END OF DAYS

US, 1999, 121 minutes, Colour.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne, Robin Tunney, Kevin Pollak, Rod Steiger.
Directed by Peter Hyams.


End of Days will not be to everyone's taste. It was intended as the big American action thriller for the end of 1999. It is comic-strip action and characterisation, relying on a myriad of special effects, culminating in a giant appearance of a fiery dragon-like Satan.

While it is geared to the multi-cinema complex audiences, it is a blend of over-literal interpretation of scripture (especially the book of Revelation) as well as a cinematic use of Christian iconography. Satan is, of course, diabolical, though he takes the quietly persuasive form of Gabriel Byrne, especially in his temptation scene of Jericho Cane (J.C. initials.) Arnold Schwarzenegger is the ambiguous Christ-figure, an alcoholic and despairing of God, yet protective of the devil's victim and, against a visual background of church interiors and altar pieces with Crucifixion scenes - and St Michael whom he imitates destroying the dragon. J.C. is impaled in cruciform and finally he is pierced through.

This is pop-religion and pop heroics, mocked by critics, but actually seen by large audiences who could reflect more deeply on the sensations they see.

1. A horror-thriller for the millennium? The impact in 1999? A film of the moment? Later?

2. The cast, a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger? The strong presence? Ex-police, security guard, tough, confronting Satan? The final self-sacrifice?

3. The New York settings, the end of 1999, expectations for January 1, 2000? The irony that the setting was New York and so much of the world had already arrived at the date.

4. New York, ordinary people, police, security workers, the contrast with bankers and Wall Street? Church and the clergy? The musical score? Religious overtones?

5. The plausibility, or not, of the plot? Coincidences, astrology, astronomy, theology, Biblical references? The book of revelation? 666 or 999, 1999?

6. The Vatican, the explanation of the movements of the stars, the expectation of the birth of Satan for the millennium? The pope and the cardinals, the
scenes of the discussions? The pope and his concern that the mother of Satan was not to be harmed? The cardinals, their plots, the Knights Templar, the mediaeval connotations of Satanism, sending the priest assassins to America?

7. 1979, the birth in the hospital, in New York, the doctor and the nurse, Satanists, taking the child, the serpent and the blood, the rituals? Protecting the child, her growing up, into the 1990s?

8. The priest and his knowledge of what was happening, the assassins, his crucifixion on the roof?

9. Jericho Cane, J.C., Arnold Schwarzenegger, his character, the death of his wife and child, his bitterness, loss of faith? Police work, moving to security, his work with his friend, the discussions, the touches of humor?

10. The banker, Wall Street, at the hotel, in the toilet, Satan taking him over? His emerging as Satan alive in New York City? His trying to find the woman, for the impregnation? His sinister behavior, cruelty?

11. Jericho and his friend, to protect the banker, the body with Christ in New York on it? Deducing Christine York? Their attempts to find her, to protect her, hiding her?

12. The picture of the assassins, collaborating to kill her? The contrast with Satan, his wanting to protect her? The clash with the assassins? And Jericho
Cane also trying to protect her?

13. The priest, his explanations, 666 and 999? His concern, his being unable to do anything? His prayer?

14. The death of Jericho’s friend? The effect on Jericho? Talking with the priest, the discussions about faith and loss of faith?

15. The build-up to the final confrontation with Satan, the night of December 31, the narrow margin of time? In the church, Satan appearing as monstrous?
The violence, the desecration?

16. Christine, trapped, to be freed? Satan and his control, winning?

17. Jericho, his final decisions, prayer, sacrificing himself, falling on the sword of the statue of Saint Michael the archangel?
18. The world preserved-for another millennium?

19. Some audiences taking the film too seriously, seeing it as almost blasphemous? The film having church consultants? But its being taken as an
apocalyptic horror-thriller, some spiritual hokum?


An IMDb entry highlighting the contrivances and absurdities of the plot and treatment.

Author: dunmore_ego from Los Angeles, California
23 September 2006

Arnold fans will holler in joy, fans of brainless action will holler in astonishment, and Catholics will just holler.

Illogically written by Andrew W. Marlowe and ham-handedly directed by Peter Hyams, *End of Days* gets The Terminator out of his open-backed hospital gown (Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen after his heart operation), whilst blowing things up in Mysterious Ways and blaspheming Biblical verse to give Catholics something more to whine about.

