End of Days (1999)

End of Days is what happens when a late-’90s action blockbuster stares straight into the abyss and decides to have a devilishly good time anyway: it’s loud, dark, and surprisingly committed to its apocalyptic mood. Peter Hyams gives the film a slick, rain-soaked New York grit, and Arnold Schwarzenegger leans into a battered, cynical hero who feels more haunted than invincible, which makes the supernatural stakes land with real punch. Gabriel Byrne’s devil is all charm and menace, turning every scene into a seductive dare, while the set pieces deliver exactly the kind of muscular, end-times spectacle you’re hoping for. Fair warning: it’s aggressively R-rated and gleefully tasteless in spots, but if you want an entertaining, high-energy collision of action and horror with millennial panic baked into the atmosphere, this one earns its guilty-pleasure reputation.

End of Days is trying to mash up a gritty cop thriller with end-times horror, using Schwarzenegger’s bruiser charisma to punch through a big, religious-apocalypse premise. The problem is the movie often confuses loudness for intensity: the script lurches between moody mysticism and clunky action beats, and the plotting can feel messy rather than suspenseful. If you’re expecting smart theological horror or tight, coherent storytelling, this will likely frustrate you, and the R-rated content is genuinely heavy and not handled with much finesse. Still, Gabriel Byrne brings a slick menace and the late-’90s New York grime gives it a pulpy atmosphere, so it can work as a guilty-pleasure blast if you’re in the mood for over-the-top, end-of-millennium schlock.