inmate profile: Arielle Brachfeld

T-minus two weeks until The Haunting of Whaley House drops on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD, and given that the advance copies at Comic Con sold out fast, seems like there's a mighty fine film headed our way. So here at Committed we continue to educate and inform you about the creative talents behind this impending ghostly greatness; already we've profiled writer/director Jose Prendes and actors Stephanie Greco and Alex Arleo. Today we feature actress Arielle Brachfeld.

Ms. Brachfeld began acting professionally in 2005 with a couple of shorts that lead to a role in the indie comedic homage, Return of the Ghostbusters. From there the parts came rolling in, including The House That Jack Built alongside Joe Mantegna and Gail O'Grady, the horror anthology Evil Deeds 2, indie comedy/horror Blood Effects, and Love, Gloria, with Asylum-alum Heather McComb (2012: Supernova). 

In addition to her work in Whaley House - which from the picture below looks pretty pivotal, not to mention blood-curdling - Ms. Brachfeld has several other projects in various stages of development: InSpectres, a comedy; Live-In Fear, a supernatural adventure flick; The Obsession, a drama alongside yet another Asylum-alum, Dominique Swain (Nazis at the Center of the Earth); and Love: As You Like It, "a sexy, bold reimagining of Shakespeare's romantic comedy..." Can't got wrong with that, right?

Until then, check out Arielle Brachfeld's next performance in The Asylum's The Haunting on Whaley House, out July 31st.

Creature Feature: god

That's right, I'm doing a creature feature on god, or God, however you choose to spell it. Makes sense, after all, as he (or she, I suppose) has been the force to reckon with in no less than six Asylum films: Countdown: Jerusalem, The Apocalypse, Meteor Apocalypse, 2012 Doomsday, 2012 Supernova and Sunday School Musical. Now, obviously, one of these films is not like the others, and to call god the "villain" in Sunday School Musical would be a gross exaggeration and a scoch blasphemous, but there's no doubt that in the other five, he's chock-full of that Old Testament piss and vinegar than made humanity bow at his feet and call him Daddy.

In all of these films the pitch is pretty much the same: g(G)od is pissed at/fed-up with/testing the faith of humanity and so sends a plague of natural disasters including earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, droughts, crazy storms and even barrages of meteors. This, as I alluded to above, is that old-school god of wrath and vengeance, all my-way-or-the-highway, the kind of guy who would wipe out an entire universe just to prove a point, the kind of dude who told Abraham to kill his son as a gesture of faith and then stopped him just before he did, that kind of shit. Sure, he's still cool to his faithful - in Countdown: Jerusalem in particular, he does the whole Rapture thing where he plucks the souls of the righteous before unleashing Hell upon the rest of us wicked - but for those who have forgotten, forsaken or insulted him, there will be no mercy. 

Perhaps I'm painting too dour a picture of the presence of god in these films. After all, these films are meant to be faith-affirming, and sure, they use a scare tactic or two to get you there, but that is absolutely nothing new in religion. But in the end, in each of these films, the same god who is seen as angered and thus responsible for global cataclysm is always somehow appeased or satisfied and sees or re-sees the good in humanity and gives us one more chance to make a go of this crazy gift called Life.Thus is the dichotomy of god, and the element that makes him such an interesting character (in Asylum films, I mean, not in, you know, The Bible): he loves us enough to destroy us. That's some heavy shit, y'all.

No doubt we haven't seen the last of god. With 2012 right around the corner, he's sure to catch some flack in a disaster flick here or there, and if not, he can always extend a helping hand in a demon-plagued horror film or two, or even lend a benevolent ear in a faith-based family drama. That's the nice thing - or rather, one of the nice things, I guess - about being god: you're good at everything.

inmate profile: Anthony Fankhauser

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observation notes: 2012 Supernova

So, it's been brought to my attention via comments, personal emails and Facebook posts that perhaps in these observation notes, in my zeal to communicate my enthusiasm for Asylum productions, I'm giving away a bit too much in regards to plot details, thus doing the opposite of my primary directive and spoiling a thing or two. As I've said before, the ultimate point of these notes, indeed this blog, is to spark your interest, whet your appetite, and make you want to see the daggum movies. As such, I will try to restrain myself a little more in the future, restrict my synopses from now on to no more than a mere paragraph of general description, focusing my efforts instead on praising the technical and creative aspects of the films. Funny, I think, maybe you won't, that I choose to start this with a film I didn't particularly care for. Either way, here we go:

