SHARK WEEK on DVD Today

If it's Tuesday, this must be where I tell you about the latest Asylum release streeting today on DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD: this time it's Shark Week, respectfully described as Saw meets Jaws, which is hook enough for me.

The film, which had its World Premiere earlier this month on the prestigious SyFy Channel, stars Patrick Bergin as a maniacal shark aficionado who kidnaps seven unwitting strangers and forces them through a gauntlet of increasingly more dangerous shark species. Yancy Butler is his femme fatale. Christopher Ray directed it, based on a script I, H. Perry Horton, had a hand in. Guaranteed you won't soon forget this film, so get out there, get your hands on it, and start making memories.

Watch SHARK WEEK on SyFy Tomorrow Night!

Just a reminder - as though you needed another one - that tomorrow night, the next movie from The Asylum, and my third script for the studio, Shark Week, makes its World Premiere on SyFy at 9 p.m. If you like sharks all sizes, devious madmen with a penchant for sick games, femme fatales, true-hearted protagonists or even just lots of blood, this one if definitely up your alley. If you're on the Twitter, there's a live tweet-a-thon going on during the East Coast premiere that will include director Christopher Olen Ray and several members of the cast and crew. Hash tag Shark Week and all that. I myself will be watching the West Coast premiere later that night, the same way I watch all my scripts for the first time: under a blanket in a dark, locked room, covered in flop sweats, before the scattered empties of cheap wine coolers. 

Shark Week. Saturday night, 9 o'clock. SyFy. Tell everyone you know to tell everyone they know. Please and thank you.

inmate profiles: Patrick Bergin & Yancy Butler

With only a few days before Shark Week makes its World Premiere on Syfy - this Saturday night, 9 p.m. - it's high time we take a closer look at the actors who bring the film to life. And who better to start with than our two leads, Patrick Bergin and Yancy Butler? Ladies first:

Yancy Butler was born and raised in American Bohemian paradise, Greenwich Village in New York City. She began studying acting in her early teens, and made her debut in her early 20s on an episode of Law & Order, which got the attention of network execs who quickly signed her to their new sci-fi show Mann & Machine in which she played, and I'm quoting, a "voluptuous robot partner" to a brash cop. The series lasted only nine episodes, but a star was born. 

Once she invigorated the big screen in John Woo's Hard Target opposite JCVD, Ms. Butler's status as a sexy tough gal was cemented. From there she went on to star in such movies as Drop Zone with Wesley Snipes, Fast Money, Ravager, Doomsday Man, Striking Range with Lou Diamond Phillips, and more recently Kick-Ass with Nicholas Cage and both Lake Placid 3 & 4. And of course there's her work in television, which included Brooklyn South, a gritty cop show spearheaded by David "Deadwood" Milch, and Witchblade, the role for which she is perhaps best remembered. All in all, Ms. Butler has made a steady career for 20 years playing as one badass lady; Shark Week should prove no exception.

Then there's the venerable Patrick Bergin, a son of Dublin and a veritable star on both sides of the Atlantic. After starring on stage in screen abroad, Bergin first came to the attention of American audiences via the Julia-Roberts thriller Sleeping With the Enemy, in which he was the Enemy. His other big U.S. role came opposite Harrison Ford in Patriot Games. 

Beyond these roles, Bergin has appeared in near 100 productions, including roles as Robin Hood, Dr. Frankenstein, St. Patrick, King Arthur, Dracula, Casanova and now Tiburon, maniacal shark fetishist. 

And now the fates have aligned and at last these two talents shall share the same screen as the devious duo behind Shark Week, on SyFy this Saturday night at 9 p.m., then on DVD a few weeks later on August 28th. Written by me, H. Perry Horton, and directed by Chrisopher Olen Ray, for whom the film marks a shark hat trick, after Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and 2 Headed Shark Attack, the latter of which I also penned. Just so you know your in good hands. Or fins.*


*sorry, I had to.

SHARK WEEK Stills and a Teaser Trailer!!!

So much Shark Week info this week, and now we get the cherry on top: production stills and this incredibly awesome teaser trailer: 

Man oh man oh man oh man, I wrote the damn thing and that trailer gave me chills. Check out the finished product this Saturday night at 9 p.m. on SyFy. Patrick Bergin, Yancy Butler, Erin Coker, Josh Allen, Frankie Cullen, Valerie Garcia, Bart Baggett and more star for director Christopher Olen Ray.

 

SHARK WEEK Gets an IMDB Page...Further Cast Details!

