creature feature: Virginity

In all Asylum movies, there is an enemy to be defeated. Sometimes that enemy is a monstrous creature running amok in a populous area; sometimes it's a crazed genius at the helm of a fiendish plot for world domination/destruction; sometimes it's a psycho or a supernatural being with a penchant for nubile women; sometimes it's an extraterrestrial lifeform or object whose arrival spells doom; and sometimes, in the cases of films like The 18 Year Old Virgin and Barely Legal, it is that most heinous of curses, the most affronting of affronts - your virginity.

In both these films - both written, by the way, by Naomi Selfman - and many other teenage sex comedies, virginity is a thing that must be slain, a thing to purge oneself of in order to insure normal, healthy personal development, and of course, lots of sex. In most creature features, this is the part where I would describe the creature in question, it's schematics and parameters, abilities and weaknesses; that's a little hard to do with virginity - it's just a thing about you that's there until it isn't, and getting rid of it, "killing" it, if you will, is relatively easy, depending on how you rate a variety of factors including appearance, willingness, standards and proximity to partners with comparable ratings. Yet it remains a hard and fast (pardon the pun) tenet of young adulthood: getting laid ain't easy. Even if, if 18 Year Old Virgin and Barely Legal are to be believed, you're a smoking hot chick.

In both films, women decide their still-intact virginities need to be done away with at the very first legal opportunity, their 18th birthdays. All sorts of sexy hi-jinks ensue in their quest to obtain a dong for the deed, and in the end, it's realized that sex and love, while of course highly compatible, can come separately with varying degrees of physical and emotional satisfaction. But they still hit it, so, problem solved.


Losing one's virginity, to some people, could be considered the most significant rite of passage there is; it certainly cannot be argued by anyone, no matter their beliefs, that it is one of the more intensely personal experiences a person can go through, and thus it is to be expected that pursuing this experience can sometimes reach fervent heights. That's why we have these movies, not to mention American Pie, The Last American Virgin, Losin' It, Porky's, Superbad, The Virginity Hit, Can't Hardly Wait, Twilight and, of course, The 40 Year Old Virgin. The conclusion? Virginity is to comedies as Nazis are to war movies: the ultimate villain.

Ooh, pitch idea: Virgins at the Center of the Earth, a sort of Vernesian Blue Lagoon/Land of the Lost thing about college kids on a church trip - the whole purity-ring crowd - whose bus falls into a crevice opened by a localized earthquake. Instead of dying in a fiery blaze as logic would dictate, they fall into an inner-earth paradise from which they can't escape. As the months wear on, the promises of the surface world fall away as passions flare. But you know, funny.

creature feature: The Witch-Ghosts Who Haunt Salem

Nicholas Harsin and Shoshanna Chagall

A lot of the time, I'm winging these Creature Features; most of it is just speculation and hyperbole. But this time, for this feature, I know exactly what I'm talking about, because I came up with the creatures in question. That's right, I'm talking about the ghoulish and grotesque witch-ghosts haunting the Corwin House and the Downs family in The Asylum's most-recent horror flick, A Haunting in Salem, directed by Shane Van Dyke from a script I penned.

See, for me it's all about the double threat: you take witches - already bad enough - but then you kill 'em, give 'em a few hundred years to get nice and vengeful, and what you end up with are ghost-witches, which are, like, 100 times worse. They can do ghost stuff like walking through walls, disappearing, making scary-ass whispers, and they can also do witchy demon stuff like rot your teeth or make you puke or steal your bat or possess your family, turn your bathwater to blood, all sorts of extra shit.

Point of truth: the poor unfortunates killed in the Salem Witch Trials weren't actually witches. Okay, that's fair, but think about this: maybe they weren't witches when they were alive, but maybe after they died, real witches took pity on them and came up with a spell or a broth or something like that to turn their ghosts into witches. Or Satan, what about Satan? He can do that stuff. Either way, witch-ghosts or ghost-witches, it's all the same in the end.

