Film / This Is the End

"So something... not that chill happened last night."

— Jonah Hill

This Is the End is 2013 black comedy/action film directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, and written by Rogen, Goldberg and Jason Stone. The film stars Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson as fictionalized versions of themselves dealing with the aftermath of a global apocalypse.

View the Red Band trailer here.

Not to be confused with The World's End, another 2013 comedy about The End of the World as We Know It.

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This film contains examples of:

• Acoustic License: As usual in movies, even a roaring party is not loud enough to prevent gentle knocking being heard at the front door.
• Act of True Love: Of the platonic friendship variety. Doing a selfless action for the sake of your friends will earn a person a spot in Heaven.
• Action Girl: Emma Watson proves herself to be one.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Jay Baruchel and Danny McBride end up fooling around with a severed head. That sounds familiar...
  • Jason Segel's complaints about his sitcom show are almost word for word from a previous interview he did about him being tired of How I Met Your Mother.
  • They managed to have one scene of Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse together. Same goes for Baruchel, Hill, and Mintz-Plasse.
• Adam Westing: Everyone involved plays a (probably) more stupid and mean version of themselves. Especially Michael Cera, who is depicted as an annoying, coke-snorting, ass-slapping Jerkass.
• Adaptation Expansion: A complicated example; this film is a much larger-scale remake of a short film shot by Rogen and Baruchel titled Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse, screened only once at a film festival (or at a private party, depending on who you ask) and never seen again. The only footage of the original publicly released was in the form of a trailer, leading many to believe it was merely a parody instead of an actual film.
• Almost Kiss: A coked up Michael Cera almost gives one to Christopher Mintz-Plasse after blowing coke in his face.
• And Starring: Emma Watson.
• Anyone Can Die: Rihanna, Jason Segel, Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Martin Starr, Kevin Hart, Michael Cera, and David Krumholtz early on during the initial disaster. Jonah Hill and James Franco don't survive or make it to Heaven either.
• As Himself: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Jason Segel, David Krumholtz, Paul Rudd, Mindy Kaling, Martin Starr, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kevin Hart, Rihanna, Aziz Ansari, Channing Tatum, and the Backstreet Boys. Averted in the case of Woody Harrelson, who is played by Jonah Hill.
• Apocalypse How: Class 3 leading to a Class 6.
• Apocalyptic Log: Rogen and crew set up Franco's camcorder from 127 Hours in Franco's basement for this, Confession Cam-style.
• Artistic License – Religion: Barely one word from Jay's reading of "Revelations" is actually from the Bible.
  • A fundamental tenet of Calvinism is that no one can be good enough to earn being saved.
  • No Christian (or Jewish, for that matter) denomination believes that one becomes an angel on entering Heaven. Angels are a different kind of being from humans.
  • The Abrahamic Religions generally agree that substances like Marijuana are sinful, so it's unlikely that they'll be in Heaven.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: See Light Is Good.
• Asshole Victim: While many characters die, a special mention goes to the convenience store clerk.
  • Michael Cera. As Danny put it, "Guess if Michael Cera’s gone, it's not a total loss."
  • Might as well add Jonah Hill as well; how else can you describe someone who actually prays to God for the death of someone else?
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Satan himself.
• Audience Surrogate: Jay, a non-Los Angeles resident, serves as the audience's viewpoint into the LA lifestyle early on.
• Ax-Crazy: Towards the end of the film, Danny McBride and his followers.
• Bad "Bad Acting": During the Pineapple Express 2 trailer.
  Danny McBride: I need you guys to assassinate, Woody Harrelson.
• Bad Vibrations: Satan's footsteps shake the earth and cause large boulders of rubble to tumble around. Buildings collapse around his hooves.
• Battle Cry: Craig Robinson as he charges the winged demon, "For the last goddamn time! Take your panties off!"
• Big Bad: All of the Demons and Satan are the film's Big Bad Ensemble.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The Demons and the Apocalypse become this in the film. They are sent by Satan to assassinate the group.
• Big Red Devil: It's more black due to being made from molten rock, but Satan himself is the size of a skyscraper.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jonah Hill is almost sickeningly polite, particularly to Jay, but later prays to God for Jay to die because he hates him so much. It's also noticeable earlier during the earthquake when he tries to push Jay into the hole as everybody is running. Also later on when Jonah drops very tiny hints of trying to get Jay to die. Like "accidentally" throwing a knife at Jay's leg instead of simply passing it to him.
