Product Details

• Actors: James Duval, Rose McGowan, Johnathon Schaech, Cress Williams, Skinny Puppy
• Directors: Gregg Araki
• Writers: Gregg Araki
• Producers: Gregg Araki, Andrea Sperling, Grégoire Sorlat, Jim Stark, Nicole Arbib
• Format: PAL
• Language: English
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Rating: NC-17
• Studio: Palace Films
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000CCKNVW
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #269,267 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers 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

35 of 43 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 (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More enjoyment licking urinals, January 28, 2000

By	Mike Smith - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Doom Generation (DVD)

First off, web reviews are innately biased, as the only people who vote are those who care enough to bother. They either love it, or hate it. It's the same for any product reviewed here. Going on to the movie, it's not intelligent. It's not witty, insightful, or over the top to prove it's greater point. It's over the top to be naughty, so much that the director and his defenders can claim that those who don't get the movie are either idiots, close minded, or sheep. I've seen this movie three times, and every time it got worse. I've now hated this movie on a visceral level, on an intellectual level, and on a pure level of how it was constructed. Basically, this is brainless pap, that oozes it's awfulness from every level I can think of. It's a movie so in love with it's edginess, that it becomes self mockery. And for those who say that's the point of the movie, I've tried to give Greg Arraki a chance. From what I've seen, he's not even intelligent enough to work one level of meaning into a movie, much less making a movie that's entirely satire.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Juvinility for the Modern Intelectual, December 25, 1999

By	BRAD RICHTER (Forestville, CA) - See all my reviews

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

For all of the people who mock Gregg Araki's dialogue, his poor, home-video-esque directing and his sloppy editing, I have one thing to say: you're all correct. His dialogue is not realistic, it makes you cringe in embarassment at the poor actors who are forced to say these lines, and some would even say it was ineffective. However, we must realize that most every writer does EVERYTHING for a reason, and his motives are pure. The film is a mockery. It's not a mockery of youth, though. It mocks the way that society sees young people. So, effectively, Araki is spitting sarcastically in the faces of those who dislike his film . . . those who have contempt for the Doom Generation are the guinnea pigs for which the film was created. Although it may be (advertently) obvious, there is sarcasm and, believe it or not, a deeper meaning. See also NOWHERE, and reassess your thoughts on this modern noir masterpiece.