The film features music by the industrial bands Coil, Chris & Cosey, Psychic TV, Fred Giannelli, KMFDM, and Braindead Soundmachine.

Released amidst the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, the movie positions itself within the public discourses circulating at this time in the United States of America that being HIV-positive is being sentenced to death.

Luke brings a sense of freedom to this pair's shared newfound health status which is seen through the "provocative images of bareback gay sex, blowjobs behind the steering wheel, S&M, and related phenomena not frequently seen up to that point in U.S cinema.

Without a doubt, these messages all come in response to the movie's production in the United States political context where gay men were being bashed and shamed for starting the AIDS epidemic.

By means of their car, they "aren’t distracted by preachy morality, but are guided by a carpe diem philosophy in their nihilistic situation where they wield guns, extinguish their enemies, hit the road, and have unsafe sex.

'"[4] "Cinematic violence, for Araki, is used to combat the widespread labelling of people with AIDS as parasitic victims, an association that was 'emphatically rejected' by both support groups and political activists throughout the epidemic.

In fact, Gregg Araki brings this idea as he "makes use of a specific form of disembodied, withdrawn violence in order to disassociate this act from the connotations of contagion attached to queer bodies throughout popular historical discourse.

"[5] In one scene, Araki's conscious choice of cinematography and focus on the men being shot by Luke's gun even works to "emphasize the source of violence as being external to the body of the person with AIDS.

"[5] In short, The Living End's representations of violence seek to deconstruct the preconceived ideas that AIDS, its epidemic, and death tolls, are uniquely linked to gay men.

[12] Janet Maslin of The New York Times found The Living End to be "a candid, freewheeling road movie" with "the power of honesty and originality, as well as the weight of legitimate frustration.

[13] Conversely, Rita Kempley for The Washington Post called the film pretentious and Araki a "cinematic poseur" along the lines of Jean-Luc Godard and Andy Warhol.

[14] Rolling Stone's Peter Travers found The Living End a "savagely funny, sexy and grieving cry" made more heart-rending by "Hollywood's gutless fear of AIDS movies".