• Black Comedy: Almost everyone in the world dies in the apocalypse, but you won't stop laughing at the horrible and graphic ways your favorite Hollywood stars die.
• Black Comedy Cannibalism: Danny McBride becomes the leader of a cannibal gang. They kill and eat James Franco.
• Black Comedy Rape:
  • The conversation that the group has about Emma Watson. The guys are not talking about raping Emma, but about how they don't want her to feel threatened by the presence of six men staying in a house with her. It devolves into an argument with the guys accusing each other of being the one most likely to rape her. Unfortunately for them, Emma hears only a bit of the conversation and reacts accordingly.
  • Deconstructed when Jonah gets raped by a demon it's played for Black Comedy. But he seems visibly shaken by it. He even skirts around talking about it on the Confession Cam, only mentioning something along the lines of "...something not cool happened last night..."
  • Jonah Hill gets raped and then possessed by a demon. And later, the possessed Jonah threatens to "titty-fuck" Seth.
  • Channing Tatum becomes Danny McBride's "bitch" as part of some sort of fucked-up BDSM fantasy, and he's also forced to wear a dog leash and skimpy leather clothes.
• Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. The scene in which Craig is sent out of the house to get more water plays with expectations of this trope. Everything seems to be going against him: he picks the wrong match, gets sent out alone, everyone seems unconvinced that they'll be able to pull him back in if he's in trouble, the group drop the rope holding him, he can't open the door into the basement, and screams and stares straight behind the camera at what we assume to be a demon no less than three times. Surprisingly, he survives the encounter. In fact, out of the six main characters, Craig is the FIRST person to ascend to Heaven.
  • Also played straight. The first on screen death is the black, female cashier of the convenience store.
• Bloody Hilarious: Both the deaths of Michael Cera and the convenience store cashier. And also the guy who gets decapitated by a demon, then invokedhas his head kicked around like a soccer ball.
• Brick Joke:
  • Jonah mentions adopting a dog at the beginning of the party. At the end, the dog shows up in Heaven, with Seth apparently being its new owner.
  • Seth finds Channing Tatum very attractive. Channing is later seen as Danny's gimp.
  • Early on Seth mentions how bullies tittyfucked him as a kid. This is played for laughs several times later on, both with the desperate stranger who says he'll do anything if they let him in, and when Jonah gets possessed and threatens to do just that.
  • In the beginning the guys discuss how dangerous the stairs at Franco's house are as there is no railing. Later, when they're escaping from possessed Jonah, they fall off from the side of the stairs.
  • James Franco talks about how he should die in the proposed Pineapple Express sequel by sacrificing himself for the others and dying in the most horrible way possible. Enter Danny McBride at the end of the movie.
• Bullying a Dragon: James Franco taunts a cannibalistic Danny McBride as he's being ascended to Heaven. Unsurprisingly, this gets himself disposed from the Rapture, giving Danny the opportunity to eat him alive.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Danny McBride refuses to believe that the apocalypse has happened, thinking instead that the destruction around him is the result of a wild party. It takes a guy getting his head ripped off by a demon to realize they're telling the truth.
  • It turns out Jay was right about Jonah Hill not liking him.
• Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven: Justified example, as the main protagonists are celebrities, who are friends in real life, so they naturally hang out with each other and enjoy a Dance Party Ending with the Backstreet Boys performing "Backstreet's Back (Alright)".
• Celebrity Casualty: Pretty much every celebrity who appears in the film is killed off by the end.
• Censor Decoy: Attempted but backfired — the creators included explicit material intending to get an NC-17 rating they could cut down to an R. The censors gave the uncut version an R.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The prop gun. Subverted in that it only has blanks.
  • The song "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" that plays during the video game/pot scene at Rogan's house.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Given all who are starring in (not to mention wrote it), this is a given.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Jay points out the similarities between what's happening and the biblical apocalypse, the others get stuck on him referring to the Hollywood hills as mountains.
• Country Matters: When Danny gives the others "The Reason You Suck" Speech before he's kicked out of the group, the only thing he says to Jonah is calling him a "fucking cunt."