Regardless of how they came to be, there's no question as to what they want: to enact revenge on all the subsequent sheriffs of Salem for the torture and murders they suffered at the hands of Corwin. And they want you to feel what they felt, quite literally: harassment, condemnation, boiling water and blades as torture implements, and eventually foul death, by hanging if the situation allows, but they got no qualms about throwing your ass out an upper-story window or shivving you with a piece of glass or some garden shears, if they're handy. They're witch-ghosts (or ghost-witches), they truly don't give a fuck: revenge is revenge.

So then what are one's possible recourses against a platoon of undead bitches (not a typo)? Maybe I didn't make myself as clear as I could have on this issue in the film, because a few bloggers and reviewers seemed confused by certain actions. In the Salem Witch Trials, each of the unfortunates sentenced to death were executed by hanging. This is not a traditional witch-killing method. You got yourself a witch problem*, the only thing you can do is burn 'em out. That's what Corwin got wrong (if they had been witches, hanging woulda just pissed them off) and that's what the Sheriff in the film's opening sequence was intending to do, knowing, as Wayne did when he got the gas can, that things in the house had escalated past a point of return. Both men were taking a more traditional route to the situation, and both were willing to sacrifice themselves as, with their families gone, they had no further reason to live. The witches were the house, so the house had to go to get rid of them; sometimes you gotta cut off the hand to save the arm.

And there you have it, whether you wanted it or not, an insider's look at the creatures central to A Haunting in Salem, those doing the titular haunting. I think, armed with this knowledge as you now are, you should go right now and watch the film again, see if our discussion adds any layers to your enjoyment. Tell a friend, while you're at it, or all of them.



*I am, of course, talking ONLY about fictional witches, not any person or persons who might actually practice witchcraft, and certainly not the Wiccan religion as a whole. Don't be silly. My witches are creatures, not people; I don't advocate killing sharks, either, if that had to be said. 

inmate profile: Naomi Selfman

Continuing my pledge to spotlight the creative forces behind next week's release of the promisingly-raunchy Barely Legal, here's another inmate profile, though shrouded in a tad bit of mystery. Naomi Selfman, the scribe behind this impending laugh-riot, has written half a dozen films for The Asylum, yet there's virtually no information about her online. This picture is the best I could find, and I only found that when out of frustration I Googled "mystery woman." Could be that "Naomi Selfman" is a pen name for another writer, or it could be that Ms. Selfman is just a digitally private person? Either way, the only purported sighting of her is said to come in the making-of featurette for her first script for The Asylum, the horror film Evil Eyes, but I didn't have immediate access to that when I wrote this.

Whoever she is, Ms. Selfman has time and again illustrated her ability to work across genres - be it horror, comedy, sci-fi or creature features - and turn in compelling, convincing, empathetic and exciting stories every time out. 

After Evil Eyes, Ms. Selfman took a four-year hiatus from screenwriting before contributing the story for the Faith Films epic 2012: Doomsday. Since then, it's been full-steam ahead for Ms. Selfman, writing five scripts in two years: the other raucous sex comedies 18 Year-Old Virgin and #1 Cheerleader Camp, the two biggest creature features of the last year, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, and of course, Barely Legal.



I've got a lot of favorites when it comes to The Asylum - that should be annoying obvious by now - and the work of Ms. Selfman is among them. As a writer (A Haunting in Salem, out 10/4/11), I'm envious of her versatility; as an Asylum freak, I'm excited every time her name pops up.

Get excited with me next Tuesday, when Barely Legal pops up on DVD.

Creature Feature Catch-Up

I know not all of my readers have been with me since the beginning, and I also know I'm a lousy tagger. The combination of these things means that there are a lost of posts that perhaps you haven't seen. That being the case, every now and again I like to post a megapost, if you will, that can catch you up with all the posts under a certain heading. This week's heading: creature features; below, please find a complete listing of every published feature to date. Enjoy!

