filmmaker on the independent scene in America. However, it is still a film determined to push the boundaries of sexuality. A teenage couple, Amy Blue (Rose McGowan) and Jordan White (James Duval), high on drugs, are enjoying a clumsy moment in the front of their car when they are rudely interrupted by the attempted gang bashing of Xavier Red (Johnathon Schaech) on the car's bonnet. After being rescued, Xavier, or X as Jordan prefers to call him, proceeds to thank them by insulting Amy and mopping up his blood with Jordan's shirt. Amy also has a filthy mouth and gives as good as she gets, hurling a creative string of abuse at X when she kicks him out of the car. It is not long before he finds them again, coming to their rescue in a 24 hour convenience store when their failure to produce money results in the store clerk pulling a shotgun. Already the narrative pattern for the film is in motion, following this trio as they lurch from one bizarre encounter to another, and in between they share time and intimacy in a series of hotel rooms.

    The surnames of the lead characters, Red, White, and Blue, gives away Araki's allegorical pretensions, as The Doom Generation is less an indictment of these nihilistic youths than it is a broadside at mainstream culture. A culture of disgusting fast food and neo-Nazi gangs populate America as a living hell, which our hapless and naive heroes must navigate. Prophetic and pseudo-religious signs litter their path, and the number 666 recurs throughout - every time they buy fast food, it costs $6.66. X seems less concerned than the young lovers, fulfilling the role of the mentor and guide on Jordan's Orpheus-style journey into the Underworld with Amy. Their havens along the way are the hotel rooms, each styled and coloured excessively, where they gradually open up to each other, exploring their sexuality and the possibility of something more beyond a heterosexual one-on-one.

    The Doom Generation earns its R rating, for nudity and strong sexual references, as well as for its excessive and outrageously cartoon-style violence. Heads and arms are lopped off, blood spurts, and the violent dénouement, in a which a strobing light illuminates a progressively more bloody scenario, also includes a vicious castration which is thankfully only implied. Unfortunately for The Doom Generation, Araki's message is lost because his visual aspirations simply fail to transcend the limitations of his budget, and often his attempts at a serious ideological polemic come undone because the overriding B-grade aesthetic makes it seem so absurd. Of the lead actors, only Schaech is really believable. McGowan and Duval make a strange onscreen couple: she can't act and he overacts. McGowan probably holds a record for the most profanities and swear words uttered in a single film, and although her foulmouthed creativity reminds me of my own teenage years, it doesn't really amount to character development. However, Duval's Keanu-style acting imbues Jordan with a charming naiveté, and the journey of his wide-eyed youth into the pits of hell is what makes this film bearable.

Video

    The Doom Generation is presented as a 1.33:1 transfer which is not 16x9 enhanced. There is no information on the IMDB about the correct aspect ratio, but judging by the poor framing, this is probably a pan and scan transfer of a 1.85:1 or 1.66:1 frame. It never looks good when two characters at opposite sides of the frame have their faces sliced down the middle.

    The sharpness during daylight scenes, which are rare, is very good. However, most of the film is shot at night, and this is where most of the many problems show up. The credits at the start of the film reveal some Gibb effect, and the strong red lighting in the nightclub also bleeds quite noticeably. This doesn't seem to be a problem later in the film. Most of the film looks very soft, and this is not helped by compressing the film onto only one layer.

    The colour is only average, which is a little disappointing given the use of colour in the production design. Blacks also come up a little weak, which is also prominent during the night scenes, and there is some noticeable noise.

    There was a minor problem with telecine wobble, however there was no aliasing to be found. Film artefacts are a very big problem with this transfer, which is very surprising for a film just over 10 years old. There doesn't seem to have been any attempt to clean up this print, which is full of scratches and white specks, as well as a number of hairs - far too many to document.

    Unfortunately, there are no subtitles at all on this disc, which is pretty lame. Luckily there is no problem with the dialogue and therefore no need to resort to subtitles.

    This is a single layered disc, so there is no layer change to worry about.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The default and only track available on this disc is English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded at 224 kb/s. It is not too bad, with the dialogue and music coming through very clearly. There were no audio sync problems nor problems with hiss or distortion.

    The music is credited to Dan Gatto, however most of the music is from bands such as Nine Inch Nails, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Aphex Twin, The Verve, and many others. Given the content of the film, it is a pretty heavy rock soundtrack.

    There is barely any surround presence, and barely any stereo effects, with most of the action coming from the centre speaker. The rears and the subwoofer only got used for music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is a 4x3 collage of the three lead actors with no accompanying music.

Picture Gallery

    21 pictures from the film and the set.

Cast and Crew Biographies

    A page or two for the three leads, James Duval, Rose McGowan, and Johnathon Schaech, as well as for Greg Araki.

Trailers

    There's no trailer for The Doom Generation, but there are four trailers for: Head On, Chopper, Judas Kiss, and Nowhere (which is another Araki film).

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    The Doom Generation was also released in Region 1, in August of 1998, and according to reviews is very similar to our version. However, our version misses out on French and Spanish Subtitles, English Closed Captioning, the film's trailer, and the Nine Inch Nails song Heresy accompanying the menu. If these are important to you, buy the Region 1, otherwise stick to the local disc for the PAL transfer and the price. This comparison is even.

    The video quality is very poor, and made even worse with a 1.33:1 transfer.

    The audio quality is much better, being an acceptable, if unexciting, 2.0 surround track.

    The extras are very weak and barely worth your effort.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall