The Asylum on SyFy December/January

With the shortage of video stores in our country at present, locating older Asylum titles on DVD without buying them can be kinda tricky. Fortunately for us, we have the SyFy network, which is constantly scheduling one Asylum flick or another, including many of the studio's staples, those older films that helped pave the way for the triumphant productions they're unleashing these days. Below, please find a schedule of Asylum movies on SyFy for the rest of this month, and next month, including an all-Asylum afternoon triple feature on January 22nd, a Sunday. This isn't a post I make often, and if ever you're curious as to what if any Asylum films will be gracing the small screen soon, jump over to The Asylum's website, where they always have a schedule up on the right side of their homepage. All times are Eastern Standard. Happy viewing!

Titanic II   Thurs, 12/15, 3am

100 Feet   Thurs./Fri. 12/29&30 5pm/3am


2012: Supernova   Sat., 1/14, 9am

100 Feet   Tues., 1.17, 11am

Journey to the Center of the Earth   Sun., 1/22, 1pm


100 Million BC   Sun., 1/22, 3pm


The Land That Time Forgot   Sun., 1/22, 5pm


100 Million BC   Mon., 1/23, 12am


Princess of Mars   Thurs., 1/26, 3am


Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus   Fri./Sat., 1/27&28, 2pm/3am


MegaFault   Sat., 1/28, 1pm

From The Asylum Library: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Every now and again, as is true of most motion picture studios, The Asylum will look toward the world of letters for inspiration. The public domain offers an array of spectacular, action-packed, thrilling, and - most importantly - free works ripe for the updating. In this occasional column, I'll take a look at the literary giants from which The Asylum has borrowed. Today, we look at the man responsible for two Asylum films to date, but perhaps he's best known as the creator of that crazy vine-swinging white dude in the jungle, Tarzan; Mr. Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Notice how the parrot"s mean-mugging the camera?

Mr. Burroughs, a native Chicagoan, was born ten years after the end of the Civil War to a retired Union Colonel and his wife. For the first part of his life it seemed E.R. was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, attending several military academies as a child and adolescent. But when it came time to take the entrance exam to West Point, old E.R. didn't cut the mustard, and failed the exam. This lead him to join the military as an enlisted man, but this too was to be a brief acceptance: shortly after, he was diagnosed with a heart condition that made him ineligible for service. So to the private sector E.R. was cast.


What followed were years of aimlessness and low-paying jobs, a passionless existence for E.R. but for the introduction and acquisition of one Emma Centennia Hulbert as his wife. 

But then one night, while working as a pencil sharpener - yep, that used to be a job - E.R. discovered the Pulp Magazines and their seedy little stories inside. Though not impressed with the material, E.R. was taken by how popular they were, giving him one of the greatest reasons ever for deciding to become a writer:

"...[I knew that] if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines."

Now, taken by itself, this is a pretty cocky statement. But when you realize that's exactly what old E.R. proceeded to do, it's kinda baller. 

Over the next 40 years, E.R. would write more than 80 novels and short stories, creating some of the finest and most-enduring literature of the 20th Century across a variety of genres: adventures series like "Tarzan," sci-fi series like the "John Carter" or "Pellucidar" novels, western and historical novels, etc. Along with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.R. Haggard, the man practically invented - certainly exemplified - the adventure novel. So influential was he, in fact, that there's a freaking crater on Mars named for the dude. A crater. On Mars.


As for E.R. and The Asylum, to date they have adapted two of his novels, both in 2009: Mark Atkins' adaptation of Princess of Mars (also the inspiration for James Cameron's Avatar as well as the upcoming John Carter of Mars, the live-action directorial debut of Andrew Stanton, writer/director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E), and the C. Thomas Howell-helmer The Land That Time Forgot. 


In regards to these films, or rather their source materials, there are sequels to both: there are 11 novels in the "Barsoom" series, of which Princess of Mars is the first, and The Land That Time Forgot is the first part of what Burroughs called his "Caspak Trilogy," followed therefore by two sequels, The People That Time Forgot and Out of Time's Abyss. So somebody get Antonio Sabato Jr. oiled up and lasso C. Thomas Howell back to the helm, cuz these are movies just waiting to be made, folks!


