Doomsdays, the debut feature from critic turned director Eddie Mullins, transforms the vacation homes of the Catskills into a staging ground for two men preparing for the imminent apocalypse. Dirty Fred (Justin Rice) and Bruho (Leo Fitzpatrick) live a carefree life of breaking into empty homes, trashing them, and living in style off the spoils, justifying their actions with the logic that everyone will soon live this way in a post peak-oil world. Of the two, Bruho is a greater believer in the inevitability of the apocalypse, acting with more anger and urgency while the debonair alcoholic Dirty Fred might just be using his friend’s fears as a convenient excuse for a life of constant indulgence. Their fraternity first grows when exuberant teen Jaidon (Brian Charles Johnson) catches on to their scheme and wants in...and then they meet Reyna (Laura Campbell) at a party. Initially, Reyna falls for Dirty Fred’s eloquence and French pick-up lines, but she later recognizes that Bruho is the more honest and reliable of the two, sowing discord between the partners.
Mullins brings together an intriguing mix of influences to Doomsdays. While it doesn’t go nearly as far in transforming the landscape, the constant movement, black humor, and social critique bring to mind Godard’s Weekend. But while (because) the film is less ideological, it’s a more inviting film; a wry humor to the editing and the constant patter (especially once Jaidon is introduced) that locate at least the dialogue in the American indie sensibility that the lead actors come from. The most potent reference point might be the cult classic Withnail and I, which shares with Doomsdays skepticism towards the rural, a charming nihilism, and the boozy bluster of each film’s most memorable character, who might be long-lost cousins. However, while that film invites complete identification, Mullins keeps his camera at an arm’s length from the characters with rigid framings – usually wide shots and essentially all static shots from tripods. In one or two scenes, this framing pays off with scenes where blocking reveals character, while in other moments it just contributes to a sense of detachment from the characters, but overall it adds a hint of formal rigor to what in other hands could be an overly shambolic affair.
Depending on how you look at it, the apocalyptic subtext is the glue of the entire premise or a mostly useless gloss on an already potent scenario. It’s enjoyable to see the film industry’s apocalyptic mania realized in a form other than destroying a CGI version of a city (although the film features plenty of destruction on a more intimate scale), but it’s also impossible to envision these characters meshing into normal society if they didn’t believe in its imminent collapse. Doomsdays is strongest when it emulates Godard or Withnail in mocking the bourgeois propriety of the absent homeowners, especially when they’re suddenly not absent – Dirty Fred knows that people will believe anything to avoid confrontation and if he lies with the style of a gentleman he can talk his way out of anything.
Overall, Doomsdays is an exciting debut. It’s refreshing to see a young American director in dialogue with the international giants of the medium and all the more so when it’s in a consistently funny and thought-provoking film like Doomsdays.
