"The Apocalypse is Nigh!": THIS IS THE END

THIS IS THE END  (COMEDY-HORROR, 2013) 
Directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen
Starring: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson, Michael Cera, Rihanna, David Krumholtz, Aziz Ansari, Paul Rudd, Kevin Hart, Channing Tatum, Mindy Kaling, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jason Segel
Rated R for crude and sexual content throughout, brief graphic nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violence.
SCAREmeter: 4/10 (some dark and slightly spooky, but mostly humorous, horror parodies)
GOREmeter: 7.5/10 (many very bloody/gory death scenes in a comedic context, lots of bodily fluids)
LAUGHmeter: 9.5/10
OVERALL: 4/4
 
A low-budget adaptation of the popular Protestant Christian book series Left Behind starring Nicholas Cage was released this weekend, but it hardly seems worthwhile after summer 2013's comedy hit THIS IS THE END, which is the final word on "rapture fiction."  Nah, I get the point; LEFT BEHIND is for the fundamentalists, but THIS IS THE END is for the rest of us rotten bastards.
On the night of actor James Franco's housewarming party, filled with dozens of the hottest Hollywood talents, the Rapture hits, beginning the Biblical Apocalypse as the righteous are taken up into the sky in conduits of blue light, and the Hollywood Hills burst into flames, while fiery chasms open up in the Earth taking down Michael Cera, Rihanna, Aziz Ansari, Paul Rudd and other popular entertainers to burn in the fires of Hell.  A group of survivors, Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill hole up in Franco's fortress-like mansion, but soon discover they have an unexpected guest, Danny McBride, who everyone hates and crashed the party.  Tensions frequently threaten to explode as Seth and Jay struggle to salvage their friendship threatened by Seth's new L.A. life and Jay's old Canadian life, Jonah hides behind a facade of psychotic friendliness, Craig and Jay try to follow the teaching of the Bible to get raptured and Danny pisses everyone off.  Emma Watson even shows up for a moment, but ends up stealing their food storage.
THIS IS THE END is incredibly, achingly funny, but also a great Halloween-time movie, with many homages to classic horror movies like ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST, some surprisingly tense demon monster attacks and an awful lot of gore.  The extreme slapstick violence of this movie is right up my alley, like when the guys freak out at a severed head, kicking it at each other and Jonah tries to respectfully pick up the head, then panics when an excessive amount of blood gushes out the neck.  This movie has a lot of twisted humor, which is probably the only really big reservation in recommending it; it is not shy about taking its often-gross (violent, scatological and/or sexual) gags all the way, sometimes just past the point that it gets too sick, just before shifting gears into something else.  It's not a significant detriment to the film, but may very well be a turn-off for some sensibilities. It's so funny though.
A-listers (and B-listers, they acknowledge their differing levels of fame) play ridiculous versions of themselves, in the process taking notice of some of their worse movies ("Let's not make a YOUR HIGHNESS 2") and the funny excesses of celebrity life, and then seeing that all play out under the pressures of the Apocalypse- it's like a dream come true.

Jay Baruchel (left) and Seth Rogen (right) have an encounter with Satan in THIS IS THE END.