Sounds Like an Asylum Film to Me

This little tidbit is actually a couple of months old, and I was going to let it fall by the wayside, but upon reading it again it just seems so, well, Asylum-esque that I can't pass it up. The long and the short of it (the short and the long of it here) is that an international coalition of scientists from Japan, Russia and the United States are convinced they will be able to genetically reproduce - a.k.a. clone - a baby mammoth using DNA the Russians somehow have on ice (uh-huh...) to fertilize and African Elephant embryo. 

Man oh man; the possibilities for catastrophe here are almost endless.


First off - it's a fucking mammoth. Granted, size and weight-wise, it's pretty comparable to an modern-day African Elephant - nothing to spit at - but the tusks alone move it to the top of the land-based apex predators list: longer than an elephants, nearly six-and-a-half feet, and almost pincer-like in the way they can rip through prey.

Second off - think about when it was last on the planet. During the Pleistocene Epoch, such formidable predators as saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, wooly rhinoceroses, glyptodons and cave bears roamed the terrain. It was a far more primal planet then than now, when a mammoth's biggest threat would undoubtedly be us. This thing would decimate anything it came across. No lab could contain it, no zoo could tame it. This is an old-school predator, the likes of which our fiercest species have never seen. It would rule the animal kingdom. Especially if, say, there were more than one of them.

Because - in my admittedly over-simplistic understanding of science - cloning's just like making Xeroxes, and sometimes those machines stick, and it just keeps copying and copying and copying...next thing you know, we've got a herd of prehistoric furry elephants with 6'5'' razor sharp tusks running amok in downtown Los Angeles. Just imagine the cinematic possibilities*; it'd be like 10,000 B.C. (or 100 Million B.C.) meets Battle: Los Angeles (or Battle of Los Angeles). Either way William Katt's my vote for the role of big game hunter brought in to help thin the population. Or Gary Stretch. Or, shit, even Lorenzo. Throw in Jaleel White as the paleontologist at his side, and the lovely lady mentioned in the asterisk as, well, who cares, and you've got yourself a movie.


Just sayin'.


*yes, I am fully aware of the SyFy original movie Mammoth with Tom Skerritt and the exquisite Summer Glau, but that was only one mammoth, already intact, resurrected by aliens and terrorizing a small town in middle America. Not at all the massive-mammoth-herd-devastating-a-major-metropolitan-area epic I'm imagining. And no aliens. Our scientists are perfectly capable of destroying the planet ourselves, than you very much.

observation notes: Alien v. Hunter

Along with Transmorphers, Terminators and The Day The Earth Stopped, this particular Asylum film is one of the more obvious tie-ins (if you don't know the film this ties into, honestly, why are you here?).

The film opens in familiar fashion, with an unknown object streaking through the sky over an out-of-the-way California town, attracting the attention of the locals, including a reluctant journalist (William Katt)(he isn't reluctant about being a journalist, he's reluctant to chase down a story he believes will turn out to be nothing. but he's wrong.) When the object crashes, it is discovered to be a spacecraft, whose pilot is an unharmed, man-eating alien, itself a tie-in of sorts, as it looks like a Predator's torso with an Alien head, all served up on a spider's legs.

A couple of quick kills on the alien's end of things and people are pretty much up to speed. Katt joins with the daughter (Wittly Jourdan) of a woman gone missing in the mini-invasion, and the two of them bolt right for the staff of the local newspaper, including the lovely and talented DeeDee Pfeiffer. On their way to the office, however, Katt and Jourdan had chanced to see the pred-alien spider-thing attack the sheriff's car, and so convince the newspaper staff - some seven or eight people - to leave the relative safety of their office for the absolutely unsafe outdoors. Interesting choice, this. Because it's not just the aliens they need to worry about; just when the carnage is about to begin at the...what? Claws? Tentacles? Hooks? of the pred-alien, the titular Hunter makes his first appearance (his appearance being a combination of Golden Age Iron Man, the Tin Man, and Gort from the original The Day The Earth Stood Still.) At his arrival, the greater story of the film becomes known: the aliens are, in fact, the prey of this hunter, and Earth plays no role whatsoever in this skirmish aside from coincidental settling, making all its inhabitants, especially our heroes, mere fodder for the crossfire. And once our protagonists are aware of the greater plot, it does nothing to lessen the danger or assuage their fears - quite the opposite, in fact, in both regards. Panic is a greater enemy than any other force.