• Crazy Enough to Work: When Jonah gets possessed, Jay made a makeshift cross out of kitchen tools and started reciting "The power of Christ compels you!" The demon sarcastically mocked him over it while everyone called him out on copying from The Exorcist. But after a while, it actually started working. Even the demon is surprised when it starts working.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: No one dies in a pretty fashion, but special mention goes to James Franco, whose hubris narrowly prevents his own rapture, and is subsequently Eaten Alive by Danny McBride, who he hates.
• Cutting the Knot: There's stored water on the floor below them. Their first plan is to send Craig outside to go down and get it. After that fails, they decide to break through the floor.
• Dance Party Ending: The movie ends with Jay, Seth, and Craig partying with the Backstreet Boys, a lifelong dream of Jay's.
• Developing Doomed Characters: This blog at RogerEbert.com argues this trope is deconstructed for the first time in a Hollywood production:
  As the Rapture literally swallows people up, Rogen, Franco and their actor buddies (all playing hideously hilarious versions of themselves) hole up in Franco’s Hollywood home, bickering and fighting and ultimately being forced to wonder if they’re even worthy enough to ascend to Heaven. It’s the first studio-backed summer movie where the whole point is to force the characters to ponder what assholes they’ve been.
• Devil, but No God: Despite the film's disaster being The Biblical Rapture, God doesn't seem to make an appearance or get mentioned at all. He's not even shown when the heroes get taken to Heaven. Meanwhile the Devil does appear at the ending. Though considering Heaven is treated as a Personalized Afterlife, it's possible God just felt His being there would cramp these party dudes' style.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Why, exactly, did Craig Robinson gouge a man's eyes out? Over an argument over whether or not Craig had called spinnies on a foosball game.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Emma proves that she means business by chopping the head off of Franco's penis statue.
• Double Entendre: James Franco inviting Seth and Jay into his house party.
  James: This place is like a piece of me. You two just stepped inside me.
  Seth: You let us both come inside you. Yeah.
• Duct Tape for Everything: The boys bust out a roll in order to fortify Franco's now severely-damaged mansion (blown-out windows, large cracks in the walls etc).
• Dwindling Party: First Danny is exiled by the others. Then Jonah winds up getting possessed and later incinerated in the fire that destroys James' house. Craig, sacrificing himself, is Raptured to Heaven. Danny returns as the leader of a group of cannibals, who eat James. Seth and Jay are ultimately Raptured as well for confessing what they did wrong, and reunite with Craig.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After the literal hell they go through, Jay and Seth mend their friendship and commit a selfless act for one another that earns them both a spot in Heaven, where they're reunited with Craig and can be happy.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The father and daughter who get raptured in the convenience store immediately imply themselves to be decent people by the father kindly asking the rude manager if his daughter may use the restroom and the daughter patiently saying she can hold it when they're rebuffed.
  • Danny McBride, who doesn't play a noticeable part in the party scene, has his the next morning, including peeing on the seat, invokedwiping it with a swipe of his boots, and wasting much of the guys' freshly-rationed food making them a lavish breakfast.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Channing Tatum, as said by Seth and Danny. Then again, this is Channing Tatum they're talking about.
  Jay: Will you stop talking about...!
  Seth: I think he's attractive.
• Evil All Along:
  • Jay insists at the beginning of the movie that Jonah Hill hates him. Everyone else tells Jay he's wrong and that Jonah is the nicest guy on Earth. Throughout most of the movie, Jonah acts like a nice guy who wants to be friends with Jay. But in the end, Jonah reveals he really has always hated Jay and wants him to die.
  • Danny becomes the leader of some cannibal gang.
• Evil Is Bigger: The Demons are mostly huge, especially Satan himself in the end.
• Evil Is Petty: Inverted. Being petty is apparently evil enough to prevent you from being raptured.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Possessed!Jonah Hill does.
• Eye Scream:
  • Described but not shown. In one scene, Craig Robinson confesses that he once gouged a man's eyes out in a bar fight. Then there's what Danny does to James.
  • There's also the chaos after the sinkhole/hellmouth opens in front of Franco's house. Paul Rudd, in the process of fleeing, accidentally tramples Franco's assistant Karen, popping an eye out of her squished head. He follows that up with a pathetic, horrified and hopeless "Sorry!"
