Editorials
20 Years Later: The New Year’s Eve Horror of ‘End of Days’
The holidays- New Year’s Eve, especially- are a time dedicated to excess. It’s only fitting that End of Days, an action-horror hybrid starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and set in the days leading up to New Year’s, honors the spirit of this time of year with a glut of over the top entertainment and outlandish narrative turns. Released in theaters twenty years ago on November 24, 1999, End of Days pounced on the looming fears the turn of the millennium would bring. Instead of Y2K and crashing computers, though, it was the resurgence of Satan in New York City and his quest to impregnate his chosen bride. In the sort of convoluted way that only a grand epic blockbuster-style film can, of course.
After a cold open featuring the birth of the Prince of Darkness’s bride twenty years before the millennial New Year and an explanation of her destiny, the film cuts to present day where Lucifer explodes from the depths of hell, and the sewers, to find a host body for his conquest. That host belongs to an unwitting banker (Gabriel Byrne). He doesn’t know it yet, but his most significant obstacle to finding and claiming his bride, Christine York (Robin Tunney), is former police detective Jericho Cane (Schwarzenegger).
Anyone well versed in Satanic horror will spot Cane’s character arch from a mile away; the film introduces him as a suicidal alcoholic that lost his faith after the death of his wife and daughter. The Exorcist and its many copycats taught us those reluctant heroes who’ve lost their way eventually regain their faith and save the day. While the bare bones of the plot might be predictable, screenwriter Andrew W. Marlow (Hollow Man) and director Peter Hyams (The Relic, Timecop), who also handled the cinematography, keep the journey exciting.
Mere moments after contemplating suicide with his gun, his partner Bobby Chicago (Kevin Pollack) shows up with coffee. Jericho takes the piping hot cup of coffee and blends it up with leftover beer, Pepto-Bismol, two cartons of leftover Chinese food, a thin cut of meat, and a stale piece of pizza from the kitchen floor. He drinks his revolting breakfast smoothie straight from the blender. It’s this precise brand of outlandishness that makes End of Days transcend its familiar premise.
When Jericho finally crosses paths with Christine, who’s oblivious to the Satanic prophecy and her role in it despite nightmarish visions, he becomes her protector. From there, he deals with an endless barrage of devil worshipers, evil guardians with super-strength, betrayals, hallucinogenic temptations, and a slew of Vatican knights who are on a separate mission to stop Satan’s consummation. If anyone can take a beating over and over again, it’s Schwarzenegger.
1999 marked an anxious time, when computers were expected to fail time zone by time zone, causing an apocalyptic domino effect on society in its wake. It’s fitting that End of Days should mirror that feeling with the Vatican and a slew of New Yorkers standing in the way of a biblical apocalypse set to commence when the ball drops in Times Square. There’s a bleak undercurrent, but it’s balanced by the explosive action and the zaniness of the horror elements. Jericho does kick that old nanny’s butt along with anyone else that gets in his way, and you can count on him to stop Satan, too. He’s just going to do it with over the top flair.
In its own weird and charming way, End of Days perfectly captures the New Year’s Eve holiday; that anxious period in which we try to shake off the year’s stresses and look ahead to the shiny possibilities of a new year heralded in by celebrations and libations. This film is a tonal blend of those warring emotions; the bleak and downtrodden against excess and hope. A campiness that’s matched by poignancy.
End of Days is hardly without flaws; save for a fun CGI climax, poor Satan doesn’t have a whole lot to do. But it’s always fascinating and entertaining. The perfect type of movie to pair with pizza, beverages, and friends, which sounds like an ideal way to spend New Year’s Eve to me.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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