End of Days
Encyclopedia
End of Days is a 1999 American action
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...

 horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 thriller film directed by Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams is an American screenwriter, director and cinematographer, probably best known for directing the 1984 science fiction adventure 2010 , Capricorn One, the comic book adaptation Timecop and the Arnold Schwarzenegger horror/action film End of Days.-Family:Hyams was born in New York...

 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

, Robin Tunney
Robin Tunney
Robin Jessica Tunney is an American actress. She is best known for her lead roles in the movie The Craft and the television series Prison Break and The Mentalist.-Early life:...

, Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...

, Kevin Pollak
Kevin Pollak
Kevin Elliot Pollak is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20...

, CCH Pounder
CCH Pounder
Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder , known professionally as C. C. H. Pounder , is a Guyanese-American film and television actress...

, Udo Kier
Udo Kier
Udo Kier is a German actor, known primarily for his work in horror and exploitation movies.-Early life:...

 and Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...

 as Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

. Schwarzenegger received a salary of $25 million for his lead role in the film.

Plot

In 1979, a newborn girl named Christine York is identified by Satanists
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...

—including her physician, Dr. Abel, and her guardian, Mabel—as the one chosen to bear Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

's son during the last hour on New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...

, 1999, due to a symbol on her arm. As she is being born, a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 in the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

 witnesses a comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

 arching over the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

, described as the "Eye of God", heralding the birth of the one chosen to be the mother of Satan's child. The priest is then sent on a mission by the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 to find and protect the girl from Satan's presence at all costs. However, a few Vatican Knights (led by a corrupted cardinal) insist that she must be killed to prevent Satan's plans, which most of the clergy (including the Pope) opposes, as they view that taking a life in an attempt to stop evil is sinful.

Twenty years later, near the end of 1999, retired cop Jericho Cane, in a constant state of depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...

 since his wife and daughter were murdered by hit-men, works for an elite security and protection company. He and his co-worker/friend Bobby Chicago are assigned to protect a Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

 banker. They are attacked by a priest named Thomas Aquinas, who is eventually captured and taken to a hospital. Unknown to Jericho, Aquinas somehow knew the real identity of the banker—he has been possessed
Demonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...

 by Satan and now wields great powers. Satan locates Aquinas and brutally murders him, crucifying him onto a ceiling. Jericho and Chicago see a name amongst many other things scratched into Aquinas's skin, and after some guesswork, begin searching for Christine York.

Jericho and Chicago find the now-adult York in her apartment and save her from the Vatican Knights who attempt to assassinate her. That evening, Chicago waits in a van while Jericho discusses the recent happenings with Christine. Satan arrives and blows up the van, killing Chicago. As Jericho and Christine try to flee, they are apprehended by Mabel who is possessed with preternatural strength despite her late middle age and lesser size. Jericho barely manages to subdue her. Outside, Marge, Jericho's superior from his days in the police force, and another police officer—both Satanists—confront him, demanding Christine. Jericho kills them both. A few moments later Satan resurrects Marge for her usefulness as a NYPD detective to have the police search for Jericho and Christine, who have escaped to a nearby church, seeking answers from a priest, Father Kovak.

Kovak soon realizes Christine and the banker's roles, and describes how at the end of every millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....

, Satan will possess a man's body to consummate with the flesh of a preordained woman. If he succeeds in taking York, he will have free rein over the world. After hearing that the only way to defeat Satan is to "have faith", Jericho tries to persuade Christine to go into hiding with him, but she prefers to stay with Kovak after he says that Satan's greatest trick was to fool Mankind that he did not exist and she felt Kovak's explanation was true. Frustrated, Jericho returns to his apartment, and it is there that Satan meets with him and tries to tempt him with his lost family and his anger at God in order to make him reveal Christine's location. Jericho resists and manages to throw Satan out of his apartment window. Chicago soon shows up, alive and well. Despite Jericho's initial suspicion, they make a plan to retrieve Christine.

At the church, where Kovak and his clergy informs the Pope of York's location, he orders them to hide and protect her at all costs. Unfortunately, the Vatican Knights arrive again, taking Kovak and his clergy into custody while they try to kill Christine again. Before they manage to do so, however, Jericho comes by and stops them, saving Christine and the clergy. Satan then appears, and Jericho runs away safely with Christine. The clergymen, in an act of bravery, confront Satan and try to send him back to Hell by using exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...

