inmate profile: C. Thomas Howell

One of the most recognizable stars in The Asylum's galaxy is C. Thomas Howell, who rose to fame in the early 1980's thanks to pivotal roles in films such as The Outsiders, E.T. and Red Dawn. And who could possibly forget his star-making turn in the delightfully racist Soul Man? Truthfully, that's where the rise leveled off, but C. Thomas kept plowing ahead, putting close to 100 movies under his belt over the last two decades, all over the spectrum: big-budget Hollywood pics, TV movies, and direct-to-video horror, drama, action, sci-fi and adventure flicks.

Then he entered The Asylum.

In five years C. Thomas has made five films with The Asylum - War of the Worlds, The Da Vinci Treasure, War of the Worlds 2, The Day the Earth Stopped and The Land That Time Forgot - the last three of which he directed. That's right! C. Thomas is not only acting for The Asylum, he's directing! Very capably, I might add.

Though there's nothing lined up in the immediate future between C. Thomas and The Asylum, the big man's keeping himself plenty busy, as usual, with six films in various stages of production at the moment, the most interesting of which seems to be Camel Spiders, about these things.

One can only hope that if MGM ever gets their shit together or sold, the Red Dawn remake will be released and The Asylum can mockbust that (Crimson Dusk? Maroon Twilight? Fuchsia Noon?), with C. Thomas as the small-town sheriff who rallies his citizens to fight back against the invading North Koreans. Stranger things have happened. Like the aforementioned Soul Man.

C. Thomas Howell, consider yourself saluted.