Mega Shark * Supercroc * The Ghost of John Wayne Gacy * Pod People Plants

Mega Piranha * Giant Octopus * The Plane from Airline Disaster

Crocosaurus vs. Gatoroid * God * The Pony from Princess and the Pony

creature feature: The Pony from Princess and the Pony

Not so much a "creature" in The Asylum's sense, as it is an "animal," the pony featured in our favorite studio's first full-out family flick is still one of god's "creatures," so thus he/she has earned a spot here.

And I'll be honest with you, there's not a lot of info on this particular horse out there, other than his/her name - her, I'm hoping - which is Twinkle. Nice name for a horse. 

That's really all there is on Twinkle. And believe me, I looked. But the sheer madness that comes from poring through Google returns on the phrases "princess and pony horse," "twinkle princess and pony," and perhaps most disturbingly, "twinkle pony asylum," is enough to make you puke cotton candy.

However, being the resourceful blogger I am, I guessed at the type of horse Little Miss Twinkle is, and found info on that. Ha!

So then, if my image-comparison skills are adequate, Twinkle is some sort of Arabian Horse, which Wikipedia is quick to note are distinguishable by their distinctive head shape and "high tail carriage." Awesome. Furthermore, Arabians are like the Adam & Eve of horses, one of the oldest breeds still in existence, dating back some 4,500 years (holy cow!) and an element in the bloodlines of every major racing breed in the world (insert your own horse/Da Vinci Code joke here; i couldn't think of one).

And here's an interesting tidbit: seems the height distinction between a pony and a horse (not an age distinction, as I naively assumed) as laid out by the United States Equestrian Foundation states that a "pony" is any equine that stands 58 inches (or 14.2 "hands" in the lingo) or less; a "horse" is any equine that stands above 58 inches (still 14.2 "hands"). Arabians, like Twinkle I think, range between 57 and 61 inches, meaning that while technically she'll classified as a horse, Twinkle could stay a real pony for all her life.

Little girls, rejoice!

(Worth mentioning that "all her life" is, on average, 25-30 years. Seemed a macabre statistic to throw in at the end of that last paragraph.)

And so there you have it, an in-depth look at, if not Twinkle specifically, then the type of breed Twinkle may been, in this Creature Feature that's really just about an animal. 

Some days around here you gotta stretch a little farther.

Creature Feature: The Plane from Airline Disaster

I felt a little weird adding The Plane from Airline Disaster to last year's list of non-human Looney nominees; but truth be told, I thought it was as much as character as any creature that reared its ugly head in an Asylum film last year, so I went for it. Heck, that's why the category was called "best performance by a non-human" instead of "best performance by a creature." What surprised me even more, however, was how many votes it received from you guys. The Plane came in a secure third in its category, when truthfully I barely expected it to register. But my initial assessment was correct: the plane in Airline Disaster is as central to the film and as much a physical presence as is Moby Dick in Moby Dick, or either Mega Shark or Crocosaurus in, well, you get the point. So I thought, given it's prominent position in my readers' fancy, I'd give the plane its full due and devote this creature feature to it.

There's nothing super or mega about this plane, spatially-speaking; it's a big ole plane, sure, but it's not the biggest ever or the heaviest or anything like that - it isn't the Titanic of the skies. There are multiple levels, kinda perfect for a band of terrorist hijackers looking to move about relatively undetected, and it does have four massive engines capable of sucking up cows and grinding them alive. Furthermore, its aerodynamic design is supposed to significantly cut down on fuel consumption. But again, these traits aren't all that distinguishing. What sets this plane - the first in Coastal Airlines' much-touted Starquest program - apart from all others, what makes it a target, in essence, is that it boasts to be run solely by computerized controls: "fully automatic from takeoff to landing." Pilots, so it's implied, are afterthoughts here, visual comfort for the passengers but not nearly as in control of the flight as we're accustomed to. In short, and perhaps oversimplifying, it's a robot plane. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

 Advantage: that human error factor which equates for roughly 70-80% of all airline disasters is avoided.

Disadvantage: you know, no one's in charge of the fucking plane.





