The Best Cult Movie of the 2000s Has a Forgotten Sequel, And It’s Built on a Massive Plot Hole From the Start

While there are quite a few films that achieve cult status, there are few quite like Donnie Darko. Released on October 26, 2001, the Jake Gyllenhaal starring film was writer-director Richard Kelly’s debut feature and while the strange, twisty psychological thriller about a troubled teen escapes a death by freak accident due to sleepwalking only to start having visions of a weird rabbit costume clad figure telling him the world will end in 28 days failed at the box office, it’s only grown in popularity and esteem over the years. It should be no surprise then that the movie actually got a sequel — but it’s one that no one really remembers, the original Kelly himself has disavowed, and was built on a massive plot hole right from the start.

Starring the late Daveigh Chase, S. Darko opened in theaters on May 12, 2009, but coming eight years after Donnie Darko was the least of the sequel’s problems. The film, which follows Donnie’s younger sister Samantha in the years after Donnie’s death as she struggles with her brother’s death, starts sleepwalking and finds herself on her own strange, unsettling journey. Time travel is a big part of S. Darko, with Samantha thrust into a situation similar to what Donnie went through following a meteorite crash near the town she and her friend’s car breaks down in. All of that would be well and good except it’s all built on a major error: Samatha has something in her possession that she simply cannot have if S. Darko had paid any attention to the first film.

Of All of S. Darko’s Plot Holes, This One Is Probably the Biggest

In S. Darko, Samantha has a physical copy of The Philosophy of Time Travel in her backpack. She also has subconscious knowledge of both Frank (the guy in the rabbit costume) and time travel. And while all three of those things are an issue, it’s the book specifically that is a huge plot hole. You see, at the end of Donnie Darko, Donnie dies, the jet engine he avoided being crushed by originally landing on him in his bed. This death resets the timeline, erasing the events of the film and ultimately restoring the book to its owner in the original timeline, the science teacher. There is no reason why Samantha would have the book. Additionally, Frank would also never appear because the events of Donnie Darko are unwound which means that everything that S. Darko sits on is just, well, wrong.

This is fundamentally a really bad place to start the sequel. What it does is takes the most recognizable aesthetics of Donnie Darko and tries to use that to link two very different stories. In doing so, S. Darko totally disregards everything that made Donnie Darko interesting and fails to tell a good story of its own. And to be clear, there could have been a good story in following Samantha. The death of her brother would have been a traumatic event that would have significantly shaped her life. That alone would have given Samantha a rich story to tell even if you removed time travel and sci-fi elements from it. But the movie doesn’t follow that path. Instead, it tries to cosplay the original film without fully understanding what it’s trying to replicate. And it’s all downhill from there.

Donnie Darko Is Finally Going to Get a Proper Sequel Later This Year

While the plot hole ridden S. Darko is maddening for Donnie Darko fans and all but ignored by everyone else, there is a bit of good news. There will at last be a proper sequel to the first film later this year, just not in the format most fans are expecting. Kelly announced last month that he is actually releasing an 800-page book, The Philosophy of Time Travel. We don’t yet have all the details about the book, but it will give readers a look at how Donnie’s parents have both been documenting what is happening to them as well as why their son died and the separate detective missions they go on to find out what happened and why. The book will notably completely ignore S. Darko. Given how S. Darko largely ignored Donnie Darko itself, that’s probably a good thing.