, but he resists them with impunity, killing the Vatican Knights, including the misguided cardinal. As Jericho and Christine arrive outside, Chicago then betrays the two; he leaves with Christine while Jericho is beaten by a mob of Satanists and left for dead. The next morning, Jericho is found and rescued by Kovak. Jericho immediately arms himself heavily to resume his search for Christine. He notices the resurrected Marge and follows her to Satan's hidden temple. There, he manages to rescue Christine and kill Marge for the second time. Chicago steps in to stop Jericho, revealing that Satan resurrected him in exchange for his help in capturing Christine. He manages to fight off Satan's influence after some persuasion by his friend; in retaliation, Satan burns him alive. Enraged, Jericho opens fire on Satan and escapes with Christine in the ensuing chaos.

The two make their way through Satan's hideout and into a subway
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...

 tunnel. They board a train and attempt to escape. Satan catches up with them and kills the motorman. In the ensuing fight, Jericho fires an M203 grenade launcher
M203 grenade launcher
The M203 is a single shot 40 mm grenade launcher designed to attach to a rifle. It uses the same rounds as the older M79 break-action grenade launcher, which utilize the High-Low Propulsion System to keep recoil forces low. Though versatile, and compatible with many rifle models, the M203 was...

 at Satan, wrecking the train and buying them enough time to escape. The banker's body is now irreparably damaged and so Satan leaves it to find a new host.

Jericho and Christine escape to the streets and into another church where he prays to God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

. Satan smashes through the floor and confronts Jericho in his true form: a massive, demonic creature. He enters Jericho's body and possesses him. Now controlled by Satan, Jericho attempts to rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 Christine, but with the help of her begging words, he is able to fight Satan's control for a few seconds. Using what may be his only opportunity to redeem himself, Jericho impales himself on the sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...

 protruding from a fallen statue of Saint Michael The Archangel, thus disabling his body for the few remaining seconds before midnight. At the stroke of midnight beginning the year 2000, the will of God frees Jericho's body from Satan's control and sends Satan back to the depths of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 forever. After being granted a vision of his wife and daughter smiling and waiting for him on the "other side" (Christine also sees them), Jericho dies contented. Christine thanks the deceased man for saving her life as New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 celebrates the start of the new millennium.

Cast

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger
    Arnold Schwarzenegger
    Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

     as Jericho Cane
  • Robin Tunney
    Robin Tunney
    Robin Jessica Tunney is an American actress. She is best known for her lead roles in the movie The Craft and the television series Prison Break and The Mentalist.-Early life:...

     as Christine York
  • Gabriel Byrne
    Gabriel Byrne
    Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...

     as Satan/Nameless Banker/Choir Boy
  • Kevin Pollak
    Kevin Pollak
    Kevin Elliot Pollak is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20...

     as Bobby Chicago
  • CCH Pounder
    CCH Pounder
    Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder , known professionally as C. C. H. Pounder , is a Guyanese-American film and television actress...

     as Detective Marge Francis
  • Derrick O'Connor
    Derrick O'Connor
    Derrick O'Connor is an Irish character actor, mostly known for his roles in Terry Gilliam films. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company....

     as Thomas Aquinas
  • Miriam Margolyes
    Miriam Margolyes
    Miriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...

     as Mabel
  • Udo Kier
    Udo Kier
    Udo Kier is a German actor, known primarily for his work in horror and exploitation movies.-Early life:...

     as Doctor Abel
  • Victor Varnado
    Victor Varnado
    Victor Varnado is an American standup comedian and actor. Born in Gary, Indiana, he is African American and albinistic. He was born legally blind due to his Albinism...

     as Albino
  • Mark Margolis
    Mark Margolis
    Mark Margolis is an American actor who has been making films since 1976.Margolis went to Temple University briefly before moving to New York City, where he studied drama with Stella Adler and at the Actors Studio...

     as The Pope
  • Rod Steiger
    Rod Steiger
    Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...

     as Father Kovak
  • John Timothy Botka as Cop at Thomas'
  • Marc Lawrence
    Marc Lawrence
    Marc Lawrence was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. He has also been credited as F. A. Foss, Marc Laurence and Marc C...

     as Old Man

Reception

End of Days received mostly negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, the film holds an overall approval rating of 11%, based on 98 critics. On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, the film holds an average score of 33, based on 33 critics. It grossed $66,889,043 in the U.S. and around $212,000,000 worldwide, against a budget estimated to be between $80 million and $100 million. The film was only profitable because of its strong international numbers and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 sales, but its final numbers were not what Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 had hoped for.