That's not to say there's no way for a human pilot to regain control of the plane - of course there is, "innovative" isn't always synonymous with "suicidal" - but she's a bitch to control, a big, beautiful whale of a plane that takes more than power to steer, it takes an steel will stronger than that massive tube hurtling over our nation's capital toward the icy, unforgiving waters of the Potomac*.

Overall then, the plane in Airline Disaster becomes, in fact, more of a presence than other notable non-humans; after all, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus might be about those non-humans, but it also doesn't simultaneously take place inside them. The plane is villain, victim, setting, and, ultimately, hero. That's a lot of personas for something without an intellect (circuit boards aside).


So while the plane may never find itself in a "vs" film, or even get a sequel, it was one of the hardest-working, if not the hardest-working, non-human in The Asylum's employ last year, I'm convinced. Sorry for ever doubting you, big guy.




*just ask the British

creature feautre: Giant Octopus

It's sad, really: all the attention given to Mega Shark over the last couple of years has left another massive, formidable sea creature in the shadow of its ginormous dorsal fin - the Giant Octopus. Quickly becoming the Brian Dunkelman of one of the decade's most thrilling creature franchises, I thought it was time, especially amidst the recently reinvigorated swirl of interest around the Mega Shark, that we take a moment to remember and pay homage to a fallen warrior, a non-human who was just as instrumental in making the Mega Shark franchise a success, the George Frazier to MS's Muhammad Ali, the Garfunkel to it's Paul Simon, the one, the only, the dearly departed Giant Octopus.

On paper, this shouldn't even have been a struggle: the giant octopus (in general) has been a scourge of the seas for hundreds of thousands of years, the root creature for nearly every sea serpent story ever told, and the only creature in the briny depths courageous and capable enough of taking on fierce predators like sharks and mammoth prey like whales. I mean, shit, this one took down an oil derrick like it was crumpling up a Styrofoam cup. With a tentacle reach that can in some cases exceed 100 feet - that's per tentacle, mind you, so we're talking about 800+ feet of lashing, barbed, powerful flesh whipping around at all moments, and that's just on real giant octopi, not a CGI one from some prehistoric era I can't free-spell - and the power to crush nearly anything they get wrapped around, Mega Shark shouldn't have stood a chance against the Giant Octopus, no matter how mega he was. In fact, for the majority of the film - in my opinion at least - it seemed a foregone conclusion that Giant Octopus was gonna take this one home. Don't forget about the beak this thing has, either, razor sharp and curved for extracting a massive chunk out whatever it sinks itself into; once the Giant O had that angry fish in it's grasp, it should've been all over. The key word here being "should've," because the only thing that can thwart biology, is instinct.

See, the giant octopus (again, in general) is a predator that relies more upon its stealth, its secrecy, its natural acumen to capture and slay its prey, while the shark, in general and specific to the Mega Shark, is a rogue, a madman, a violent, thrashing, exploratory-biting, killing machine; it's aggressive, angry, brutal and merciless. Add this to its own degrees of stealth and acumen, and in this case the shark was simply the stronger predator, while the octopus, though giant, was just not giant enough.

In an ordinary, megalodon-less ocean, there's no question Giant Octopus would've been the apex predator with no conceivable rival aside from man, but unfortunate for Giant Octopus, he wasn't freed from that frozen stasis alone. And more unfortunate, perhaps, you can do a lot more spectacular stuff with a shark than you can an octopus. Really, it's a one-trick creature - all tentacle - while the shark has teeth and tail and the ability to launch itself 1500m above the surface of the sea to snag a passenger jet. I mean, the oil derrick thing was pretty cool, I get the statement, but you really can't compete with that plane trick by just hanging out in the water.

So maybe the decks were stacked against you, Giant Octopus, maybe you were the sure thing brought in to raise the odds on the underdog, a breed all its own. Either way, you fought valiantly, a true predator to the very end, and while we might not show you the recognition you deserve, and while your legacy will be forever linked with your destruction, rest easy, my tentacled, beaky friend, because you are not forgotten.

