Doom: Annihilation strafes directly to video this autumn

As chief Doom appreciator here on RPS, I feel it is my sad but solemn duty to inform you all that the new Doom movie Brock warned us about last year is still coming. This one is direct-to-video, coming from director Tony Giglio. Doom: Annihilation is due out this autumn, and for what it's worth, they do talk (briefly) about a portal to hell in the trailer, giving it a small advantage over the confused theme of the original film. Still, the trailer doesn't fill me with hope - goofy monster makeup, very plastic guns and odd coloured lighting give this one a distinctly cheap, bland look. Give it a peek for yourself below.

It all looks a bit like cutscenes from a late '90s FMV game. Not inherently a bad thing, and might make for a dumb popcorn-filled evening, but the trailer just feels far too clean. When you've only got a limited budget, a few re-usable chunks of set dressing and a B-list cast, accepted wisdom is to take notes from Troma: If you can't wow audiences with artistry, see just how many gallons of fake gibs you can spread around. This film is coming to us from Universal 1440, the outfit responsible for the likes of unwanted sequels like Jarhead 3: The Siege and Tremors 5. Oh dear.

Watch on YouTube

Let us not forget, then, the handful of good things that the original Doom movie (starring The Rock as the bad guy) brought us - it wasn't entirely awful:

• As daft as the Bio Force Gun name was, the BFG design was pretty cool, and it was eventually recreated for use in Doom mods, and perhaps inspired the sleeker, more angled design of the 2016 Doom take on the gun.
• The first-person scene wasn't wholly rubbish. It also had a great bit of cheesy action movie music accompanying it, which I only recently realised was used as the opening level theme in Brutal Doom's 'Extermination Day' campaign.
• The film occasionally used monster models direct from Doom 3, which slightly undermined its own plot point about them being genetic mutants and not demons, but whatever, it was nice to see something from Doom in there.

Doom: Annihilation debuts this autumn, direct-to-video (and presumably streaming). Fingers crossed that the vastly more entertaining-looking game Doom: Eternal beats it to the punch, also due out later this year.