• Face–Heel Turn: Danny starts off as just being a massive Jerkass, but when the others make him leave he tries to shoot them, and later shows up as the leader of a group of cannibals.
• Fan Disservice: Jay walking into the bathroom to find a coked up half-naked Michael Cera getting blown and his backside licked by two chicks.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Once the Apocalypse hits, a lot of the Hollywood celebrities we see getting along with other renowned actors/actresses start thinking only about themselves. Both Craig and Kevin Hart refuse to rescue Aziz, Franco who invited masses of celebrities into his mansion orders the survivors to board off the doors to keep everything out and Emma Watson robs the main cast of 6 for their water and alcohol.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Jay accuses Jonah Hill of being this when chatting with Seth at the convenience store. He's latter proven right, especially when Jonah winds up possessed.
  • Latter in the movie, Danny. He's pretty cheerful and excitable for a vicious cannibal.
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven: The heaven we see at the end of the movie is this, except with marijuana and the Backstreet Boys.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Early on, Seth Rogen describes a potential plot for Pineapple Express 2 that ends with Saul (James Franco's character) sacrificing himself to save Dale (Seth's character) from Red (Danny McBride's character), who proceeds to eat Saul. Guess how James dies?
  • The illustration of Satan in James' Bible — when he shows up for real at the end, he looks just like the drawing.
  • At the beginning Jay and Seth are watching news on TV about a sinkhole in Guatemala foreshadowing the one that opens near James Franco's house.
  • The beers being drunk at the party, as seen below. They have the picture of a demon on them.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The beers being consumed during Franco's party are from Stone Brewing Company, known for featuring a horned demon on their bottles similar to the ones the group will encounter. They also make beers with names like Arrogant Bastard and Ruination.
  • There is a billboard ad for a film called "Ninja Rapist".
• Freudian Threat: James threatens to shoot off Danny's dick if he catches him jerking off in his house again. Danny defiantly retorts that he doesn't have enough bullets.
• Full-Name Basis: For a good chunk at the beginning of the movie, and a couple times elsewhere, everyone refers to each other by full name, except Jay.
• Fun T-Shirt: Craig wears a shirt written "Take Yo Panties Off".
• Gag Penis: A demon that apparently rapes Jonah Hill sports a large one, as does the devil himself. There's also Franco's giant sculpture of a penis.
• Gilligan Cut: Seth is on a cleansing diet and refuses to eat gluten or carbs or anything that's bad for you. The scene cuts to him and Jay eating Carls Jr.
• God Before Dogma: The film's depiction of God saves everyone who has (or grows) the capacity to love their fellow man, even if they're deliberately making use of this fact to get themselves into Heaven. Any sins they've committed don't matter. But this isn't a free license to consider yourself different from other sinners just because you're saved, as James realizes too late. It's implied that one reason the apocalypse is so drawn out is because God wants to give people like Seth, Jay and Craig as many opportunities to be saved as possible.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Satan, who is the main antagonist of the movie. He is the one who sent the demons to kill the group. He is never seen nor heard in the movie until the climax, where he finally gets his invokedOne-Scene Wonder battling Jay and Seth.
• Groin Attack: When Seth is pulled to Heaven, the Pillar of Light shears off the devil's penis. Making it even better, the beam of light that saved Seth was the first one and it blasted apart the Devil's jaw making him reel. God wasn't finished muscling in on the Devil and so another beam of light was shot out just to hit the Devil in the crotch.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Danny McBride vs. James Franco.
• Hellish Copter: One goes down right outside of the house, throwing a piece of the propeller inside. Craig gets a minor cut on his finger.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Performing such a selfless act actually helps prove that the character is worthy to be taken to heaven.
  • Craig Robinson distracts a demon so that the group can escape and is taken to heaven.
  • James Franco distracts a group of cannibals led by Danny so that Jay and Seth can escape. He's about to be taken to heaven like Craig, but mocks Danny over the victory and is left behind to be eaten.
  • Seth chooses to stay and die so that Jay can ascend to heaven, but his sacrifice earns him a ticket as well which destroys Satan.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • James Franco seems to think that he and Seth Rogen are this, but Seth seems a little disturbed by James' devotion to him.
  • Jay and Seth have this feel, but it's a rocky relationship that was at its end, until the Apocalypse
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Rogen's account of being tittyfucked as a youngster.
