References to Hell edited out of Doom movie

A REPORT from the set of the Doom movie has unveiled some fantastic re-writes and re-characterisations.

The movie project, based on the ubiquitous video game, is currently being filmed in Prague. Eastern Europe has become a hot-bed of low budget horror movie making in recent years, due to the activities of the SciFi channel, who have their Saturday night monster-flicks filmed there.

The report says that screenwriter, Dave Callaham, was keen to keep the atmosphere of the game intact whilst making some 'necessary' story changes. The changes? Well, Doom won't be set on Mars. The monsters have nothing to do with Hell. Space marines are SWAT teams. The monsters will, apparently, be people mututated by a secret virus.

Gosh, how original. Have they seen Resident Evil?

The report is the latest in a series that don't exactly lend the movie credit. The director recently hired to take over the project, Andrzej Bartkowiak, has such high-quality films as Species and Dante's Peak in his back-catalogue.

The lack of any kind of 'Hell' connection is something of a kicker. Doom 2 was subtitled 'Hell on Earth', and the key plot point of Doom 3 is that the monsters in-game are Hellspawn, hence the multiple pentograms and such vile creations as dead-baby-cherub-wasp combinations. A 'necessary' change, or a neat way to avoid right-wing criticism? We wonder.

The Doom movie is due out some time in 2005. µ