So much more than just the man who gave us Tarzan, the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs is thrilling in a way comparable novels written today can't be; they come with a sense of true exploration, the genuine wonder that comes from living in a world you can't entirely know, of there still being secrets to parts of your very planet - a foreign concept to most of us today.


Great for kids, thrilling still to adults, download you some free ERB today. God bless public domain!

Observation Notes Catch-Up: Sci-Fi

I know not all my readers have been with me from the beginning, and I also know given the amount of postings I've made in such a short span of time, things can get lost in the shuffle. I also know that I'm not the best at tagging uniformly, so there might be a few things, specifically Observation Notes, that go unread. As such, periodically I like to remind you - with links! - of the films I've reviewed, and I think a good way of grouping these is by genre. So here, for your catching-up or even revisiting pleasure, are the Sci-Fi films produced by The Asylum that I've reviewed thus far (please note "creature feature" is a separate designation from sci-fi, so that list will come later), along with links to the original posts. Enjoy!

 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea 
 starring Lorenzo Lamas
 based on a novel by Jules Verne
 screenplay by Eric Forsberg
 directed by Gabriel Bologna

100 Million B.C.
starring Michael Gross, Christopher Atkins & Greg Evigan
screenplay by Paul Bales
directed by Louis Myman

 

2012: Doomsday
screenplay by Nick Everhart
directed by Nick Everhart

I Am Omega
based on a story by Richard Matheson
screenplay by Geoff Meed
directed by Griff Furst



 

Invasion of the Pod People
screenplay by Leigh Scott
directed by Justin Jones

Alien vs. Hunter
screenplay by David Michael Latt
directed by Scott Harper

Journey to the Center of the Earth
based on the novel by Jules Verne
screenplay by Steve Bevilacqua and Scott Wheeler
directed by Scott Wheeler and Davey Jones




 

The Land That Time Forgot
based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs
written by Darren Dalton
directed by C. Thomas Howell

War of the Worlds 
based on the novel by H.G. Wells
screenplay by David Michael Latt & Carlos De Los Rios
directed by David Michael Latt

War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave
suggested by a novel by H.G. Wells
story by Steve Bevilacqua
screenplay by Karen Forsberg
directed by C. Thomas Howell

977's Unsolicited Yet Copyrighted Pitch #5: THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT

So when last we saw C. Thomas Howell, he had valiantly sacrificed his own escape for the sake of others', and remained on the mysterious island out-of-time populated with prehistoric terrors and most inhospitable natives. He had his wife with him, and she was pregnant. You just knew there was a sequel in this, and sure enough, there is. And it's already plotted!

Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote the original novel "The Land That Time Forgot," also conceived a sequel, "The People That Time Forgot" (should be "who," I think) that has actually been filmed once before, as a sequel to the Doug McClure-starrer filmed in the 70's by American International Pictures. The story of the sequel concerns a rescue mission staged years later by friends of he who was left behind. That's the story I'd steal for The Asylum's sequel.


In my envisioning, twenty years have passed since C. Thomas and his budding family were left on the island. Back in the real world, Timothy Bottoms' character has dedicated his life to trying to get back, but when our film starts, he's dead, recently, and his son has taken up the mantle, desperate to make his father's life not have been in vain. On his team he has his girlfriend - a ethnologist/anthropologist/photographer - as well as a mercenary unit of three lead by a former Special Forces operative (if I have my druthers, the incomparable Geoff Meed). Together they're working the last clues Bottoms left before dying, and sure enough, it finds/triggers the wormhole and through time they go, only to come to offshore of the same said mysterious island.

Their initial assessment of the island is pretty much the same as everybody else's - holy shit, those are dinosaurs! After a couple close scrapes with the thunder lizards, the team begins making its way into the interior, searching for clues of CTH & Family's existence. On this hunt they stumble upon a lurid scene: a scantily-clad native girl about to be summarily executed for some unknown crime by a few men of her tribe. The mercenaries easily dispose of this crew, and the grateful native girl agrees to help them find their friend, as she knows of him.

