"Sex, Violence, Whatever..."
The Doom Generation is a 1995 film by Gregg Araki about Amy and Jordan, an angsty teen couple in Los Angeles, who are joined by a lovable rogue named Xavier. Their adventures lead them to commit a series of accidental manslaughters as several of the strange characters they meet mistake their identities and swear to kill them. Apparently a loose adaptation of Mark Beyer's black comedy comic strip "Amy And Jordan".
The film notably had around ten minutes worth of content cut for home video releases against the wishes of Gregg Araki. In 2023, the film was rereleased in an uncut version, including footage not seen since its Sundance premiere.
Tropes in The Doom Generation include:
- Accidental Murder: Though it can be mistaken for Ax-Crazy, Xavier ends up doing this a lot.
- "Do you have to kill someone every time we stop the fucking car!?"
- Arc Number: Everything the characters buy costs $6.66, and Amy's combined SAT scores were a total of 666.
- Asshole Victim: All the people they kill were trying to kill them first. The kids get attacked by Neo-Nazis and one of them dies in the end. Some viewers may see that as an example as well.
- Break the Cutie: Averted. The abruptly bloody and bleak ending does little to stop Amy and Xavier from being completely ambivalent.
- Buffy Speak:
- "Y'know, just because he and I...it doesn't mean that I'm like really all that...whatever..." "I know."
- Xavier wants some "foodgle action" - instead of, you know, dinner.
- The Cameo: Skinny Puppy make a bizarre appearance as a gang of gay-bashers around the beginning.
- Continuity Nod: "Where have you been?" "Nowhere."
- Cluster F-Bomb: Every time Amy opens her mouth.
- Crapsack World: Images of Hell and the Apocalypse are on every corner, everywhere they go seems weirdly abandoned and dilapidated, and everyone they meet tries to kill them.
- Eagle Land: Type Two, full stop. the main characters' names are Jordan White, Amy Blue, and Xavier Red, making up the colors of the American flag.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: When Jordan spits a very sexually explicit Your Mom insult at George, George's smugness immediately melts away and he goes berserk, wailing on Jordan while screaming, "Don't... you... ever talk about my mother like that!" He then changes his plans from making Jordan watch as he further sexually abuses Amy to making Amy watch as he kills Jordan.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: The young and handsome George is also the misogynistic, homophobic and spiteful Joker-esque ringleader of a Neo-Nazi trio.
- Groin Attack: Jordan dies by a particularly gruesome case of this. The Neo-Nazis snap off his genitals using pruning shears.
- Homophobic Hate Crime: The movie ends with one of the main characters being murdered by Neo-Nazis while engaged in a bisexual threesome.
- Meaningful Name: The main characters are Xavier Red (also known as "X"), Jordan White, and Amy Blue.
- Mood Whiplash: The downer ending, which mostly happens after they run over a dog.
- Number of the Beast: It gets some use. And by "some," we mean, "any time a numerical value is mentioned."
- Off with His Head!: The store owner gets his head blown off with a shotgun and somehow manages to live.
- Re-Cut: In order to obtain an R-rating from the Motion Picture Association, the film had nearly twelve minutes of content removed from its initial home video release.
- Road Trip Plot: Where they're going is pretty ambiguous though.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The film becomes much more serious after the trio accidentally hit a dog while driving.
- Smoking Is Cool: Some tropers might find themselves smoking a lot more after watching this.
- Straw Nihilist: Amy concludes that life is "lonely, boring, and dumb."
- Thematic Series: Forms a "Teen Apocalypse Trilogy" with Araki's other movies starring James Duval, Totally F***ed Up and Nowhere.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: They randomly meet people, many of whom try to kill them or claim they know them, then are never seen again. The most prolific example would be the store owner who gets his head blown off and lives. We never get much closure to that.