Giant Octopus

?? B.C. - May 26, 2009

Observation Notes Catch-Up: Creature Features

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 Creature Features produced by The Asylum that I've reviewed thus far, along with links to the original posts. Enjoy!

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
written and directed by Ace Hannah

Monster 
written and directed by Erik Estenberg

 Supercroc  
story by David Michael Latt
screenplay by Steve Bevilacqua
directed by Scott Harper

The Beast of Bray Road
written and directed by Leigh Scott



  

King of the Lost World
written by David Michael Latt & Carlos de los Rios
directed by Leigh Scott

Mega Piranha
written and directed by Eric Forsberg

inmate profile: Naomi Selfman

Continuing my pledge to spotlight the creative forces behind next week's release of Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, here's another inmate profile, though shrouded in a tad bit of mystery. Naomi Selfman, the scribe behind this impending classic, has written half a dozen films for The Asylum, yet there's virtually no information about her online. This picture is the best I could find, and I only found that when out of frustration I Googled "mystery woman." Could be that "Naomi Selfman" is a pen name for another writer, or it could be that Ms. Selfman is just a digitally private person? Either way, the only purported sighting of her is said to come in the making-of featurette for her first script for The Asylum, the horror film Evil Eyes, but I didn't have immediate access to that when I wrote this.

Whoever she is, Ms. Selfman has time and again illustrated her ability to work across genres - be it horror, comedy, sci-fi or creature features - and turn in compelling, convincing, empathetic and exciting stories every time out. After Evil Eyes, Ms. Selfman took a four-year hiatus from screenwriting before contributing the story for the Faith Films epic 2012: Doomsday. Since then, it's been full-steam ahead for Ms. Selfman, writing four scripts in half as many years: the raucous sex comedies 18 Year-Old Virgin and #1 Cheerleader Camp, and, most noteworthy and the reason we're here, now, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. As though this last job wasn't esteemed enough, Ms. Selfman also wrote the screenplay for the equally-anticipated Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.

So what does this mystery woman mean to MSvC? Well, if nothing else, it means at least this time out the jokes will hit. There were a lot of comic lobs set up in the first one, but, let's face it, very few of them scored. Whatever she's done with the script, the fact that she was shortly thereafter picked to pen The Asylum's other marquee attraction of the next year (MPvG), means the partners have great faith in her ability to deliver an action-packed, thrilling, amusing and entertaining creature feature. And their faith's good enough for mine. 

Check out Ms. Selfman's script bring the goods ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!! That's right only seven more days stand between the world and Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. Come back here for my review this Friday, then come back again next Wednesday, the day after MSvC's release, for THE BIGGEST, MOST EXCITING POST IN COMMITTED's HISTORY!!! For real.

inmate profile: Christopher Ray

So yesterday the Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus trailer at long last hit the web, therefore I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at the man in the director's chair for this impending classic, one Christopher Ray (who is kinda tough to find a picture of online. that's supposedly him on the left).

I've made mention here before of Mr. Ray's cinematic background - his father is noted exploitation director Fred Olen Ray, who in more than thirty years of filmmaking has unleashed near one hundred titles, among them Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Evil Toons and Scalps. So you just knew it was only a matter of time before Ray the Younger stepped behind the camera, and fortunate for us, this progeny chose The Asylum for his feature debut!

Ray has directed twice before, but never for a feature release: in 2008 he directed Reptisaurus, a made-for-TV movie starring Gil Gerard, and a series called "Road to Rhythm." So it seems he has a little experience with creature features, and a little with TV, which makes him, in my book, the perfect mediator between Mega Shark, Crocosaurus, and Jaleel White.

Ray honed his Hollywood skills as an assistant director, PA and coordinator on more than a dozen of his father's films back in the 1990's, so you know he received a lot of on-set training from a master of his field. In fact, C-Ray's still working as a first assistant director, forever learning, on an upcoming C. Tom Howell film I've made mention of before, Camel Spiders.

