Will ‘Doom’ Generate Outrage?

Filmmaker Gregg Araki knows he is about to hand Sen. Robert Dole a loaded gun, not to mention unlimited ammunition, aimed squarely at himself.

It’s his latest film, “The Doom Generation,” which the writer-director suspects some critics will skewer as a twisted version of “Pulp Fiction” meets “Natural Born Killers” meets “True Romance.”

“The Doom Generation” is filled with violence and sex, but the underlying message, Araki says, is that love and innocence have become increasingly fragile in a world “desensitized to violence.”

“Look, this is a multilayered film that has a lot to say. It will mean a lot to a lot of people, especially my peers. But there will also be people who hate it and find it offensive . . . the Doles of the world who want to silence it,” he adds. “What ‘Doom Generation’ does is provoke thought. And that is the biggest problem in our culture today--few things, especially film, provoke thought. We have become numb.”

A troubling sign for “Doom” is that even some of the people involved in releasing the picture find it “repugnant” and “pointless.” Sources at Samuel Goldwyn Co., the U.S. distributor of “Doom,” say that they were surprised it was ever produced, much less acquired by Goldwyn executives its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.

They chalk it up to executives’ naively buying into the “Pulp Fiction” craze--an accusation the Goldwyn brass disputes. Goldwyn, which is now in financial straits, is better known for such high-brow films as “The Madness of King George,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Eat Drink Man Woman.”

The 90-minute “Doom Generation,” set for October release, will not receive a rating warning parents of its content since Goldwyn is not a signatory of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

Araki knows that there are disturbing scenes that will be branded gratuitous and over the top.

One early scene involves the shotgun slaying of a convenience store clerk, whose head flies across the store and lands in a plate of guacamole and chips. The head then talks and vomits.

The dead clerk’s three sons passively witness the entire scene while playing video games.

The young couple and a hitchhiker involved in the incident escape to a hotel. While the couple has sex in the bathroom, the hitchhiker learns from a TV news account that the slain clerk’s wife has flipped out, killing and disemboweling the children, then killing herself. The hitchhiker then masturbates outside the bathroom.

There are more killings, more sex and eventually a sad and extremely violent finale.

“I don’t think of films as a soapbox for some message. And this film is not meant to shock or titillate,” says Araki, who lives in the Hollywood Hills, calls himself a gay filmmaker and is best known for directing “The Living End” and “Totally F---ed Up. “

“But there is a feeling amongst my peers that this is the world we are living in. This film is an expression of the way I and my generation view the world. As a filmmaker I have a problem with films that live in a bubble, trying to pretend everything is OK. It’s not,” he says. “Particularly in America where there is so much killing. For all of its Sturm und Drang , this movie is not just about anger, but about love and romanticism and the struggle for sweet innocence to survive.”

Most of the violent scenes, particularly in the first half of the film, are meant to be surrealistic, he says, “with the characters living in a twisted dream world.”

Ray Price, Goldwyn’s head of marketing and sales, lauded “Doom” as an “incredible piece of art . . . a tale of two star-crossed lovers that is really Generation X’s ‘Last Tango in Paris.’ ” Price says he’s a huge fan of Araki, whom he described as a “talent bristling with creativity.”

It is Price’s job to market the film. “In many ways, ‘Doom’ is like the cinematic equivalent of [the band] Nine Inch Nails. Underneath all of the provocativeness, Gregg is experiencing a lot of the alienation of his generation.

“What you see are three kids reacting to the violence precipitated from the outside world. What I see in the midst of all of this is a love story and in some ways a romantic comedy. If I were rating it, I would give it a PG-13.”

Noting some recent editing changes, Price insists he’ll have no problem marketing what he calls this “porcupine” of a film in light of Dole’s assault on “depravity” in Hollywood films. “This is a gorgeous, ferocious film,” he says, “and I will have no problem taking the heat.”