Seems after everyone else left, C. Tom figured the only way to survive was to make peace with the natives. In exchange for teaching them agricultural, recreational and political skills, they let he and his wife live, let their baby - a daughter - come into this strange world. All was well for a period. Then the island brought others, another, more hostile tribal force, who discovered the power of the island to move people through time, and the peace was shattered, conflict broke out, and in the end it was this newer tribe who won, killing all the native men and taking all the women and children as brides and slaves. As for C. Tom, rumor has it that he escaped, disappeared into the jungle, and has not been seen since. What of his wife? She was killed refusing to be taken from him, murdered before his helpless eyes. The child? The native girl looks away uncomfortably, says that child is dead too. Why did the tribesmen want to kill her (the native girl)? Because she cannot have children, and is therefore worthless to them, just another mouth to feed.

She leads them deeper into the interior where they face more tribulations in the form of dinosaurs on land, sea and air, and increasing contact with the hostile natives who are desperate to locate and usurp the island's power for their own. As they get closer to an answer, stranger things begin to happen, people begin to appear and disappear, Nazis, Huns, WWI soldiers, Crusaders - distressed, aggressive, out-of-time passengers plucked here one second then whisked away the next. One of their own steps through a hidden wormhole and is never seen again. 

At a climactic point our team finds themselves in a certain-death situation, which is when an aged and haggard but alive C. Tom reveals himself and saves the day then leads them to his secret, the island's secret, the source of it's power (I realize I'm borrowing from LOST here, if anyone was actually wondering.).


I've decided to go full-spoiler here, because, you know, nobody's actually reading these things, right?

The gist of it is this: this lair of CTH's, it's all light and portals to different places, different times. It's the island that controls time, or rather, this island is the nexus of all times, under its own control, and CTH has taken on the role of guardian, seeking to keep this place from falling into the wrong hands, like the hostiles', who he loathes beyond description for killing his wife. It's true that he could have left the island, this time, whenever he wanted, ridden the time-waves through the centuries, going whenever he wanted, but his daughter was here (she's now revealed to be the native girl; he tried to rescue her but it was impossible), and besides, without his wife, the love of his life, where (when) was he going to go? Nothing in the world was going to make him happy again, so he opted to stick around, hermit it up here, watching all time at once but never interfering, never trying to go back to before they were here, because time, once altered, ripples, and who knows what would have happened? Chaos effect, butterflies and tsunamis, all that. He can, however, send our team home with everything they need: Bottoms' boy with his promise to dad fulfilled, the anthro-gf with incredible evidence, the mercenary captain with a new lady-love - the native girl/CTH's daughter. She wants to go back to the world with them, and CTH wants her to go. But he will stay behind, as, like he said, there's nothing out there in the world for him anymore. Couple of sappy goodbyes and presto, the team is back in the future, their present, and that's that.

Could be, though, at some distant point in the future, like say when medical advances make it so that the native girl and the mercenary can conceive, and give birth to a child, that they publicly christen, it could be that in the back of the church an old man in the shadows smiles in a familiar fashion before blinking out of sight in a wink of light. 

You always leave room for another sequel...


I'm just sayin'.

observation notes: The Land That Time Forgot

Though there are some that it would tell you this is a tie-in to the Will Ferrell debacle Land of the Lost, in truth it's another stand-alone literary adaptation, based on the novel of the same name by "Tarzan" creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, who The Asylum has adapted before for their Avatar tie-in, Princess of Mars. This novel has also been adapted before, but that was thirty-five years ago, and in that time there's been a significant development in the world of film directing that significantly changes the game and makes it unfair, even rude, to attempt to compare the two; because as good as the Samuel Z. Arkoff-original was, The Asylum has something Arkoff did not - C. Thomas Howell, acting and directing.