• Hipster: Jay is labeled this by Emma and Craig when he says not really into the L.A. lifestyle. They mention his tightly cuffed pants, possible hatred for movies that are universally loved and his admittance of his hatred of Forrest Gump as proof.
• Holy Burns Evil: The pillars of light pulling people into Heaven hurt the demons on contact.
• Homoerotic Subtext: With the massive amount of subtext between the guys, the giant penis gags, and Jonah's rape, you could easily say that this movie is "kinda gay" and not be derogatory.
• Hope Spot: Early on, the group hears a helicopter and figures that means they're saved. The helicopter promptly crashes right outside Franco's house. Also, the surviving guys stumble upon a large stash of food that James Franco plumb forgot he'd had at home ... just before his house burns and collapses, destroying the stockpile.
• Horrible Hollywood: Literally once the Rapture turns it into hell on earth, but the trope applies even before this; everyone we meet is an awful, entitled, self-obsessed phony. Not a single person at James Franco's party is raptured into Heaven because everybody there is a bad person.
• Humble Pie: Satan can make buildings crumble to dust just by stepping near them, water towers barely reach his tarsals, most trees have a hard time passing his hooves—he's in absolutely no hurry to catch Jay and Seth, two puny humans. He decides to take his time, letting the serpents on his back emerge to feast on them instead. Yet, both his attempts to consume them fail, as they are beamed to heaven just before they can be killed. Seth's beam burns Satan's jaw, leaves a gash along his chest and abdomen, and finally explodes his testicles and slices off his penis (which even takes an entire building down before it hits the ground, simply to show the scope and scale of the damage inflicted). Powerless against the beams, all Satan can do is reach down, grab his swaying, severed penis, clutch his lava-bleeding crotch, and roar in agony.
• Hypocrite: Jay insists that he doesn't like the Los Angeles lifestyle, but Danny reveals that Jay has come to Los Angeles before without telling Seth and stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Danny late in the movie.
• I Warned You: When the earthquake happens, James Franco warned his guests to stay inside as they all ran out. After the survivors ran back inside his house, he screams at them they should have just stayed inside.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Michael Cera, courtesy of a fallen street light.
  Cera: Is it bad?
• It's All About Me: All the celebrities who appear in the film display this to varying degrees with Danny McBride being the most glaring example.
• Jerkass: None of the main characters are that great, but Danny McBride is easily the worst. Michael Cera also deserves some mention.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: McBride seemed to be apologetic when the group decided to kick him out. Then he tried to shoot them all with the gun Franco gave him to defend himself.
• Karma Houdini: Danny, but since he's last seen still stuck on Earth, which is crawling with demons and covered in hell fire, perhaps he has received a degree of karma.
• Karmic Death: Jonah is possessed, later burnt and crushed to death after wishing death upon Jay.
• Laser-Guided Karma: James Franco and Jonah Hill for committing the sins of Pride and Wrath, respectively.
  • Kevin Hart kicks Aziz Ansari down the sinkhole to his death to avoid falling down it as well, however Ansari's hand comes off in the process due to a cable and gets stuck to Kevin; he ultimately falls down as well trying to shake it off himself.
  • Vast majority of deaths in the film are this really since it is the Apocalypse; whether or not you go to Heaven is based on your moral merit. Commit something bad, you're likely going to die very soon. Like Michael Cera dying immediately after accusing people of stealing his cell phone and acting like a rude douche about it. Or the cashier who forced a little kid to buy something in order to use the bathroom. She was the first to die.
• Last-Name Basis: Many of the actors refer to each other by their last names, particular James Franco who is almost exclusively called Franco throughout the film.
• Laughably Evil: Danny McBride has shades of this, especially after his Face–Heel Turn. Some of the comments from Possessed!Jonah aren't far behind as well.
• Lens Flare: Heaven is coated in these that would make J. J. Abrams proud.
• Light Is Good: Those beams of light? They actually bring you to Heaven. And as one could expect, it's paradise.
• The Load: As one can tell, Danny is this to the group.
• The Millstone: Danny, until his Face–Heel Turn.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Craig has one after a huge piece of rubble flies right past him... and he cuts his finger.
  invoked"Fuck yo house, Franco!"
