Welcome back to my exploration of Doom the video game on the Nintendo Switch through interpretive dance.

You can find all my previous posts in this project here if you are interested or need to catch up for some reason.

E1M9 Military Base

I’ve taken the path less trodden!

Well for me it’s not I always take this diversion from the sequential flow through the levels.

Imps imprisoned in the middle of a court yard start firing in my direction as soon as I step out into the open.

They are easy targets, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Once they have been silenced it’s time to take one of the exits and start clearing a safe passage round the level.

Believe it or not there have actually been two movies based on Doom.

Doom the movie (2005)

When you consider the source material, and how this is not a narrative driven game. Doom and it’s backstory is no Last of Us. However it does have a paper thin backstory setting up the game. Which is more than the “classic” boardgame Battleships has, and they managed to make a movie out of that!

For the Rock aka Dwayne Johnson, Doom the movie is one of his early Hollywood efforts in the journey from WWE megastar to box office stardom.

But his isn’t the only “big” name on the credits. Starring along side Dwayne are Karl Urban (who at the time had LoTR recognition with audiences) and Rosamund Pike (who had been in a Bond movie a couple years previous). Plus a solid supporting cast with the likes of Richard Brake and Dexter Fletcher.

I’d sum the cast up at the time as semi-household names, not big box office stars like a Cruise or the Rock (now).

Naturally at some point in the movie you have to give the audience that fps camera. And the director does not disappoint.

To be fair to the movie the special effects don’t look that dated watching the movie now. Sometimes the special effects of movies don’t age well. These surprisingly hold up!

Back in 2005 I was still the family man. I didn’t see this at the cinema for sure, and most likely watched this on dvd with the kids. For sure this is the sort of movie I would never have got my ex-wife to go and see on the big screen. I think it would have been a struggle to get her to watch it on the small screen.

My ex-wife was, and still, is not a video game player. When it came to an fps she had no spatial awareness, and wasn’t able to process where she was on a map. It was painful watching her attempt to play the most simple of level designs.

So I think it is most definitely not doing her a disservice to claim she was not a fan of the Doom video games. I’m not even sure she would even have been familiar with the name.

I suspect my copy was region 1. At the time the majority of my dvd purchases were from the US. The region 1 version of a movie was often cheaper (even taking into account postage) and available months before the UK was due to get it. Once or twice the region 1 dvd was out before the movie had even hit the cinemas in the UK. Yes sometimes I got hit with import duties. But that was like a mini game I was playing with the taxman. The majority of the time I never got hit.

Let’s face it this movie was never going to get an Oscar nomination, or any other prestigious award. At best it might have been in the running for a raspberry.

The version I’m watching on Amazon is the extended edition that runs at 113 minutes. Back when I saw it originally that run time was 104 minutes for the theatrical release.

At best the movie can be described as average. Which is more than can be said for an awful lot of video game based movies.

After watching the movie I am no closer to understanding the psyche of the human soul. However I had an enjoyable time. Which is the best you can hope for with this type of movie.

As a final aside I think this movie has to be considered a box office flop. Going by the cost to make the movie (excluding the marketing budget) it barely made that at the box office. For a movie to be considered to have broken even it normally has to take at the box office the production budget and marketing budget combined. Doom the movie did not get close to that figure.

Doom Annihilation (2019)

I don’t remember Doom Annihilation having a cinematic release. Which doesn’t mean it didn’t. It just means it wasn’t a massive hit if it did. I suspect this was a straight to dvd/streaming service effort.

So watching this now will be a first for me.

I’m setting my expectations to low.

The Military Base introduces another new monster to slaughter with one of my arsenal in the form of the Spectre. Spectres are partially invisible demons. You get to see their “shimmer” often too late.

But a couple of shotgun blasts makes quick work of them. Although that’s often at the last moment as they appear out of nowhere in the dim light.

I’m pretty sure the last time I played this on the 360 I had the lighting turned up so it was not as dark, and I had less surprises. In fact I’ve done that more than once. Is it cheating? The game lets me do it. But that’s more to take into account the variability in monitors/televisions.

There’s a sweet spot on the brightness. I seem to remember on one game (probably one of the Resident Evil franchise) they recommend adjusting it until you are just able to see a certain object.

But alls fair in the extermination of these demon spawn. Sadly I’ve not played around with these settings on this play through. They are the default, so I have to contend with spectres being harder to detect at times.

It’s a good job my expectations were low. I can’t help watching the opening few minutes without comparing it to Aliens.

The scenes are similar, marines waking up from stasis as they near their destination. But it’s the set design, costumes, and acting. You believe that they are marines in Aliens. They look, feel, talk like a unit of marines.

Sadly these marines in Doom Annihilation look and sound more like children in fancy dress.

There is a reason this has gone straight to streaming. With an obvious low budget, poor script, at best run of the mill direction and editing, no name cast.

There are obvious nods to the video game source with use of the chain saw and blowing up of barrels.

But I go back to my Aliens comparison, or with zombie movies. Even when it’s meant to feel like the monsters are over running the marines it doesn’t. You wish that the director had watched other zombie movies or Aliens so he could be influenced in a positive way.

I think it wants to be Aliens, so many scenes seem similar. Making me think I could be watching Aliens.

This movie is just a stinker.

Time to return to the flow of things and E1M4 Command Control in the next post.