JOHN DIES AT THE END (R) A video-store slacker, David Wong (Chase Williamson), meets up with a jaded journalist, Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti), and tells him twisted stories about a cosmic, hallucinogenic drug, interdimensional creatures, psychics and a monster made out of freezer meat.

Director/writer Don Coscarelli knows a little something about cult movies. He first came to prominence in the late 1970s with the imaginative, low-budget, dark fantasy Phantasm, a feature that stood out among the glut of slasher movies then flooding theaters. A few years later, Coscarelli directed the sword and sorcery movie Beastmaster, which bedazzled many a teenage boy with its garish fantasy world, owing to co-star Tanya Roberts' skimpy clothes and because much of the movie looked like a Frank Frazetta van painting come to life. It was cheesy, but its heavy rotation on cable TV nevertheless built up a loyal cult audience. Coscarelli's movie output over the subsequent decades was mostly devoted to Phantasm sequels, but his career got a boost in 2002 with the release of Bubba Ho-Tep, starring genre vet Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley and Ossie Davis as a man who believes he's John F. Kennedy. Old and decrepit, the two men sit out life in a retirement home, until one day they encounter an ancient Egyptian mummy that has miraculously come to life and rampages through the retirement center. Bubba Ho-Tep was inspired lunacy and felt like a late creative peak for Coscarelli.

John Dies at the End (available VOD) is stuffed with the same kind of Jabberwocky energy running through Bubba Ho-Tep, but it sadly lacks the unexpected moments of depth that oozed out of the earlier movie. That's not to suggest this latest one is without its crazed charm, however. There's plenty of outrageous gore, inspired comedy and a gonzo sense of narrative here, but after a great start, the movie eventually loses itself within its own convoluted insanity. In a world—or alternate dimension, as the case may be—where anything can happen, nothing is shocking or really bizarre. Even the most fantastical world needs to be governed by some trace of internal logic. Otherwise, it all starts to come out like the increasingly mad ravings of your conspiracy-obsessed stoner roommate. Nevertheless, John Dies at the End makes for an entertaining excursion into the cinematic weird. Watch it at midnight; watch it with like-minded fiends.