• Mushroom Samba: "Let's do all the drugs."
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Seth had picked maybe a better time than in the middle of an exorcism to call Jay out on their strained and failing friendship, Jonah would have probably lived and their only shelter wouldn't have gone up in flames.
• Not So Above It All: Jay really didn't like any of the celebrities at Franco's party. But when giving his apocalypse theory, Franco pointed out that he hadn't been Raptured either, meaning he was also an asshole like them. At the climax, he admitted that he was self-righteous and that he didn't like the person he became so he took it out on Seth.
• Off with His Head!: A very realistic portrayal. A decaptitation is not as clean as the media portrays it. When a random stranger gets his body ripped off, leaving his head behind. Jonah tries to, respectfully, move the head but is quickly repulsed by the gallons of blood pouring out of it.
• Only Sane Man: Jay.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: When Emma Watson is the only female in the house, the cast discusses making sure that she's comfortable and doesn't feel like she's in danger from them. However, since she's in the next room, she can make out half the conversation so she thinks that they're discussing who gets to rape her. This leads to her violently leaving the house.
• Out of the Frying Pan: Jay and Seth narrowly escape Danny's cannibal tribe near the climax...only to come face to face with the devil himself.
• Personalized Afterlife: When Jay and Seth finally earn getting into Heaven, they're surprised to learn that what would normally be considered sins on Earth (albeit minor ones like marijuana) are actually perfectly acceptable once you've managed to prove you're worthy of Heaven.
• Pillar of Light: When people are pulled into Heaven.
• Pipe Pain: One of the characters uses a pipe as a weapon near the finale of the film.
• Poor Communication Kills: During a conversation about making Emma Watson feel more comfortable in a house filled with men, she only heard a part of the conversation and thought that they were planning to rape her. As a result, she robbed them of their drinks and ran off. Her fate is never shown.
• Precision F-Strike: In a film full of swearing, three from Emma Watson stand out.
  Emma Watson: Back the fuck up! [...] I'm not FUCKING AROUND! [...] Hurry the fuck up!
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Danny to James: "You might not've invited me to your party, but you're the guest of honor at mine."
• Product Placement:
  • Jay and Seth talk about going to Carl's Jr. for a whole scene, then are shown outside a drive-thru eating Carl's Jr. hamburgers. In the following scene, Jay still holds a Carl's Jr. cup.
  • All of the characters talk at length about how much they want to eat James' Milky Way.
• Prayer of Malice: Jonah prays to God asking Him to kill Jay. He gets hit with a nice case of Laser-Guided Karma, see below.
• Real Men Wear Pink: The normally pretty masculine Danny suddenly confesses to being a huge Harry Potter fan when he finds out Emma Watson is in the house.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Danny gives one to each actor in the house concerning their acting abilities, except Jay, who Danny then reveals that he knew that Jay, who claims to hate being in L.A. and its lifestyle, two months before the events of the film, was relaxing at the Four Seasons, calling him out as the biggest hypocrite of the group.
• Reckless Gun Usage: James Franco and Jonah Hill both toss around, idly gesture with and generally mishandle what Franco has established is a fully loaded gun. The others are understandably grossly perturbed by this. Subverted in that Franco knew the gun was filled with blanks. Doubly subverted because even blanks can permanently injure or kill you, especially at point blank range.
• Red Herring: At first, you'd think Jonah Hill's mention of his LBS (Low Blood Sugar) would come into play but it never does. When Hill has a seizure, Seth and James make the assumption that its one of these, but he's actually being possessed by a demon.
• Redemption Equals Death: Played with; Craig and Seth intend to sacrifice themselves for others, which actually leads to them being raptured. James tries this, but because he made the mistake of cursing out and flipping off Danny and his band of cannibals while being raptured, thus performing the sins of Vanity and Pride in the middle of being raptured, he got his rapture canceled.
• Satan: The Prince of Darkness himself makes an appearance, and he's as big as a skyscraper — and anatomically correct.
• Scare Chord: Played for Laughs when Jonah Hill suddenly appears during the "Can't sleep" scene.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Craig.
• Self-Deprecation: The whole movie paints Hollywood celebs as a bunch of vain, self-centered idiots, and was made by Hollywood celebs. Best exemplified when the Rapture happens and no one at James Franco's party notices because no one there gets Raptured.