The film was nominated for three Razzie Awards including Worst Actor (Arnold Schwarzenegger), Worst Supporting Actor (Gabriel Byrne) and Worst Director, and was a pre-nominee for Worst Picture, but was removed shortly before the actual awards ceremony.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film contained, for the most part, tracks by alternative metal
Alternative metal
Alternative metal is a genre of alternative rock and heavy metal that gained popularity in the early 1990s. Most notably, alternative metal bands are characterized by heavy guitar riffs and experimental approaches to heavy music.-Origins:...

 and industrial rock
Industrial rock
Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and specific rock subgenres. Industrial rock spawned industrial metal, with which it is often confused...

 bands. It also contains the first single to be released by the "new line-up" of Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

, the industrial rock track "Oh My God". During the editing of the film, soundtrack selections were cut into the movie in a manner that none of the songs were left out, which meant overlaying songs in scenes that are typically silent in most thriller films. In several scenes we can hear a sample from the sounds library of Spectrasonics
Spectrasonics
Spectrasonics is a music software company based in California, United States. Founded in 1994, the company originally produced sample libraries and then became one of the first companies to create software instruments in 2002 Their flagship product is Omnisphere, an extensive software synthesizer...

' "Symphony Of Voices".

Track listing

  1. "Camel Song" - Korn
    Korn
    Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...

  2. "So Long
    So Long (Everlast song)
    So Long is a 1999 song by Everlast that's featured on the End of Days soundtrack. The song tells about the consequences of a man buying his son a gun. A music video was made of the song. The first verse references The Catcher in the Rye....

    " - Everlast
    Everlast (musician)
    Erik Francis Schrody , better known by his stage name Everlast, is a Grammy Award-winning American rapper and songwriter, known for his solo hit "What It's Like" and as the front-man for rap group House of Pain. He is also part of the hip-hop supergroup La Coka Nostra, which consists of members of...

  3. "Slow" - Professional Murder Music
    Professional Murder Music
    Professional Murder Music is an Alternative Rock band, from Los Angeles, California.They are currently signed and own indie label, Wormhole Records. Their music has been used for such film soundtracks as End of Days, Ginger Snaps, Valentine, and Jet Grind Radio, a video game for the Sega Dreamcast....

  4. "Crushed" - Limp Bizkit
    Limp Bizkit
    Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1995, the group's lineup consists of Fred Durst , Wes Borland , Sam Rivers , John Otto and DJ Lethal . The band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album Significant Other, released in 1999...

  5. "Oh My God" - Guns N' Roses
    Guns N' Roses
    Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

  6. "Poison
    Poison (The Prodigy song)
    "Poison" is a song by The Prodigy, released as the group's ninth single on 6 March 1995. It was the fourth single from the album Music for the Jilted Generation...

    " - The Prodigy
    The Prodigy
    The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, and other acts, The Prodigy have been credited as pioneers of the big beat genre, which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s...

  7. "Superbeast
    Superbeast
    "Superbeast" is a promotional single off Rob Zombie's solo debut, Hellbilly Deluxe. The song was co-written by Charlie Clouser, formerly of Nine Inch Nails. It also appears on Rob Zombie's Past, Present & Future, the greatest hits album The Best of Rob Zombie, and two remixes are contained on...

     (Girl On A Motorcycle Mix)" - Rob Zombie
    Rob Zombie
    Rob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...

  8. "Bad Influence" - Eminem
    Eminem
    Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...

  9. "Nobody's Real
    Nobody's Real
    Nobody's Real is an industrial metal song by Powerman 5000 featured on the End of Days soundtrack. A music video was made in which a young boy discovers a robotic mask that grants him supernatural powers....

    " - Powerman 5000
    Powerman 5000
    Powerman 5000 is an American Metal band formed in 1991. Through the span of over two decades, the group has released several albums and gained their highest commercial success with 1999's science fiction themed Tonight the Stars Revolt!...

  10. "I Wish I Had" - Stroke
  11. "Sugar Kane
    Sugar Kane
    "Sugar Kane" was the third single from Sonic Youth's 1992 album Dirty. It was released in 1993 on DGC.-Track listing:US version:# "Sugar Kane" - 5:03# "The Destroyed Room" - 3:25# "Purr" - 4:22...

    " - Sonic Youth
    Sonic Youth
    Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

  12. "Wrong Way" - Creed
    Creed (band)
    Creed is an American rock band formed in 1995 in Tallahassee, Florida. Becoming popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the band has released three consecutive multi-platinum albums, one of which has been certified diamond, and has sold over 28 million records in the United States, with an...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK