Bad Movie Month prepares for End of Days

Welcome once again to Bad Movie Month and our theme of The Devil Made Me Do It. Next in our devious line-up is the Arnold Schwarzenegger satanic thriller,End of Days,which conveniently arrived in theaters during the last couple of months in 1999-which some thought would be, in the words of Prince,party over.

  Well, the world kept on spinning and Arnie's career started sinking with this flick that starred him as Jericho Cane, a bitter ex-cop in NYC who left the force after drug dealers wiped out his family. Keep this back story in mind,it'll come up later in the game.

His present job as a security for hire man has him protecting a sleaze bag lawyer(Gabriel Byrne) and stopping a would be assassin screaming about end times. Not too unusual for a New Yorker to encounter,but something about this particular crazy guy has Arnie getting suspicious about his new client.

Well,turns out the lawyer is earmarked to be the vessel of Satan who needs a body in order to impregnate a certain marked lady with the Anti-Christ(almost too perfect a choice there). Satan does his body snatching in the men's room of a fancy restaurant and first thing he does upon completion is to strut back into the dining room and make out with the first attractive woman he sees,which is naturally followed up by the devil strolling out as the place randomly blows up-subtle intro,wouldn't you say?:

Satan's special lady is a young gal named Christine(Robin Tunney,no stranger to supernatural fare) who was born with a certain birthmark and given the proper snake venom baptism only moments after her birth. No true bride of the devil should go without one!

Christine has lived a pretty comfy life,totally unknowing of her intended fate,except for those pesky visions that freak her out in public. As her devilish husband prepares to meet and mate with her, she gets a crude description of what's to come from a crazy guy on the subway.

 Again, wacky folks on the subway,typical New York hazard ,but when they know you by name and shatter like cheap pottery right in front of you, it might be a good idea to listen to what he has to say there:

 Jericho winds up protecting Christine from the forces of evil, which include Christine's former nurse who comes close to kicking his ass really damn good,dueling groups from the Vatican who either want to save or kill her before Satan has his way with her on New Year's Eve and just about every other person Jericho knows(who would've thought they were so many secret Satan worshipers in town?).

Arnie is,of course,approached by Satan at one point, who offers to bring his dead family back to life in exchange for Christine and his response is the infamous line "you're a choir boy compared to me!" Scary how true that has become for Arnie.

The rest of the movie is one endless chase scene after another, with explosives,random killings and a mock crucifixion of Jericho(No doubt,Mel Gibson was envious of that). The special effects are impressive and Arnie knows how to take a hit but the whole movie is like a bad pizza; it may be a mess but you'll still eat some of it, regardless of the stomach cramps and funny aftertaste in your mouth which will last for days:

End of Days has it's moments but this was not a cinematic epiphany for Arnold or the audience,believe you me. Join us next time, when we slither over to 1997's Spawn,who suits up for action as well as some god awful puns: