From The Idea Hole: This Meets That - Apocalypse Edition!

So this is a thing I still do I guess. If you don't know what this is, CLICK HERE for the long explanation, though in short, this is a semi-recurring series where I pair up two movies completely at random through a very sophisticated process involving D&D dice, a comprehensive list of movies I've seen (mostly), and a lot of free time and try to come up with an original movie plot from the unique combination. In honor of the recent spate of Apocalypse-centric movies like Rapture-Palooza and This Is The End, I thought I'd come back to this game with a series of pitches centered around the common theme of the Earth ending. You know, for funzees.

Sanctuary (This Is The End meets The Perfect Host)

First up, a movie idea that incorporates one of the films that inspired the theme, taking This Is The End's premise of idiots struggling to survive in a post-Revelations world where everything's out to kill them, with the idea of a supposedly posh and ideal home being revealed to be the house of a sadistic psychopath, as seen in the perhaps somewhat obscure thriller The Perfect Host. If you haven't seen the latter film, it's on Netflix streaming and I highly recommend it if only for the performance of David Hyde Pierce like you've never seen him. Basically he's a maniac, but with an outward sense of respectability.

In my movie, similarly in the horror/thriller vein, a group of disparate individuals banded together to survive the Rapture would find a seeming oasis in the form of a heavily fortified mansion owned by a wealthy man who has made his home a sanctuary for those left behind. While at first it would feel like a welcome respite, our heroes would quickly realize that the man is not all that he seems, as the others he had taken in before them live in fear of him, their expressed appreciation for his hospitality a mask for their terror at angering him. His increasing malevolence would lead the group to question whether or not they would have been better off outside with the demons.

End Times Of Our Lives (The Reaping meets The Bucket List)

In the introduction when I said I'd seen most of the movies on the list I use to play this game, The Reaping was the exception. From the trailers, I vaguely recall the movie as a story about a contemporary town being hit by biblical plagues as a precursor to a prophesied apocalypse, but if that isn't actually the case, well, screw you, its my blog. My take would have the same set up of signs and portents, but with main characters seeing this as an excuse to do everything they've always wanted to do but never did (ala The Bucket List), knowing that they don't have a chance of actually making it into Heaven. It would be a broad comedy that gets progressively darker as the inevitable comes and more and more people around them die horribly in the various trials of humanity.

Horizon Line (The Life Aquatic meets The Rapture)

Not married to the title on this one, but then that is always the hardest part of these, considering I'm trying to come up with names for movies that haven't actually been written. This one would take the idea of a strident individual's ultimate refusal of God even in the wake of proof in the form of The Rapture (as seen in the end of The Rapture), but seen through the eyes of a main character seeking to escape the worst of it at sea. A boat Captain and life long atheist tries to find meaning in his new life sailing on an ocean of what is now blood encountering all sorts of undersea horrors with his generally ambivalent crew, sailing off into the distance with no physical destination in mind as he tries to square his long time lack of spirituality with his current circumstances.

War Of The Apocalypses (Thor meets 2012)

This idea I like as a sort of big tent pole action/disaster movie, but with a religious twist. Like 2012, we follow a group of regular joes facing down the apocalypse, only instead of just random Earth destruction, this is biblical Armageddon. The twist is, it's not just Christian, but rather every kind of religiously prophesied end of time all happening at the same time, with the various pantheons all fighting over who gets to destroy the world. Odin and Sleipnir cross swords and hooves against the Four Horsemen while Quetzalcotl fights whatever the Egyptians thought would happen, which naturally involves an army of mummies, all seen from the awed perspective of the normal people just trying to escape the madness.

Space Junk (Transformers meets Deep Impact)

Okay, this one is kind of cheating, as its not so much an apocalypse movie as it is a disaster movie, wherein said disaster is merely of apocalyptic proportions, unfortunately it was the only other one I had that was close enough to round out this list of five pitches. Anyway, the movie would revolve around the real life technology dump of dead satellites and other man made debris currently hovering in space just above our planet, as it all coalesces together into one massive sentient object with a million moving pieces, which then decides to come down to Earth to destroy us on impact. So its giant ugly mass of robot meets giant thing falling to Earth to kill us all, and only Bruce Willis and/or Shia LeBouf can stop it. Or maybe The Rock. Yeah, probably just The Rock would do it.

So that's it for another edition of This Meets That, stay tuned for another installment as soon as I run out of other shit to post some week and need something for filler. Why did I commit to a daily blogging schedule again?