So though this might be his feature directorial debut, Christopher Ray is no stranger to the game, no mere novice plunging feet-first into sacred, chummed waters -- he seems weathered, learned, and more than capable of delivering to us, the ever-expectant masses, simply one of the greatest monster shark films of all time (please please please).

No doubt Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus marks the beginning of a prosperous and proliferate directing career, so get on the bandwagon while there's still room. The film debuts on DVD December 21, 2010, only 19 short days from now.

creature feature: POD PEOPLE PLANTS

Not since Little Shop of Horrors has one, innocuous plant wrought so much evil. 

I am speaking, of course, of the seemingly harmless potted plant from The Asylum's Invasion of the Pod People, a tie-in to the most recent Body Snatchers remake, Invasion starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. 

So the gist is this: alien life has come to Earth with the intent of taking over Earthling bodies, thus controlling the planet. Well how the heck are they going to do that?, you might be asking yourself (or maybe not, either way...). Via plants, of course, the most harmless and therefore unsuspected of our planet's biological inhabitants. All the aliens gotta do then is transform themselves into some regular old plant, like, say, a ginger root, then the Earthlings, with their love of feng shui, will place said plant somewhere in close proximity to themselves, like perhaps their desk at work, or a bedside table. Who doesn't like plants, after all? Who wouldn't want to punch up their living or working space with a little natural decor? Fortunately for the alien race in question here, not a single Earthling they can find.

 Once the plant is close enough to the Earthling it wants to take over, for example, a nubile young girl, then it works its alien magic to produce some kind of spore or other such smelly hoodoo that worms its way into our biology and slowly assumes control, walking around as us unbeknown to us, making us act all the fool, sinister-like, and what's worse, sometimes making us engage in lesbian threesomes with co-workers we don't even remember the next morning; it's kinda like "Red Shoe Diaries" meets Lost Highway, a sexy, malevolent fugue state. And of course, don't forget all this is merely a precursor to a complete and total takeover of the human race and this mudball we call home. 

There are loads of alien-invasion stories in cinema; this particular one has been made five times to date. When pondering how they might make their version unique, The Asylum decided to sex it up, a good move, and then involve a common houseplant, a questionable but thoroughly entertaining move.

Bottom line: don't trust gingerbread men, you don't know who that could be.

Check Out This Interview With Sarah Lieving (not mine)

Examiner.com has this great, exclusive interview with Asylum scream-queen and upcoming star of Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus Sarah Lieving. In it she talks about MSvC, Supershark, Dunwich Horror and a couple of other upcoming roles. 2011 is poised to be an awesome year for COMMITTED's favorite actress, so do her - and yourself - a favor and pop over to the interview.

Creature Feature: The Ghost of John Wayne Gacy

As if being a psycho-clown wasn't scary enough, The Asylum had to go and up the ante by making John Wayne Gacy - a contender for America's most fucked- up serial killer, a tough contest - a dead psycho-clown continuing his killspree from beyond the grave. (I particularly like that the evil spirit that inhabited the body of one JWG and now comes and goes as it pleases from the netherrealm does so still decked out in its creepy-ass clown makeup.)

But truth be told, despite the barrage of usual ghostly powers - invisibility, super strength, general imperviousness, et cetera - the ghost of John Wayne Gacy has a long way to go before it catches up with the man John Wayne Gacy. Gacy the ghost killed a measly six people over the course of 8213 Gacy House. Shit, in real life Gacy the man killed more than that in 1976 - that we know about. All told, Gacy-man racked up a confirmed kill-count of 33 dudes in the 1970's, but that's just a minimum. Who knows how many more were sent downriver or otherwise disposed of? Bottom line, there will need to be a few more Gacy-ghost movies before those figures get equivalent, meaning for now, Gacy the ghost is only 1/5th as frightening as Gacy the man, so it's a good thing that sick son of a bitch is dead.

