The Doom Generation Review

22nd Mar 2012

Greg Araki really hit his full swing back in the 90’s with The Doom Generation. After all these many years the film still stands out for its production values and for its explicit sexuality. Araki wanted it to be known that gay cinema was here to stay and is perhaps still to this day one of the more prolific film-makers with heavy content veering over to this direction.

True his casts are often overly pretty, his scripts are aburdist tosh, but when dealing with ripe teens exploring their sexuality and identity in an explicitly sexual and violent world – he is not too keen to use the stepping stones of coherent narrative cinema. Instead he’s more interested in the expressionistic lens of cinema and the impact of colour and noise.

Rose McGowan made one of her initial impressions on American independent cinema here (and got her kit off a lot for one of the first times too) along with “where are they now” actors James (“Frank the Bunny” from Donnie Darko) Duval and Jonathan (I once was married to Christina Applegate) Schaech. The three of them (each named after a colour from the American flag end up in a road movie tryst.

If you think Natural Born Killers is an acid trip of clashing ideas then you may want to check this one out. And if this one floats you boat you’ll also need to check out the film that followed, Nowhere.

The disc also comes with an interview with the director, and a light commentary with Araki and his three main leads.