A Date to Forget - Ryan's 11-11-11 Preview

The movie 11-11-11 is written and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, the writer of SAW II and director of SAW II-IV and the bastard shoulda stuck with gore porn. The problem with end of days date-based movies is that not only are they no longer half as frightening when the date passes (PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is scary as shit because you feel that maybe, just maybe, a ghost could destroy your idyllic little life) but they’re all the same. 1.) Religious-based, antichrist comes down, rapture, hell on earth. No way to escape judgment. 2.) Things crumble randomly, perfect storms and disasters, some people survive, others don’t, it randomly happens on one day.

11.11.11. Just another random day being imbued with so much importance because it happens to be a series of similar numbers. No matter that the calendar system is relatively arbitrary (it’s only in western clocks that the year stars in the middle of winter, and not even at the winter solstice) or even, for that matter, that the year is 2011.  Just like all the other dates assigned theories and importance by wackjobs with too much freetime (December 2012, or at the last millennium change, or 10/10/10, or May 21, 2011) 11.11.11 has not only inspired a movement, it’s inspired a movie. A movie about end of times. And, as you could imagine, it’s gonna suck.

11.11.11 is a rehashing of religious themes, the scares coming from the cheap, overdone trick of ghoulish faces appearing on videotapes and disjointed ghosts coming out of tombstones. Like the "Thriller" video but without the talent. Disgusting.

Even more, the characters seem like dudes that just don’t fit together.  You end the script wondering “Why should I care?” and the answer is: you shouldn’t.

This thing has been done plenty of times before and making one brother a disenfranchised writer and the other a new agey sin-accepting preacher doesn’t change the feeling of “been there, done that, not scary anymore” that permeates it all. Movies like TAKE SHELTER present the premonitions of end-of-days as a possible window into one man’s plummet into insanity, a brilliant and harrowing meditation on the apocalypse and psychosis. 11.11.11 – well it just has nothing new to say and what it does say has been said better plenty of times before.

Skip this. Don’t even Netflix it. Maybe if it’s on at 2 in the morning and you’re baked and bored and don’t feel like changing the channel watch it. If the world does end on 11.11.11, the worst way you could choose to spend your last few hours of existence would be in a theater watching this flick.

-          Ryan