With only 10 days to go until the Shark Week premiere on SyFy - Saturday, August 4th, 9p.m. - there's now an IMDB page giving away further cast and crew details. The film, as avid Committed readers (assuming there are any) will know, stars Patrick Bergin (Sleeping With The Enemy, Patriot Games) and Yancy Butler (Witchblade, Lake Placid 3 & 4) as the shark-loving madman and his moll, respectively, who abduct a group of strangers and force them to fight for their lives in a gauntlet of ever-deadlier shark species on a remote island compound; now we know who some of the "contestants" are:

Josh Allen (below, Nazis at the Center of the Earth) and Erin Coker (right, 11/11/11) had already been mentioned on The Asylum's Shark Week page, and while Ms. Coker has not yet been added to the IMDB page, Mr. Allen has, and he's playing "Cal," the primary protagonist. I would assume - not just out of the blue, I wrote the script - that Ms. Coker is playing his female counterpart, but we shall see. New names include Asylum vet Bart Baggett (2010 Moby Dick, Airline Disaster, Air Collision) as "Holt," a cantankerous fellow, Frankie Cullen as, appropriately, "Frankie," and Valerie K. Garcia - the same VKG who works magic as a key makeup artist, with a resume that includes not only this film and several others, but especially the INCREDIBLE ghost-witches from A Haunting in Salem - as "Layla," the wild card of the bunch, if you will.


Shark Week was directed by the great Christopher Olen Ray (Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus, Almighty Thor, 2-Headed Shark Attack) and written by me, H. Perry Horton, and is the perfect way to spend next Saturday night (9 p.m., SyFy)

SHARK WEEK POSTER!!!!!

With less than a month before its World Premiere on SyFy - Saturday, August 4th, 9p.m. - Shark Week, the next creature feature from the fine folks at The Asylum, at long last has a poster, and a pretty rad tagline:

"7 Days, 7 Sharks, 1 Survivor!" Poetry, pure poetry. 

The film - starring Patrick Bergin and Yancy Butler, and directed by the great Chris Olen Ray (2-Headed Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus) off a script written by yours truly, H. Perry Horton (A Haunting in Salem, 2-Headed Shark Attack) - hits DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD on August 28th, and is already available for pre-order on Netflix and Amazon. Until then, or at least until a trailer arrives, I'm just going to be staring at this.

SHARK WEEK Gets a SyFy Premiere!!!!

In a tidbit that rivals the invention of fire as the greatest news ever, SyFy announced their lineup of Saturday Night Movies for the month of August, and they're going to be kicking things off on the 4th at 9 p.m. with the World Premiere of The Asylum's latest shark-saga, Shark Week. This news is especially thrilling to me, as I wrote the daggum thing.

This is not from the movie; it is, however, quite cool.

The film - which stars the venerable Patrick Bergin (Sleeping with the Enemy, Patriot Games) and the versatile Yancy Butler (Witchblade, Lake Placid 3 & 4) - is directed by Christopher Olen-Ray, and marks his third shark film for the studio, behind Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus  and 2-Headed Shark Attack, which I also had the honor of scripting. No poster, production stills, trailer or additional casting has been made public as of yet, but you better believe I'm refreshing various web pages every three or four minutes, all day long, just waiting. As soon as this stuff pops up, I'm gonna post the hell out of it.

To call this a happy moment would be severely understating things; I'm nauseous with glee. I'm really proud of the script and really excited to see how the film came out, and reallllllly excited I'll be watching it with a million or so others. I've already booked the bar for the viewing party. For real.


Stay tuned for details!!!

The Asylum's SHARK WEEK Details Revealed

It's been a while we've been waiting, but The Asylum has finally revealed some details about Shark Week, and I, for one, am super stoked for the news, seeing as I wrote it. 

The film, which will be out on August 7th, is to be directed by the one and only Christopher Olen Ray, who with this film gets his shark hat trick, following Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and 2 Headed Shark Attack. Dig the plot:

"A group of complete strangers find themselves isolated by a wealthy madman on his island compound. They are forced into a horrifying gauntlet where they must survive a barrage of ever deadlier species of shark."


Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. 

The cast for this one is pretty, pretty, pretty awesome, and includes Patrick Bergin (Sleeping With The Enemy, Patriot Games) as the madman in question, Yancy Butler (Witchblade, Lake Placid 3 & 4) as his femme fatale and Erin Coker (11/11/11, Air Collision) & Josh Allen (Nazis at the Center of the Earth) as two of the terrorized strangers.


Words can't describe how proud I am of this script - think of it as The Hunger Games meets Deep Blue Sea - and I for one can't wait to see how it turns out. More cast and crew details as they become available...