• Sex Slave: Channing Tatum.
• Sexual Karma: Jonah getting raped and demonically possessed by a demon.
• Shout-Out:
  • The rape of Jonah Hill is virtually a shot-for-shot remake of the similar scene in Rosemary's Baby.
  Jonah: This is no dream! This is really happening!
  • The exorcism of Jonah Hill is a shout out to The Exorcist. It's even lampshaded by Seth Rogen.
  • Nobody puts Jay in a corner.
• Situational Sexuality: Played With and Discussed In-Universe. As they're six guys sharing a house during an apocalypse, Danny suggests making Jay "the house bitch" after his suggestion of gang-raping Emma Watson goes awry. They settle with masturbation to James' stash of magazines and Jay/Seth/Jonah platonic cuddling with one another.
• Skewed Priorities: Michael Cera is more concerned about his lost cell phone (it's actually in his jacket pocket) than the fact that the world is ending around him.
• Smug Snake: James when he's about to be raptured. It ends up biting him in the ass, big time.
• Smurfette Principle: Emma Watson is the only female with a role after the Apocalypse and the one with the largest role by far, which might account for her popularity in this movie
• Stealth Pun: The devil got inside him.
• Stylistic Suck: The homemade trailer of Pineapple Express 2 the guys make to pass the time understandably has poor production values.
• Sugary Malice: Jonah Hill, especially towards Jay.
• Take That!:
  • Danny has a go at Jonah and Seth for their bad acting and comments that the night wasn't a complete loss since Michael Cera is dead.
  • Everybody begs Danny and Franco to never make a sequel to Your Highness.
• Token Evil Teammate: Danny, and how.
• Token Good Teammate: Craig is less of a Jerkass when compared to his own friends. Proven since he is the first to ascend and the only one to not know that it was actually possible.
• Token Minority: Craig.
• Trailers Always Lie: The first trailers imply that that the apocalypse was started by aliens, with the beams of light from the sky teleporting people up and an ambiguously reptilian possibly alien creature that is seen once. It's actually more biblical in scale
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The deaths of Jason Segel, Aziz Ansari, Rihanna, David Krumholtz, and Michael Cera are shown in the second Red Band trailer though none of these are major plot points.
  • Jonah Hill getting possessed was shown in later television commercials, and that was a major plot point because it marks the point when things go From Bad to Worse.
• "Uh-Oh" Eyes: Possessed!Jonah sports these and they even glow in some scenes.
• Understatement: "Something not that chill happened last night."
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist:
  • The only reason the main characters are stuck on Earth is because they were too awful to be raptured to Heaven.
  • Danny is this until he turns into a full-on Villain Protagonist.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Happens towards the end when James Franco chooses to sacrifice himself so Seth and Jay could escape from Danny and his band of cannibals, knowing he'll be raptured. And it actually starts to work!... Till he makes the mistake of flipping off and calling Danny's group every vulgar thing in the book, resulting in his rapture being canceled and his death. Then Seth and Jay discuss how a "sore winner" is hard to redeem.
• Visual Pun: Heterosexual Life-Partners Seth Rogen and James Franco at one point end up in a closet together.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: In one scene a demon-possessed Jonah Hill pukes black bile all over Seth Rogen and James Franco.
• Vulgar Humor: A few accounts of it, such as a long argument regarding Danny's ejaculation.
• Walking Wasteland: Satan. Buildings collapse around his hooves when he walks, huge dust clouds erupt when he collides with the ground, his blood is dripping lava. Even in defeat, his massive severed penis falls on and crushes an entire parking garage.
• Wham Line: Danny drops one on Jay and the others before he leaves the house.
  Danny McBride: Am I twisting this? I believe I saw you in Los Angeles two months ago at the Four Seasons. I saw you there and you specifically asked me not to tell Seth so that you can maintain the illusion that you always stay with Seth when you're in Los Angeles.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Emma Watson's fate is unknown, as is Paul Rudd's, who was last seen running off in horror when the sinkhole appeared, with a bottle of champagne after stepping on and crushing a woman's head by mistake.
• World of Jerkass: The Apocalypse creates a literal example of this — all the good-hearted people are carried into Heaven by blue beams, while those who stay on Earth carry on with their self-centered, foolish behavior.

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