Still, suggestions for Gacy-ghost sequels: 

• a home-makeover show tries to turn the land Gacy House was on into a shelter for abused children, who fight back against the biggest abuser of all, kind of like a pint-sized version of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.
• an eccentric and macabre millionaire builds a mansion with the original materials from the Gacy House then invites half a dozen complete strangers to the mansion in order to participate in some fiendishly lavish and fake treasure hunt that in reality is just a ploy to enact revenge upon the strangers, each a cog in some long-past plot that somehow ruined the life of said millionaire. Then Gacy-ghost kills them all.
• just after being executed, Gacy-ghost finds himself as the guardian spirit of a trio of young, sassy siblings whose parents are both dead. All these rascals need is a little guidance,a lot of love, and a dash of divine intervention and they'll avoid the pratfalls of a parentless adolescence. Instead, though, Gacy-ghost spares them that by just killing them.  

Just some food for thought, something to get those numbers up, cuz right now it's the dude who played "Francis" in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure that racks up the biggest clown-faced body count, and nobody wants that.

Nope, THIS is the Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus Poster!

And it exceeds my wildest dreams. Look at that ferocity, that chaos, that carnage. The only thing I have issue with is the tagline, because from the looks of this, whatever the end result, everybody wins. 

This future classic drops December 21st of this year. Anyone who's keeping score, I'll take a mega-sized poster of this in my stocking.

Creature Feature: SUPERCROC

Along with sharks, crocodiles are among the oldest predators on the planet, the product of millennia upon millennia of evolution. With their surprising quickness both in the water and on land, their razor-sharp claws, jagged, piercing teeth, strong, powerful tails and near-impenetrable hides, crocodiles are also among the most formidable predators on the planet. But as tough as they are now, you should have seen the primordial version from a couple million years back; those guys were real assholes. Oh, wait, you can see one - in Supercroc.

Freed from stasis in a Pacific trench following an undersea earthquake, Supercroc, by The Asylum's own measurements, runs 50 feet long and stands 25 feet high, the rough equivalent of one double-decker bus towing another. Think about that for a second, try to conceptualize: one double-decker bus towing another. That would have to make the teeth on this fucker, like, the size of your average ten-year-old. Half a second's chew in those and you're ground chuck, no doubt. Next to this guy, you're going to look, well, as fucked as the dude below:

 

In terms of weight, a thing this huge - based on what I could find from prehistoric estimates and extrapolations from modern giant crocodiles - Supercroc is going to be tipping the scales at between 8 and 9 tons, or 16-18,000 pounds, the average weight of your major metropolitan area garbage truck. Might not seem like a lot, but when it's bearing down on you and snarling, I bet it feels like a lot. 

Okay, you might be thinking, so it's long, and really fucking big, really fucking heavy, but it's still an animal, just shoot the son of a bitch and be done with. Uh-uh. That hide I mentioned earlier, you do know what "impenetrable" means, right? No bullets, no mortar rounds, no everyday explosives are going to do the job against skin so think and coarse it might as well be a tank shell. Perhaps it's best understood as such: the ease with which the Supercroc could pierce your flesh? Comparatively that's how hard it would be for you to pierce his. Which is the inevitable conundrum every enemy of the Supercroc eventually has to come to terms with, best-phrased in this instance by actress Kim Little:

"For all of our advanced technology, we have not created anything that comes close to the aggression, resiliency, and overall fighting power of the ancient crocodile."

Damn right we haven't. Fucker can take a helicopter out of the air without breaking a sweat.

This is the best shot of this I could get. The point, I think, is made.

In the months and year to come, Supercroc's reign at the top of the heap, for crocodiles at least, will be called into contention via not one, but possibly two challengers: Crocosaurus, the underdog in the upcoming Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (avail 12/21/2010!!!) - some kind of dinocroc thing that isn't Dinocroc, I pray - and - depending on what the hell it is - possibly also Gatoroid from the upcoming Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. I say "possibly" because it seems Gatoroid is obviously an alligator, not a crocodile, but also maybe some sort of machine, given the "-oid" suffix. So perhaps it gets disqualified. The one thing that is certain at the moment, however, is that there isn't a badder reptile in The Asylum's menagerie, no matter how many motherfucking snakes were on that motherfucking train.

Much respect.