Product Details

• Actors: James Duval, Rose McGowan, Johnathon Schaech, Cress Williams, Dwayne R. Goettel
• Directors: Gregg Araki
• Producers: Nicole Arbib, Pascal Caucheteux
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, EP, Special Edition, NTSC
• Rated: NC-17
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Trimark Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 28, 1997
• Run Time: 83 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (152 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304346182
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #329,276 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Superior to both Kids and Natural Born Killers, Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation is a snarling satire that has the emotional range to prompt rage, fear, laughter, and grief in a viewer. Three L.A.-based, almost-twentysomethings--an incredibly foul-mouthed Valley Girl (Rose McGowan), her puppyish boyfriend (James Duval), and a sexy bad boy (Johnathon Schaech)--take to the road after a series of comic collisions with skinheads and gun-toting convenience-store clerks. While secret lawmen and voyeuristic TV cameras follow their movements, the fugitives gradually warm up to a three-way sexual relationship that wraps them in a profound, renewing innocence--an innocence then stolen by a wrathful America. Araki skewers the usual villains: the media, homophobes, gun nuts, Gen-X stereotypes. But there is so much more at stake here than meets the eye, an extraordinary anger and fear about predatory intolerance and purposelessness about the young. The DVD release includes the original theatrical trailer and production notes. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker

Gregg Araki's aimless road movie is chicly anarchic-and a bore. The grunged-down teen-age characters (named Xavier Red, Jordan White, and Amy Blue) are pretty, and they talk like foul-mouthed Lolitas, but only when they leave the violent roadway for a motel bed does the film develop any snap. Araki has made a punk-rock movie, all dirty fingernails and spit, but it's no fun-he's forgotten the mosh pit. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ambitious and Amazing but not for Everyone, June 20, 2005

By 

Only-A-Child - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Doom Generation (DVD)

Few films on have elicited anywhere near the disparity of comments that "The Doom Generation" has received, along with an extreme bi-model vote distribution on the IMDb. While I hate to prattle on about hidden meanings and messages that do not exist or that are not intended, Araki (unlike most film makers) is sophisticated enough to actually put such elements in his films. And he does not strike me as so full of himself that he would do this with no purpose other than mind games. Therefore, I will elaborate on my own interpretation of what he is trying to convey with this film.

McGowen's character, Amy Blue seems to be symbolic of the concept of pure beauty, which could be considered our closest relation to a world that exists outside ordinary life. An idea that psychologists like Jung (influenced by Eastern religion) have imagined as involving a sort of "collective unconscious" that persists through time while actual generations of human beings are born and die. Making beauty our proof while we live that there is "something higher" than ordinary existence. Like when a composer creates a melody and attributes it to a higher authority because they can't believe themselves capable of bringing something that perfect into the world.

Some do not recognize beauty when they see it and some are inspired when they see beauty, but most must possess beauty-or failing to gain possession destroy it rather than share it with others. Protecting beauty from those who would possess it or destroy it is the focus of this film. Although Amy is able to disguise herself from most people (and from most viewers) behind a façade of bad language and grim 'attitude', she is occasionally recognized by those who would possess or destroy-illustrated by the characters that go into violent rapture when they see her.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) My guess is that Jordan White is a too pure angel sent to protect Amy, and that Xavier Red is an evolving Jordan as his purity is replaced with protective survival skills. This is why the police agency can only find Amy's fingerprints on file. Like Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother Donald in 'Adaptation', death of one part of the dual identity is necessary for an integration of the two personalities. Akai likes to leave his involved audience members with the feeling that they were dreaming while riding a roller coaster.

There are a lot of God-Devil images in this film, with '666' presaging another attempt to destroy beauty or the evidence of 'something higher'.

Araki films are often about things not being what they appear to be; and they require the viewer to sort out complexity and revelation in what appear to be one-dimensional characters undergoing no real change. For example the sex scenes in this film, which initially seem crude and graphic, actually have a strange sort of innocence if you get past your own preconceptions.

This film is ambitious and amazing but not for everyone.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worthless film....quite possibly the worst ever!, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Doom Generation [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have heard that in order to fully appreciate this film, one must see the unedited version, which restores at least ten minutes of footage. Unless those ten minutes somehow manage to provide character development, competent direction, literate dialogue, and appealing actors, no amount of "lost footage" could possibly save this tragic waste. Way, way overlong, even at 75 minutes, this film has no direction whatsoever unless one considers trendy nihilism and utter banality proper destinations for film. I must say that this is the most arrogant film ever made because it assumes that people are so desperate to be entertained that they would throw away a good hour and a half in order to be repelled, disgusted, offended, and humiliated. Any people who claim that this film peeks into the underbelly of society make one key mistake: they forget that film is, above all else, a tool of both education AND entertainment, two qualities this film avoids at every turn.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Doom Generation breaks every boundary, January 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Doom Generation (DVD)

Greg Araki's second installment in his teen-angst slacker/nihilism trilogy, The Doom Generation, goes where many movies fear to tread. The movie consists mostly of sex, cussing and violence but after seeing it all the way through, it no longer seems gratuitous. The movie is filled with little statements here and there that actually hold philosophical potential but the characters never really get a chance to just stop for a moment and consider the possibilities. Rose MacGowan plays a bratty meth user who ends up in the middle of a love triangle, literally. James Duvall plays her burnt out boyfriend whose density doesn't suggest a lack of depth. He keeps on being victimized throughout the film, right until the very end. One of the best things about the movie are all of the suggestive signs in the background that only give possible excuses for the odd reality the Rose and James share. The movie strictly follows several themes which many people may overlook due to the shock value of many other components. This movie definitely has an acquired taste to it and is clearly meant for mature audiences.