The story starts pretty much like "Gilligan's Island:" a small party on a brief ocean tour gets caught up in foul weather that somehow turns them around and strands them on an uncharted island on the other side of a time-rift (this last bit isn't like "Gilligan's Island"). Ashore, however, it's more dangerous than dead-adrift at sea, thanks to the island's prehistoric reptilian inhabitants - a.k.a. dinosaurs - who seem especially eager for the fresh food supply. Some cast members freak out, some are lost as a result, and ultimately, once given a moment to put the pieces together, those who remain of our party figure out that they're quite literally out-of-time. As though this inconceivable threat wasn't enough, C. Tom's trophy wife, who was too chicken to leave the boat so stayed to watch the boat, is gone when the others return to the beach. So is the boat. Thus their mission becomes two-part, survival and recovery, though admittedly most cast members seem far more concerned with the former than the latter.


A day or so into this and our party comes across - rather, he comes across them - a pilot with an unfortunate accessory who's also been stranded on the island, but for a year, and not one that coincides with their years (it's tricky, I'll admit, and kind of confusing, but only depending on how much you've had to drink.). In conversation it comes up that this bloke has seen a boat in the last day or so, and by his description, it's their boat, the boat they've been looking for, the boat C. Tom's arm-candy was last seen lallygagging about. On the way they stop over at the pilot's place, a rather lovely little cave stocked with artifacts and remnants from centuries' worth of stranded sailors, including Conrad, an elderly man claiming to be the skipper of a well-known vessel that disappeared 55 years ago, though Conrad's only been stranded three years (duh-duh-dummmmmmmmm).

As the plot thickens, the journey toward our party's boat continues, as does the terrorizing and killing by prehistoria. It's not a spoiler to say they find their boat, but fuck that, they find something better: a Russian sub. Only problem is, it comes with a lot of fit Russian soldiers, who also happen to have custody of C. Tom's sheets-treat. The rest, however, is spoilers, so I'll stop.


C. Thomas Howell the actor (War of the Worlds, The Da Vinci Treasure), as the elder vacationer, is frenetically in charge once the shit hits the fan, panicked but powerful, an unsteady stalwart a.k.a. a normal hero, not a scientist or a soldier or anything that especially equips him to handle this trauma; he's just a guy trying to stop himself from losing his shit after becoming shipwrecked on the other side of a time-rift on an uncharted island populated by ravenous dinosaurs and Nazis, who have custody of his wife. All this considered, I'd say he holds it together pretty good. As a director (War of the Worlds 2, The Day The Earth Stopped), he's at the top of his game, crafting a slick, concise sci-fi thriller.

Timothy Bottoms (non-Asylum film The Last Picture Show and "That's My Bush") is the grizzled sea captain, a burnt-out Jimmy Buffet, totally bummed to be stranded but, you know, dealing with it. It's this slavish concern, this borderline dementia that gives him a childlike wonder in the face of such horror, dangerously aloof, which makes him the film's most lovable character. 

And then there's Lindsey McKeon (Airline Disaster) as the lady-friend in the other couple, young and tightly-clad but stronger than your usual hottie-in-distress, fiercely sexy and brashly independent, real, palpable, the kind of girl you want with you in a crisis, or, you know, really anywhere: cute, capable, skeptically concerned and charismatic. Oh, and did I mention she's drop dead gorgeous? That helps. My only complaint is that her role should have been bigger.

Other acting standouts include Darren Dalton (The Day the Earth Stopped, War of the Worlds 2 [he must be a buddy of C. Tom's, because besides these films, which, like this one, Dalton wrote, he's also in a movie with C. Tom called The Jailhouse, which also coincidentally, or not, co-stars Lindsey McKeon. I'll be watching that soon and getting back to you with more.]), David Stevens, who plays the Simon Pegg-esque pilot and Patrick Gorman in the role of "Conrad."

I had a lot of fun with this one: the FX are bitchin' from dinos to insects, not drop-dead authentic but playfully believable. The story takes a couple nice turns in keeping with The Asylum's inventive narrative blending, and best of all, let's its action rely not on bloodletting, but on the tension of survival, a plot rich with highs and lows, peril and excitement. Bottom line? Incredible action, a great script, reserved, poignant performances and awesome FX make this one of the most thrilling films The Asylum has produced yet, and easily one of their most enjoyable.

Now if only I can convince them on my pitch for a sequel, The People That Time Forgot...

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.