So stuck now in the open, DeeDee suggests they go see this capable fella lives across the way - the open way. They need another route, a secret, safer route. Naturally, they go with the requisite underground sewer/waterway pipes/tunnels. Also naturally, they are not the first species to have discovered said pipes/tunnels. Those of our party that manage to survive make it to the capable fella's place, who just happens to be DeeDee's ex (Randy Mulkey) and daughter (Jennifer Couch); he's a crackshot bear hunter, and she remembers her lines well. The usual attempts to communicate with the outside world are made, but the ship or the aliens or something related to either or both is fucking with all reception, leaving our heroes truly and utterly on their own. 


From here it's just a question of which of our heroes are going to get picked off by the alien before said heroes can find a way to kill said alien, and how exactly they're supposed to accomplish this latter task. The film at this point becomes a tad reminiscent of others like Surviving the Game and Night of the Living Dead, but these aren't bad things.


Overall, I found Alien vs. Hunter to be a tense action-thriller, rural sci-fi, meaning light on the techno-speak and scientific explanations and heavy on the shotguns and non-army-issue camouflage. The result of this is that it makes any tragedies or victories our heroes incur that much more empathetic, because these aren't soldiers or government scientists or other sorts whose lives come with acceptable risks; these are people, regular people, like you and me, caught up in a crisis they could never be expected to negotiate, but somehow manage. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but one of the (minor, nitpicky) problems I have with Asylum flciks is the abundance of technical speak. Some amount of explanation and scientific backstory is necessary, even interesting, but occasionally the narrative emphasis of these films can get a little wrapped up in the "how" and "why," thus leaving less emphasis for the "who." I like the "who." Especially when the who is everyman. This film standouts among certain others in the Asylum catalog for its focus on people and not the source of the problem. In this regard, I enjoyed this film quite a bit.


William Katt is looking...okay. A little ridden-wet, but his chops are still intact, or at least as intact as they ever were. But honestly, in the triumvirate of curly blond dudes with a penchant for movies that air first on SyFy, Katt comes in a secure third, in my book, behind John Schneider and Christopher Atkins.


As for leading lady Ms. Pfeiffer, she isn't fucking around in this one. Her usual playful demeanor is replaced with one all-business, stern and concerned, strong, refusing to break or even show a bend. In truth, she becomes the practical center of the film, the coolest head, but still retaining a touch of sass, albeit in an authoritative, condescending way. Another good show for the better Pfeiffer as far as I'm concerned.


Asylum regular Wittly Jourdan - who's been mentioned here before for her work in Allan Quatermain... - proves herself an emotional tornado, oscillating between terrified, enraged, hopeful and despondent; all-in-all a good bit of acting. Other notables include John Murphy Jr. (30,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Universal Soldiers) as "Figgus" the stoner, and the aforementioned Mr. Mulkey (Universal Soldiers, upcoming, non-Asylum flick Super Shark), who with a mustache looks a lot like Danny Trejo.


The FX are all right, I know I was ribbing on the Hunter above, but the aliens are icky and kinda scary, no matter how boldly they wear their influences, and the score, though weird, was also weirdly appropriate. The leads get a little lost in the sea of strong supporting actors, but that makes for a more level playing field, dead-pool-wise, and a more unilateral investment on our end. 

Bottom line, this film isn't too far from it's source, Alien vs. Predator, so if you liked that one, there should be plenty you can find to like about this one. Plus, you know, Deedee!

inmate profile: DeeDee Pfeiffer

I am fully aware there are other women who have worked for The Asylum more often than DeeDee Pfeiffer, which I am also aware makes her somewhat of an odd choice for the first female inmate profile. But look at her: sassy, sexy, innocent and sultry; how can I resist?

So much more than Michelle's little sister, DeeDee has been working consistently in film for nearly 30 years, from comedies like Moving Violations and The Allnighter to more serious fare, venturing lately into the sci-fi/adventure/horror realm via films like Blue Demon and her work for The Asylum.

As mentioned, DeeDee has starred in two films for The Asylum thus far, as Greg Evigan's ex and a tectonic driller in Journey to the Center of the Earth and opposite great American hero William Katt in Alien v. Hunter. She brings frazzled beauty and sarcasm-next-door to each role, proving herself a unique and viable leading lady - sexy whether glamorous or not, strong, independent, fiesty and endearingly vulnerable. For my money, I'd watch DeeDee before Michelle seven days a week, and I always would have. Here's hoping she visits The Asylum again soon.