It is 1999 and doom-sayers the world over live in trepidation of their computers going fritz and losing their downloaded porn. Even as the technological stank of Y2K muttons the New York streets, ex-cop turned alcoholic security guard, Jericho Cane (Schwarzenegger, with the perfunctory "dead-wife-and-kid" back-story for Loose Cannon effect), must brave theological waters to save 20-year-old virgin Christine (Robin Tunney) from being conscripted as – wait for it – The Bride of Satan. Dun dah daaaarrrh! Stupidity ensues.

For every anti-hero, there is his anti-Christ. Gabriel Byrne is the devil here – and he's out to party like it's 1999, on a mission to impregnate Christine with the Anti-Christ? between 11 pm and 12 midnight, December 31, 1999 – ironically, in the hour that all porn will be lost – thereby bringing about the End of Days. Being able to read minds, conjure hallucinations and employ limitless magic, it doesn't occur to Satan to expedite the impregnation process by appearing months in advance and courting Christine as a teen model and then closing the panty raid easily at the appointed time; instead, he appears on December 28th like a Keyser Soze Terminator and wonders why she doesn't welcome him with open thighs… (See above comment re: stupidity.) Here is a movie where nothing makes sense the moment it is uttered, let alone after contemplating its veracity or mythology. A priest (Rod Steiger) tells Jericho that '666' is really '999' upside down with a '1' in front of it. So wait - *Prince* is the Anti-Christ?

Satan Soze pursues Jericho and Christine (J and C – get it?) around town, at no point doing anything which would actually precipitate their capture. In one scene, Satan recreates Jericho's wife and child to tempt him into revealing where he hid Christine. But if he can see so deeply into Jericho's mind in recreating his family with enough nuance to inspire nostalgia, why can't he see where Jericho hid Christine not ten minutes ago?

Satan can make an assassin talk without a tongue, yet he can't make that assassin unjam a semi-automatic weapon. And when Jericho shoots Satan at point blank range, Satan is courteous enough to open his shirt to reveal the wounds closing, so Jericho won't worry unduly about Satan's health - not sanitary to go about with open bullet wounds… Matter of fact, instead of simply possessing Jericho himself to get close to Christine and rape her, Satan expends so much unnecessary energy on side-projects (crucifying the tongue-less guy, blowing up Jericho's partner (Kevin Pollak) and then saving him, and then blowing him up again, ridiculously battling Jericho when he could snuff him out with the effort of thought) that we wonder whether a more efficient assassin/lover shouldn't be put on the case – say, Antonio Banderas.

What I find most precious about *End of Days* is Arnold's valiant attempts at The Method: "sad" means scrunching up his eyes and not blurting out anything in a foreign accent; "depressed" means raising a bottle to his lips and not blurting out anything in a foreign accent; "deathly scared" means widening his eyes and not blurting out anything in a foreign accent. There's definitely a pattern here, if we could only decipher it.

In the end, the devil is dispatched not by the holy men whom Catholics pray to for deliverance from apocalypses such as these, but from the atheist Jericho. While the timid men of an impotent god exhort "faith" and quiver in their cells doing nothing about Satan actually walking amongst them, the Prince of Darkness is thwarted by a nullifidian with a big gun and a foreign accent. Which clearly says something that Catholics blindly refuse to hear: that even if the Devil were to exist, those who have been indoctrinated to unconditionally and irrationally fear him would be unable to conjure a belief in his downfall, let alone act towards it. Further, they might not truly WANT him defeated, for only through his contrary polarity does their god's existence become tenable.

For it is written in the Book of Revelations: "And the Prince of Darkness shall descendeth upon the Earth without any solid game plan, and impregnate a virgin on a date which won't have any significance until the Gregorian Calendar of the 1500s adopts the day numbering which will put it in sync with the equinoxes and the Anno Domine syntax which will annoy sensible people for millennia, by which time, Christians will have forgotten Christ's actual birth date and appropriated the pagan Saturnalia festival in its stead. And the Prince shall effect a Revolution through tight purple pants and ambiguously-lesbian band members…" I can believe the people being drained of blood and crucified, and the alcoholic built like a Mr. Universe; I can believe that a giant, supernatural monster can't kill a guy armed only with a foreign accent; I can even believe that the devil needs to perform some hokey thirteenth century Celtic Druid ritual as foreplay - but what I cannot believe is the 20-year-old virgin in New York City in 1999