This is the second of The Asylum's 2012-prefixed films - sandwiched between 2008's 2012: Doomsday and next year's 2012: Ice Age - and, as the title indicates, concerns impending oblivion courtesy of an astronomical anomalous catastrophe: seems a star in a neighboring galaxy goes ape-shit unstable and explodes, "supernova" as the kids call it, and unleashes a deadly burst of space-radiation hurtling towards Earth, where it will eradicate every living thing on the planet; it is up to a brilliant if rebellious astrophysicist (Brian Krause) to compose a radical plan that can save all of mankind from imminent extinction. That plan? Well, that's one of the things on which I'm censoring myself, but rest assured I didn't choose the adjective "radical" haphazardly. Add to this a subplot - one typical in Asylum films; see Mega Fault, Meteor Apocalypse, Titanic II - in which said astrophysicist's family is in constant peril from the first ripples of destruction, and the result is a moderately intense - if overly melodramatic - disaster flick roughly on par with other direct-to-DVD offerings in the genre.

I'm not known to be one who minces words, so I won't start here: this isn't the greatest story, and the dialog is even not-greater. This film, in fact, is a pretty good example of a stellar - pardon the pun - concept that crashed and burned upon execution. This story was too rote, the characters weren't near developed enough - despite admirable turns by the principle cast - and the conclusion kinda sucked. That said, the FX were pretty cool, startlingly cool, in fact, as though lifted from another movie and dropped into this one, a credit to both the visual effects department and director Anthony Fankhauser (8213 Gacy House), the latter of whom makes the best of a mediocre situation by depicting the chaos as sufficiently chaotic and peril palpable. My only critique of the direction would be the repetitive use of the same FX clips, but, given what the budget of such a film was bound to be, I suspect this isn't a short-coming of direction but rather an economic necessity, so, no harm no foul.

As for performances, I like Brian Krause. I can't put my finger on just why, I just always relate to him. Whether it's in this or other genre work - from the classic Sleepwalkers to the more-recent Beyond Loch Ness and Warbirds - there's just something really normal about this guy, in a good way, something we can all empathize with. Given that, I actually liked him in this: intense, focused, gruff, desperate but strong. The Asylum should have him back soon.

The lovely Heather McComb("The Event," "Prison Break," non-Asylum Shark Swarm) as the beleagured wife seeking protection against unimaginable perils, is appropriately frazzled without over-acting, and manages a grace under fire that is admirable and indeed noteworthy. Actress Najarra Townsend (hella shorts) rounds out the cast, showing a modicum of promise in her role, holding her own with the more accomplished actors.

This - global annihilation via extraterrestrial masses - isn't a new concept to either cinema in general (Armageddon, Deep Impact) or The Asylum (2012 Doomsday, Meteor Apocalypse) and while this is far and away not the finest entry in either category, it is a moderately entertaining 85 minutes, thanks to neat-o FX and plausible performances. But, truthfully, in a choice between this film and the actual apocalypse, it's kind of a toss up.

Sorry, they can't all be positive.

observation notes: 8213 Gacy House

This is how much I love you, "you" being The Asylum, and my faithful readers: I'm not the biggest fan of ghost stories, mostly because I'm a big believer in ghosts, and seeing that shit onscreen, especially when it's portrayed realistically, that just freaks my ass out. I'm also not a big fan of clowns, especially those who are actually evil. So then you can imagine something like 8213 Gacy House - the latest offering from the fine folks at The Asylum, available on DVD this Tuesday, September 28th - a film built around "crime scene footage" of a group of paranormal investigators that never escaped said house alive, you can imagine how much I did not want to watch this movie, if only for the sake of my own sleep. But watch it I did, for all our sakes, and it scared the shit out of me, for real; I had to drink copious, copious amounts of brown liquor to dull my imagination into unconsciousness. 

How much is that clowny in the window?

