This is…what was that again?

Oh dear! It has been almost five days since I went to see This is the End and I haven’t written about it. That it is rapidly sliding from my memory is more an assessment of my memory than of the movie (there’s that movie vs. film distinction again), but it does mean my account of it will be a little light on the content!

It was surprising to us that the cinema was a full as it was, since this has been out for weeks. Granted, it was a smallish room, but still well-populated. Lots of people laughing at the same things we were laughing at, but I’m not sure if they were as startled as I got at one point, as I was too busy clutching at my pearls.

Premise: Canadian actor Jay Baruchel is in LA, visiting Seth Rogen, who drags him to a party at James Franco’s house. Yes, everyone plays him- or herself in this one, and there is a cast of a whole lot of current and future Hollywood stars in it. Some party! I think I was most amused by Michael Cera, whose part was not huge, but who really played something completely different from most of his film characters.

Moving on… While Jay and Seth go out to buy something (cigarettes?), some big stuff starts going down. The earth shaking and beams coming down from the sky and pulling people upwards…I was sure it was alien invasion time but alas, it was Armageddon. They beat a hasty retreat to James Franco’s house, which survives the turmoil quite well, until a giant sinkhole to Hell opens on the front lawn, taking many of the party guests with it.

From then on, a struggle to survive against hunger (they are a little short on food and water) and demons. Demon-possessed Jonah Hill occupies their attention for a while, provoking Exorcist-inspired attempts to remove the demon, and then there are real demons, or A real demon, which seems to get bigger every time we see it. And all its anatomically correct parts get bigger each time, until one of them falls off. I’ll let you guess which one.

In any case, it was a fun watch, even if it is fading quickly from my memory. I really need to write these up faster!