The concept, like those of most all quality, super -scary films, is simple enough: notorious American serial killer John Wayne Gacy - the fat one who dressed up like a clown - was convicted of killing 33 young boys, 26 of whom were found buried in the crawl space of his Chicago home, and another three planted out back in the yard. The original house was destroyed during the investigation, and Gacy himself followed a few years later by lethal injection, but you gotta figure - if you're the sort who believes in ghosts, and believes that on occasion they can cling to a place in this world if it is a place they have a great emotional connection to, like, say, it's where they did all their sweet, sweet killing - this place is as haunted as it gets. That's what the team of investigators in this "documentary" figure, at least, and so they go to the new house on the old site with the intention of spending one night inside and gathering all the evidence they can that the spirit of John Wayne Gacy still clings to this ground. Why? I don't know, seems like either way, find him or not, you lose. But as the poster tells you, they find the motherfucker. And how.

This one's pretty much all spoilers from the moment they get inside the house, so I'll be general: this is a truly frightening, spine-curling and nail-gnawing film. I was afraid to leave to go to the bathroom, and as a result almost had the piss scared out of me every three or four minutes. The found-footage effect was an absolute advantage, as I usually think it is, especially in this genre, and The Asylum's commitment to the footage's authenticity - that is, clinging to the ruse that this is real and not scripted, as they did in Monster and Paranormal Entity - is steadfast and does indeed lend a layer of discomfort. Inevitably there will be comparisons to Paranormal Activity, though as noted above, The Asylum has already tied-in to that film, and really, if you're going to slag them off for ripping on the found-footage craze, be prepared to do it a lot more in the coming year, and to names like J.J. Abrams. 

This film conjures scares all its own, thanks to crafty, well-paced direction by Anthony Fankhauser (2012 Supernova) and shall we say, compelling performances from all of the investigators, notably Asylum newcomers Jim Lewis, Matthew Temple, Sylvia Panacione and Brett A. Newton.

Blood, gore, zombies, vampires, wolves and witches, serial killers, stalkers, satanists, cults; these things (onscreen) don't scare me. Ghosts, however, scare the bejesus out of me, so long as it's done right. Therefore, if my level of fear when watching a ghost movie is any indication as to the quality of the movie in question, then 8213 Gacy House is the scariest ghost story I've seen since The Blair Witch Project, and that includes Paranormal Activity (which I thought was mostly just shocking, not scary).

As I said, this Tuesday, September 28th, run to your local, independent video store to rent your copy.

whipsers from another cell: News From Within The Asylum

8213 Gacy House Comes to DVD Tuesday, September 28

Of the 33 people famed serial killer John Wayne Gacy is credited with having killed, 26 were found in the crawl space of his Chicago home, and another three were buried in the backyard. If you're the sort who believes in injured spirits attaching themselves to the physical plane where they suffered the most, then the Gacy House is bound to be haunted as a motherfucker. The house itself was destroyed during the exhumations, but assuming someone rebuilt in the same location, it would be a Mecca of sorts to a paranormal investigator. Well, The Asylum has assumed it for you. Shot mockumentary style like Monster or The Blair Witch Project, Gacy House supposes a team of ghost hunters have come to spend the night in this infamous locale, with truly horrifying and gruesome results.

Gacy House is directed by longtime Asylum producer Anthony Fankhauser, who previously wrote and directed 2012 Supernova. Asylum virgins Jim Lewis and Matthew Temple anchor the cast, with Michael Gaglio (MSvC, Titanic II, 2010 Moby-Dick), and a few other fresh faces bringing the support.

Gacy House, as mentioned, drops on DVD Tuesday, September 28th. Look for my review a few days before.


Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus Enters Post-Production

In prior posts over the last week I've already published behind-the-scenes photos and production stills of the highly-anticipated Mega Shark sequel, bowing December 21st. But the underlying thread between these posts that I may not have emphasized strongly enough is that the film is now in post-production, meaning principal photography has wrapped and now it's all about editing and effects. No doubt at this very moment the magical elves at Tiny Juggernaut are hard at work crafting some bitchin' shark-pluck kill scene to trump the bungee-cord Sharktopus kill. In the weeks to come, we can expect poster art, maybe a teaser, maybe even a full-blown trailer. Until then, we can only do the most difficult thing known to man: we wait.